Marginal seats
Taunton Deane: the list of likely Lib Dem losses just grew one seat longer
Jeremy Browne’s decision not to stand for re-election as Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton Deane has probably turned his seat into a near-certain gain for the Tories.
His majority of 3,993 in 2010, together with his strong local and national profile, could have been enough to see off a Conservative challenge. I left Taunton Deane off the list of possible Tory gains in my latest prediction of the election result. Even though Lord Ashcroft’s most recent poll suggested Browne was trailing by four points, I thought the seat would prove to be just beyond the Tories’ chances.
Well, not anymore. Taunton Deane must now move back into the column of potential Conservative gains. As the 2010 result showed, there is only a tiny Labour vote left to be squeezed:
There is hope for Browne’s replacement as candidate, however. Ukip may suck away enough Tory support to allow the Lib Dems a close win. And the seat is not near the top of the Conservatives’ target list. Taunton Deane is actually in 17th place when you rank all the Lib Dem seats where the Tories are the main challengers:
There are 36 such seats in total, meaning Taunton Deane is almost exactly halfway down. Can the Tories really make their way this far through the list? If they do, my feeling is that it won’t be as part of a clean sweep. The Conservatives won’t be as nearly as effective as Labour in vacuuming up Lib Dem marginals, chiefly because Lib Dem support looks like collapsing more towards Ed Miliband’s party than that of David Cameron.
And therein lies the pivot around which the outcome of the 2015 election could turn.
UK elections 2015 
Might this be a seat where the Lib Dems hold on due to the UKIP vote eating into the Tory support?
It’s a possibility, and certainly proved to be the case at the Eastleigh by-election last year. But the fact the Lib Dems were polling behind the Tories even before Browne’s announcement doesn’t bode well, I think.
Either way, Taunton Deane has now become one of the Lib Dems’ key seats. If they can hold on here, the election won’t be such a calamity for them as others have predicted.
I agree. The local (and national) profile of a sitting Lib Dem MP seeking re-election, is a crucial element. Julian Huppert in Cambridge, to name but one, has this advantage but the seat may fall to Labour if the student support for the Lib Dems, so evident in 2010, evaporates.