Followers of this blog understand that our longer-term strategy is to target a large number of marginal seats of the most anti-male major political party at general elections. On 7 May we’ll be standing against one Labour MP, and two Conservative MPs. There didn’t seem much point in targeting just one party with three candidates.
Earlier this evening N, a supporter and donor, emailed us an intriguing question:
How many votes will J4MB have to secure on 7 May, to count the election a success?
A very good question. To answer it, we’ve calculated how many votes we’d have had to divert from the people who were elected as MPs in 2010, in the three seats we’re contesting on 7 May, to deny them victories. The answer may surprise you:
Ashfield: Gloria De Piero (L) won by 192 votes. J4MB would have had to take 97 votes from her.
Broxtowe: Anna Soubry (C) won by 389 votes. J4MB would have had to take 195 votes from her.
Sherwood: Mark Spencer (C) won by 214 votes. J4MB would have had to take 108 votes from him.
The bottom line? J4MB would have had to take just 97 + 195 + 108 = 400 votes to change the results in all three seats in 2010. If this isn’t vindication of our strategy, we don’t know what could be.