Farage is losing steam and the data proves it

A glimmer of hope...

I’m an independent investigative reporter focused on exposing the populist elite – in particular Farage and Reform.

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There’s a prevailing narrative in large parts of the media – Keir Starmer is deeply unpopular and Nigel Farage is storming towards Downing Street like a racist freight train.

That’s only partly true. Yes, Starmer is historically unpopular, but Farage’s bravado belies his own unpopularity – which is growing by the day.

If anything, Farage is stumbling towards Number 10 through a lack of alternatives, not due to any genuine popular clamour to see him in charge of the country.

And the data backs this up.

Starmer’s favourability rating sits at an eye-watering minus 47, but Farage doesn’t perform much better at minus 37 (worse even than Kemi Badenoch).

Andy Burnham is tracking at plus five. Just saying.

I’ve thought it for a while: there’s nothing that Farage likes more (perhaps other than cigarettes and insulting journalists) than to be disliked.

He clearly sees himself as a lone ranger waging a war of attrition against the political “establishment”, and even a large section of the electorate. He speaks his mind, no matter how incoherent or lurid.

That’s part of his political appeal, but it’s also his Achilles heel – he has alienated a large proportion of the electorate that would rather drink one of Vladimir Putin’s dart frog daiquiris than vote for Reform.

Farage’s personal ratings are also getting worse, not better.

As Mark Pack recently showed, a clear pattern is being logged by all the main pollsters: a decline in Farage’s popularity.

How will this play out at the ballot box?

Well, given the polls are so close, we’re going to see a lot of tight marginal contests – like the one in Denton and Gorton this week, which is a three-way race between Reform, the Greens, and Labour.

Tactical voting will therefore feature heavily, with voters often forced to pick who they don’t want to be their MP and holding their nose as they vote for the candidate most likely to beat them.

On this score, Farage’s party will perform poorly – potentially mirroring the Caerphilly Senedd by-election in October.

Indeed, YouGov recently polled various hypothetical contests and found that – when voters are forced to choose between Reform and another party (in this case either Labour, the Tories, Lib Dems, or Greens) – Reform never wins.

Farage’s downturn in the polls is also matched by a slump in Reform’s support.

The party is now averaging 28% – down from the 31% it was clocking late last year – and has even nosedived in some polls to sub-25%.

As pointed out by Owen Winter at the Economist, this puts Reform well short of a majority – dispelling the idea that Farage is overseeing a political procession to Number 10.

We don’t exactly know why Reform’s ratings have dropped – but I’d like to think it’s something to do with excellent investigative exposés showing Farage for who he truly is, not least the revelations about his schoolboy racism.

We also don’t know what will happen in Denton and Gorton this week.

But we do know that things aren’t looking as rosy for Reform as a couple of months ago. And that can only be a good thing.

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⛰️ Housekeeping note ⛰️

It’s my birthday! That means I’m going away this week (trekking, drinking, and likely getting drenched) in the Lake District. So I won’t be publishing anything now for 10 days or so. If I’m not back in your inboxes by the first week of March, send a search party!