Jeremy Corbyn’s hopes of benefiting from a last-minute surge in newly registered young voters may be dashed, research by The Sunday Times suggests.
Almost 3m people have signed up to vote since the election was called on April 18, figures show. Nearly 70% of them are under 35 and more than a third are under 25, groups that strongly favour Labour.
On May 22 alone, the last day of registration, 622,000 people enrolled to vote, of whom 453,000 were under 35.
A constituency-by-constituency analysis of the surge suggests that it has occurred disproportionately in safe seats where it will increase the votes for Labour without changing the outcome.
In only a few cases — including the Hastings and Rye seat of the home secretary, Amber Rudd — has the surge occurred in marginal seats where Labour is either fighting off or targeting the Tories.
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The analysis also suggests that many who applied to vote after April 18 were unaware that they were already on the register. There has been a significant rise in the electorate but not by as much as the 3m figure would imply.
The Sunday Times obtained final or near-final figures for constituency electorates from returning officers on Thursday and Friday.
They show huge rises since 2015 in many student, London and middle-class seats — but much smaller rises, or none at all, in northern, Midlands and working-class marginals where Labour is defending against the Tories.
In Yorkshire there has been a rise of almost 8,000 voters — nearly 10% — in Leeds Central, which is dominated by the city’s universities, and a 7.2% rise in the student-focused Sheffield Central. Both seats are already Labour with majorities of about 17,000.
By contrast in Wakefield, where Labour has only a 2,600 majority, the electorate has fallen since 2015. In Labour’s other working-class Yorkshire marginals, Halifax and Dewsbury, the number of voters has risen, but by only 1% and 2% respectively.
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Similar patterns apply across the country, with large voter increases in safe seats such as Lewisham Deptford, Greenwich and Woolwich, Birkenhead and City of Durham, but much lower or no increases in nearby Labour marginals such as Eltham, Wirral West and Darlington.
Data obtained from 43 of Labour’s 50 most vulnerable seats shows that only one, Lancaster and Fleetwood, had a surge in its electorate — of 7.2% — probably from Lancaster University.
A further four seats had rises of 3-4%. However, the majority had rises of less than 2% and in nine of the 43 seats electorates have fallen.
Of Tory-held marginals, Rudd’s seat, where the electorate is up by 5.1%, is unusual. More typical is Ed Balls’s former constituency of Morley and Outwood, with a far lower rise in its electorate than the safe Labour seats around it.
The figures should be treated with caution. Some of the rises or falls could be due to population shifts.
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Even with few or no new voters, a dramatically higher turnout by young people who were already on the register could save many marginals.
Higher predicted turnouts by young voters account for some of Labour’s polling breakthrough in the past fortnight.
However, the youth turnouts anticipated in some polls, of up to 82%, are unlikely to transpire. In the 2015 election only 43% of under-25s voted.
Additional reporting: Amy Gibbons