Conservatives Are Struggling To Rally Activists On The Campaign Trail

​Exhausted Conservatives have struggled to rally volunteers to drum up support on the doorstep, particularly among young Tories with whom the Prime Minister’s early election pledges have not landed well.

When Rishi Sunak set the General Election date for 4 July, fatigue had already set in on the campaign trail following a bracing set of local elections in which the Conservative Party lost half of the seats it contested. In the wake of May’s dire results, one MP often went out door-knocking accompanied only by their dog in the absence of willing human helpers.

With the formal General Election campaign now underway, some incumbent Conservative candidates with five-digit majorities expect to lose their seats. Labour has held a strong polling lead over the Conservatives for nearly two years, and since the election was called, the picture hasn’t improved much for the governing party. The latest YouGov survey gave Labour a 27 point lead while research from More in Common found they were ahead by 19 points. JL Partners have recorded the smallest Labour lead which stands at 12 points. 

"I think you always have to look at the polls overall and the general direction of travel rather than one in isolation," a minister, who is already resigned to defeat, told PoliticsHome. 

So far, Conservative volunteers working to spread the party’s campaign message don’t seem much more enthusiastic than the candidates they’re recruited to cheer for. Activists have described a "disorganised" operation at Conservative Party Headquarters (CCHQ) with faulty tablets forcing them to abandon the electronic system for accessing voter data and resort to printed lists for phone-call sessions. "A lot of the people there were new, and I'm not convinced they'll