Research by the Lib Dems conducted over the summer has convinced officials to rip up the party’s existing plans and adopt a more ambitious targeting strategy after concluding that it was on course to win more than 70 seats – a result that would represent its best ever return. [...]
An internal memo from June, written by the party’s campaigns director Shaun Roberts, said 76 seats were considered winnable, and a further five percentage point swing brought more than 200 seats into play. However, the party has slipped among some pollsters since the memo was written.
“Of the first 100 seats we can target, most of these seats will come from the Conservatives,” it stated. It called for an immediate “expansion of our target seat list” and emergency selection procedures to ensure candidates were in place by the autumn. It told party staff to “revise [the] general election campaign plan” and ordered new research to be conducted earlier than planned at the start of September. [...]
Peter Kellner, past president of YouGov and a People’s Vote supporter, said: “This polling shows that, in the battleground seats, Boris Johnson’s hard line on Brexit is far from a deal sealer in any early election. Even before a campaign has begun the Lib Dems could expect to benefit from enhanced coverage, and their tactical voting message will almost certainly gain traction. Jo Swinson’s party is well placed to make significant gains at the Tories’ expense.”
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