Boris Johnson is doing better than the herd suggests. Credit: Christopher Furlong - WPA Pool / Getty
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Boris Johnson’s premiership has barely started but has already failed. The Prime Minister does not know what he is doing. He is completely out of his depth. He cannot even walk down a high street or through a hospital without being attacked by angry voters. With his consigliere, Dominic Cummings, Johnson is alienating the moderate majority. The Conservative brand will be ruined forever. The wilderness looms.
This is what Twitter tells me every day. But as I pointed out the other week, while Johnson is routinely portrayed as a textbook case of failure, the key groups of voters that will decide his fate hold a very different view. Since becoming Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s ‘net favourability’ score among all voters has increased by five points. Among Leavers it is up by 16-points. Among Conservatives it is up by 21-points.
Twitter tells me @BorisJohnson has been a disaster
The data tells me that since entering Number 10 his ratings are:
-UP among all voters by 5 points
-UP among Leavers by 16 points
–UP among Conservatives by 21 points
Always. Challenge. Groupthink.https://t.co/glkO9RkCLb
— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) September 17, 2019
Notwithstanding the general hysteria and catastrophism that has followed every twist and turn of the Johnson premiership, YouGov notes that “the ongoing Brexit chaos hasn’t adversely affected the PM’s favourability figures — which are, in fact, slightly higher now than they were when he first moved into Downing Street”.
In fact, despite the furore over Johnson’s suspension of parliament, the dismissal of special advisors, the expulsion of 21 moderate Conservative MPs and the PM’s allegedly dictatorial tendencies, support for the Conservative Party has increased.
The week before Johnson became Prime Minister, his party averaged 24% The week after he entered Downing Street it jumped to 29%. Today, it is 33%. Groupthink tells us that Johnson is making his party unelectable. The data tells us that Labour has only been ahead in one of the last 40 opinion polls.
There is, of course, a lot that could still go wrong for Johnson. With the SNP still dominant in Scotland, Britain’s electoral map is more constrained. Volatility is high and so it is much harder for either of the two main parties to win a majority.
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