The Tory lead in a key by-election is plummeting as Rishi Sunak faces the prospect of more misery later this month.
Polling seen by HuffPost UK suggests the Conservatives’ advantage over their nearest rivals, the Lib Dems, in Somerset and Frome has halved as voters in the seat prepare to go to the polls on July 20.
It is one of three by-elections in Tory-held seats taking place on the same day.
David Warburton, who retained Somerset and Frome for the Conservatives in 2019 with a 19,213 majority, resigned last month. He was suspended by the party last year over sexual misconduct allegations.
HuffPost UK has seen a memo from Dave McCobb, the Lib Dems’ UK director of field operations, to the party’s chief executive, Mike Dixon, and Rhiannon Leaman, party leader Ed Davey’s chief of staff, setting out the current state of play in the seat.
It says a survey of 10,000 voters shows that support for the Tories has fallen from 55.8% in 2019 to 44.5%, while Lib Dem backing has jumped from 26.2% to 36.5%.
The memo says: “We have halved the gap on the Conservatives and are gaining ground each day.
“We need a 15% swing to win the seat. We have halved that - we have already gained a 7% swing according to our internal canvas data.”
The memo says voters in the seat feel “heartfelt anger and deep resentment against the Conservative Party as a whole”.
“Put bluntly - things are not getting any better for the Conservatives, and if anything they are worse,” it says.
However, the Lib Dems say the Tory campaign is “much more organised” than in Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire - two seats the party seized from the Conservatives in by-elections last year.
The key to victory in Somerset and Frome, the Lib Dems say, is persuading Labour and Green supporters to vote for them on July 20.
″[They] need to be reminded that this large rural constituency has never elected anything but a Lib Dem or a Conservative,” the memo says. “Their vote can oust the Conservatives if they back us here.”
The other seats the Tories are defending on July 20 are in Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and Ruislip, and in Selby and Ainsty.