The Labour Party looks set to win two crucial by-elections next month in a crushing blow to Rishi Sunak, a polling expert has predicted.
Appearing on Sky’s Politics Hub on Thursday evening, Survation’s Carl Shoben said Keir Starmer’s party is on course to take both Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth from the Tories in a decisive victory.
Both by-elections are due to take place on 19 October following the shock resignations of Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher as the prime minister desperately tries to revive his flagging fortunes.
Dorries bitterly resigned as an MP in August in protest of not getting a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
The former culture secretary accused the prime minister of heading up a “zombie Parliament” and betraying Tory principles more than 11 weeks after she vowed to go.
Senior Tory MPs had called for an end to the “infighting”, as the staunch Johnson ally claimed it was “very, very unlikely” the Conservatives will win the next general election.
Meanwhile, Pincher announced his decision to quit as an MP after losing his appeal against a suspension for drunkenly groping two men.
The former Tory whip said he has “made arrangements to resign and leave the Commons” as he did not want to put any “further uncertainty” on his constituents in his Staffordshire constituency of Tamworth.
The Commons Standards committee recommended the suspension in July after it found the MP’s conduct last summer was “profoundly damaging” and amounted to an abuse of power.
Dorries retained Mid-Bedfordshire at the 2019 general election with a majority of close to 25,000, while Pincher was re-elected in Tamworth with 19,634 votes.
Shoben said: “At Survation we do internal modelling on every constituency in the country and our current internal for [Tamworth] would predict that this would be a Labour victory.
“Now just to balance that, that is our modelling for a general election. For a by-election, however, we think that it’s more likely to be in Labour’s favour than a general election because of the context with which the by-election is being fought.”
His comments follow polling published on Tuesday which revealed Labour is the most trusted political party in the Red Wall.
Commissioned by global market research company, Redfield and Wilton Strategies, the survey found the party is more trusted than the Tories on every major policy issue listed.
On the fight for Mid-Bedfordshire, Shoben added that it was a three-way contest between the Tories, Labour and Lib-Dems, but added that Labour were the firm favourite.
He added: “Our internal modelling suggests that Labour are the favourites for this seat.
“From what we know, we believe Labour are the main challenger [to the Tories] and so are probably favourites to win this seat.”
Related: Public don’t trust Tories on key policy areas polling shows
