Patrick Flynn

Hard to overstate just how rapid the changes in US party coalitions have been. The Democrats are now the party of high education *and* high income voters. Just 12 years ago, the inverse was true. On these terms, the Trump coalition was closer to Obama 2008 than the Harris one!

New post from me on 'Ossoffism' and party brands in the US 👇 focaldata.com/blog/ossoffism…

This is the killer in an anti-elite political environment: the more Republican an archetype perception, the more likely voters were to view that archetype as part of the elite.

Voters on both sides want see their party on the side of dog owners, nurses, fishing enthusiasts and (American) football fans. The chart below shows partisan coding vs in-group scores (was someone more likely to assign it to their own party or their opponent?)

The Republican brand in the US has become *heavily* 'elite-coded'. Out of 40 archetypes we tested in our latest survey with the @FT, billionaires, CEOs, and country club members were the most Republican-leaning groups in the eyes of American voters.

We know that the public is increasingly unforgiving and eager for change. Having to introduce yourself to the public properly and set out your vision while simultaneously doing the job as PM effectively is a very difficult set of tasks. Why not separate the two?

Surely the better course of action would be to conduct a proper leadership election over the summer, even if Burnham is only opposed by a paper candidate who gets 15% of the vote, so policy/vision/performance can actually be debated.

Labour electing Burnham unopposed is a big risk in my view. Sure, it avoids potential party in-fighting over the summer, but is that risk really bigger than electing a new PM in a matter of weeks where few MPs, let alone the public, actually know what his plan is for the country?

Firstly, let's look at how views change with age. Men's views are U-shaped: the youngest and oldest men are the most positive, dipping in middle age. Meanwhile women's views vary little by age group. There is only a slight upwards slope in positivty from 18 to 75. / 1

Stats-based forecast for tonight’s Eurovision final (average overall ranks shown from 250,000 simulations) My model got 20/20 qualifiers correct during the semi-finals — let’s see how it fares tonight!

The local elections in one chart. Labour has been squeezed between the Greens in young wards and Reform in older working-class wards

Genuine question: Why can we not, at the very least, produce half of ballot papers in reverse alphabetical order? Seems like changing one’s surname to Aarons by deed poll might actually be a better use of election resources than actually campaigning!

Data question: Has anyone produced estimates for how the wards voting tonight voted in 2024 overall?

So what comes next? We outline three scenarios in the white paper, or the “ABCs”: Augmentation, Bifurcation, or Crash. The data we have collected indicates the middle option is the most likely. Find out more by reading the full white paper below.

Today we've launched a new Workforce AI Tracker in partnership with the @FT, including our first white paper for the project. 🧵 Subsequent reports will focus on particular topics in depth, but here’s a quick ‘state of play’ of where we’re at...