Three quarters of voters will not support the Liberal Democrat party whatever it does, an unpublished internal party poll has revealed.
Party leader Nick Clegg can apparently still win a quarter of the votes at the next election despite a series of opinion polls suggesting the party has haemorrhaged support since the formation of the coalition Government, senior sources have insisted.
But as activists gathered in Glasgow for the Liberal Democrats' autumn conference a survey of the party's supporters showed nearly half believed Nick Clegg was taking it in the wrong direction.
The vast majority of voters will be rejecting Nick Clegg
A senior Lib Dem source said the party believes Clegg personally enjoys strong support among his last remaining quarter of voters.
The party has insisted it intends to focus on the "soft" Labour and Conservative votes that are believed to be up for grabs, on top of the core support that has stayed loyal despite the tough choices and compromises that have been made since taking office in 2010.
The party plans the "relentless" promotion of what it considers to be its achievements.
Clegg will today tell the party conference that the Liberal Democrats "have a proud story to tell on jobs and the economy".
"We can tell people how we took the right decisions in government to make sure interest rates were kept down and to protect people from the economic crises we have seen elsewhere in Europe," he is set to say.
The Lib Dems secured 23% of the vote at the 2010 election and based on internal polling carried out over the last year senior party sources believe they can achieve a similar - or even slightly higher - share in 2015.
Of the target, around 10% - which fits with the Lib Dems' recent opinion poll ratings - would definitely vote for the party, while the remaining 12%-15% would consider supporting it. Of that latter group, there is an even split between "soft Labour and soft Conservative" voters.
But there is very little chance of the remaining 75% of voters changing their minds and deciding to cast their ballot for Mr Clegg's party. A source said the party would not be concentrating on this group at the election.
The source said: "Clearly we lost a lot of support by going in to coalition with the Conservatives but the clear position is that for the people who would vote for us, or would consider voting for us, that isn't their issue.
The admission that the Lib Dems do not expect to command majority support follows recent comments by the deputy prime minister on LBC Radio.
The deputy prime minister acknowledged it was "unlikely" his party would win a majority at the next general election.