Election 2024: The key constituencies Tories, Labour and Lib Dems see as make or break

Rishi Sunak, Ed Davey and Keir Starmer

The three main party leaders - Rishi Sunak, Ed Davey and Keir Starmer - have been campaigning across the UK

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Hannah Ross

By Hannah Ross


Published: 26/06/2024

- 05:00

Keir Starmer and Ed Davey have targeted Conservative-held seats on their election campaigns

The leaders of the major political parties have been travelling across the country on the campaign trail since the 2024 General Election was called.

As there is limited time to visit all constituencies, the leaders of the three main parties - the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats - have been visiting battleground seats ranging from ultra-marginal to constituencies with huge Conservative majorities.


On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer visited Kettering and Northampton South, which would both need hefty swings in the share of the vote for Labour to gain them from the Conservatives.

Kettering would need a swing of 16.7 percentage points to defeat the Conservatives defending a notional majority of 17,363.

Map of seats visited by Keir Starmer

This map shows the seats visited by Keir Starmer during the election campaign

PA

In Northampton South, Starmer would need a slightly smaller swing of 13.5 points for a Labour gain.

Both seats were held by Labour from 1997 to 2005, but have been held by Tory MPs at every election since then.

Sir Keir is aiming heavily at Conservative-held seats during his election campaign and out of the 40 seats he has visited so far, 29 are being defended by the Tories.

The most marginal Tory-Labour seat Starmer has visited is Bury North, which only needs a swing of 1.2 per cent to change hands.

Map of seats visited by Ed Davey

This map shows the seats visited by Ed Davey during the election campaign

PA

Starmer also held events in seven Labour seats, three SNP seats in Scotland, and one held by the Greens.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey visited Wimbledon in south-west London on Monday which is one of the party's top targets.

The Lib Dems only need a swing of 0.8 percentage points to win the seat from the Conservatives.

Overall, Davey has visited 36 constituencies since the start of his campaign, 32 of which are being held by the Conservatives.

These include many Tory-Lib Dem battlegrounds including Carshalton & Wallington, Cheltenham, Cambridgeshire South, Eastbourne and Cheadle.

Rishi Sunak has taken a different approach to his campaign than Sir Ed and Sir Keir and concentrated on Conservative-held seats.

Out of the 41 constituencies he has visited, 36 of these were Conservative defences and only two were Labour seats.

In eight of the seats held by the Tories, they are defending national majorities of more than 20,000, including Sunak's seat of Richmond & Northallerton.

The other three seats included Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross and Edinburgh East & Musselburgh held by the SNP and Belfast East, held by DUP.

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