Claire Sully & the Lib Dems can win here, we can turn Bridgwater & Burnham orange!
We have a genuine chance of making history at this general election, and claiming the new seat of Bridgwater for the Liberal Democrats. Here are a few reasons why we have such optimism, and every offer of help will get us one step closer to achieving this.
The Liberal Democrats are the main challengers to the Conservatives in Bridgwater, and we are closing the gap fast.
The new boundary changes for Bridgwater, replacing the old Bridgwater and West Somerset seat, have resulted in notable and tangible demographic changes. The constituency now possesses the strong Liberal Democrat areas of Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge, while relinquishing villages to the west of Bridgwater which were traditional Conservative strongholds.
If the results of the most recent 2022 Somerset Council elections are considered for votes cast within the new Bridgwater constituency, we find the following distribution of votes;
Conservatives 19,541
Liberal Democrat 15,006
Labour 7,052
Green 791
In addition, the influential Tactical.vote website has recommended tactical voters support the Liberal Democrats in Bridgwater at the 2024 General Election. They have updated their calculation to consider the new constituent boundaries, and have determined a notional 2019 election result that places the Liberal Democrats in second position behind the Conservatives, with Labour in third. See: https://tactical.vote/bridgwater/
The most accurate seat-by-seat poll in predicting the 2017 General Election was YouGov’s MRP poll. This poll when last released in March 2024 has just four percentage points separating the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour. In the three months from January to March, it predicted the Liberal Democrat vote to have risen by three percentage points, the Conservative vote to have decreased by five percentage points and Labour vote to have fallen by two percentage points. If the same trends occur in the next six weeks, the Liberal Democrats will win the 2024 General Election in Bridgwater.
The voting data for the new Bridgwater seat from the 2022 local elections is reflective of a wider trend across Somerset. The Liberal Democrats claimed a majority on Somerset Council at the 2022 local elections (61 of 110 seats) and have resoundingly defeated the Conservatives in gaining the parliamentary seat of Glastonbury & Somerton in a 2023 by-election, while the nearby seat of Tiverton & Honiton also turned Liberal Democrat in a recent by-election.
So, join me! And together, let’s create a brighter future for Bridgwater. Get in touch.