Ethnic Minority Voters in 2015: A Breakthrough for the Conservative Party?

25 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2016 Last revised: 2 Feb 2017

Date Written: December 6, 2016

Abstract

It is widely thought by politicians and journalists that the 2015 UK general election represented a breakthrough election for the Conservative party, where their vote share among ethnic minority voters increased, and overtook that of Labour for the first time among some groups. I show that this conclusion was based on misleading data, and that using more representative data yields markedly different results. The Conservatives increased their support among Hindus, but the Labour party gained in support elsewhere. This is due to movement away from the Liberal Democrats; 2010 ethnic minority supporters of the Liberal Democrats moved to supporting Labour rather than the Conservatives in 2014 at a ratio of 3:1. There is also considerable individual-level volatility in Labour and Conservative support among ethnic minorities, which is masked by a high level of stability at the aggregate level.

Keywords: ethnicity, ethnic minorities, dealignment, integration, opinion polling, turnout

Suggested Citation

Martin, Nicole, Ethnic Minority Voters in 2015: A Breakthrough for the Conservative Party? (December 6, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2881684 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2881684

Nicole Martin (Contact Author)

The University of Manchester ( email )

Oxford Road
Manchester, N/A M13 9PL
United Kingdom

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
167
Abstract Views
944
Rank
323,176
PlumX Metrics