Tactical voting could be fundamental to a Labour victory in Makerfield, with Green and Liberal Democrat supporters willing to back Andy Burnham to stop Reform UK from winning.<\/p>\n
Conversely, Reform\u2019s main competitor for votes on the right is Rupert Lowe\u2019s Restore Britain party. Polling experts have said current data suggests the size of their vote share is roughly similar to Labour\u2019s poll lead.<\/p>\n
But while left-leaning voters were willing to lend their vote to Burnham, Restore Britain voters appeared to be less willing to support Robert Kenyon, Reform\u2019s candidate.<\/p>\n
The Guardian also found Green voters in the constituency were willing to back Burnham<\/a>, while recent polling by Opinium found that more than half of those who said they would vote Green or Lib Dem in a general election, \u201cif it was held tomorrow\u201d, were planning to vote for Burnham in the byelection.<\/p>\n In contrast, the polling found that only about a third of those who said they would vote Restore in a general election were willing to switch their vote.<\/p>\n At the last general election, in July 2024, the Lib Dems won 7% of the vote, and the Greens 4.5%, which combined is significantly more than Andy Burnham\u2019s narrow poll lead.<\/p>\n In May\u2019s council election in Wigan, the Greens won 10.5% and Lib Dems 3.5%. Voting intention for the byelection gives figures of less than 1% and less than 2% respectively.<\/p>\n Andy Burnham on the campaign trail. Photograph: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In contrast, the polling for Opinium put Restore on 6.5%, having not stood in either the general election or the Wigan council elections.<\/p>\n Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said: \u201cIn Makerfield, all of the other parties are so far out of contention that the tactical logic here is stark.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to get a Green MP in Makerfield, you\u2019re not going to get a Lib Dem MP in Makerfield,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really obvious what you\u2019ve got to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnham \u201cclearly is popular\u201d in Manchester, \u201cso I\u2019d have to say on balance, polling, context of the race, nature of the candidates, you\u2019d think it\u2019s advantage Andy at this point,\u201d he added. \u201cBut not in the bag by any means.\u201d<\/p>\n On the Restore side, Ford said: \u201cTheir campaign is like the opposite of tactical voting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is explicitly focused on splitting off Reform voters and mobilising people who are really far right and discontented with Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n He said: \u201cThe tactical voting logic is very obvious that they shouldn\u2019t do that, but clearly there are some Reform voters who aren\u2019t necessarily enamoured of a bunch of Conservative defectors coming in.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd perhaps the idea that Reform are just part of the same establishment, they\u2019re not going to respond to you, might be a more resonant message in a seat like Makerfield.\u201d<\/p>\n He cautioned that voting blocks \u201care not like Lego blocks\u201d and that you cannot necessarily add them together to draw conclusions.<\/p>\n Recent polls predict a narrow Labour victory. Photograph: Adam Vaughan\/EPA<\/p>\n Rather than necessarily backing Reform, Restore voters \u201cmight well just refuse to vote if there wasn\u2019t a Restore option available\u201d, which he suggested may be \u201cone of the reasons the tactical squeeze isn\u2019t working so well on the right\u201d.<\/p>\n The Opinium research was carried out on behalf of Forward Democracy, which runs the tactical voting website www.StopReformUK.vote<\/a>, and has written to hundreds of its subscribers in the constituency.<\/p>\n \u201cThese figures confirm what we\u2019ve long argued,\u201d said Tom de Grunwald, the founder of Forward Democracy. \u201cTactical voting works, and it\u2019s happening in Makerfield.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cOur polling shows progressive voters are not waiting to be told. Green and Lib Dem supporters are already lending their votes to Andy Burnham in large numbers, recognising that a split progressive vote could let Reform UK<\/a> in through the back door.\u201d<\/p>\n The situation is in stark contrast to the last parliamentary byelection in Gorton and Denton<\/a>, where both Labour and the Greens put themselves forward as the party to stop Reform.<\/p>\n The seat was ultimately won fairly comfortably by the Greens<\/a>, despite apparent widespread tactical voting.<\/p>\n Separately, research from the Social Market Foundation found that the share of local Facebook posts classified as misinformation had increased fourfold during the campaign.<\/p>\n The SMF analysed more than 1,800 posts across four local Facebook groups, representing different towns and settlements within the constituency, with 66,000 members across them in total.<\/p>\n Researchers found a flood of misinformation, driven by what appeared to be fake accounts and fake news organisations, including AI-generated images of council blocks and streets lined with Reform flags, and Labour<\/a> and Green hot air balloons flying over the constituency.<\/p>\n