Boris Johnson persuaded MPs to back his fourth attempt at calling an early general election which is due to be held on December 12. Voters across the country will elect their choice of representative in the House of Commons. Historically, trends show the Conservative Party is more popular with an older demographic. But has Boris Johnson managed to tackle this issue and started to attract a new wave of young Tory voters?
As of the Tory leadership race, the Conservative Party membership was estimated to be around 160,000, having risen by 30,000 in the previous 12 months.
More than half of the current Conservative Party membership are aged more than 55 years old.
The 18 to 25 age bracket was the least common age range for Tory members at just seven percent, closely followed by the 26 to 35 and 36 to 45 brackets at 10 and 11 percent respectively.
A 2019 YouGov survey of 11,590 British adults revealed just 16 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds intended to vote Conservative, compared to 58 percent of 70-year-olds or older.
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The YouGov data showed while the Labour Party is generally still more popular with younger voters, the tipping point has changed.
The tipping point, which is the age at which a voter is more likely to vote Conservative than Labour, has dropped dramatically since the last election in 2017.
Ahead of the 2019 election, the tipping point is now 40, compared to 47 at the last election.
At the 2017 election, the Labour Party was ahead in every age category up to 47.
However, this seems to have changed and the party led by Jeremy Corbyn is only ahead up to the age of 40.
The UK’s average age has been rising steadily since 1975 from 36 to 40 today.
This means while Conservatives are still polling best amongst the younger voters, they are benefitting from the UK’s ageing population, especially given their increased appeal with younger voters.
The 40 age bracket which the Conservatives have “won” from Labour, means that the millions of voters aged 40 to 80.96, which is the current life expectancy in the UK support the Tory Party.
While the Labour Party has greater support and popularity with 18 to 39 year olds.
Age continues to be a key predictor for voting intention.
In fact, for every 10 years older a voter is, the chances of them voting Conservative increases by nearly eight percent and decreases by five to six percent for Labour.
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The Conservative Party support among the older voter brackets is guaranteed, but at 58 percent, it has dropped quite significantly since the last election.
This is believed to be a result of the launch of the Brexit Party which is splitting the Leave voters across all categories.
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is most popular with the 60 to 69 age group at 16 percent, while in the 70+ group, the Brexit party is level with the Liberal Democrats at 14 percent support.
The Brexit Party however like the Tories, struggles with the younger voters, gaining just five percent of the vote share in the 18 to 24 group, closely followed by six percent in the 25 to 29 age bracket.
This trend is flipped on its head with the Labour Party.
Jeremy Corbyn’s party has 38 percent support among voters under the age of 29, compared to just nine percent among voters aged more than 70.
While the Labour party is still performing well with young voters, they have lost some of the younger supporters to the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.
In fact, the Green Party is nearly polling the same as the Tories with those under 24, at 15 percent compared to the Conservatives 16 percent.
The Liberal Democrats are the only major party that does not see massive changes to its age gradient.
Throughout each age group they tend to poll around the 20 percent mark, except for the 70+ group where it drops to 14 percent.
Overall, the survey undertaken from October 17 to 28, found that 36 percent would support Conservatives compared to 22 percent for Labour.
The Liberal Democrats came in third place with 19 percent, followed by the Brexit party in fourth with 12 percent.
The Green Party was in fifth place with six percent and the Scottish National Party was in sixth place with four percent.
The YouGov research also looked into the gender and educational background against voter intention.
It found that Labour is more popular among the better educated at 28 percent of those with a degree or higher, while the Tories are more popular with those with only GCSEs or lower at 45 percent.
In terms of gender, there was very little difference between the main parties and support, with 31 percent of men and 23 percent of women voting Labour, while 35 and 37 percent of men and women intended to back the Conservatives respectively.
