Sir Keir Starmer could avoid a humiliating defeat in the Gorton and Denton by-election if “shy Labour voters” end up backing his party, according to a polling expert.
But Tory peer Lord Hayward also believes that the by-election is Zack Polanski’s Greens “to lose”.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is also battling it out to try to pull off another shock victory.
If Labour loses the previously safe seat it would be a bitter blow to the Prime Minister, with Labour chiefs having blocked Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from standing to be the party’s candidate.
The political parties are ramping up their campaigns in the run-up to polling day on February 26, flooding the constituency with volunteers to knock on doors.
A string of Cabinet ministers have visited the area but Sir Keir has so far stayed away, with Labour and his personal popularity having plunged in the polls.
Voters who back Reform or the Greens seem willing to voice their views.
However, some Labour supporters may be less keen to express their voting intention given the Government’s woes, including recently the Lord Mandelson and Lord Doyle storms, and the party’s sharp drop in the polls.
“Shy Labour voters could save Keir Starmer,” Lord Hayward told the London Standard.
“But I think it’s the Greens to lose.”
Reform could “come through the middle” to clinch the seat if the Left-leaning vote splits evenly between Labour and the Greens, according to Rob Ford, professor of political science at Manchester University.
The contest is being fiercely fought between Reform’s Matt Goodwin, Hannah Spencer of the Green Party and Labour’s Angeliki Stogia.
A Labour source: “We’re certainly picking up that some voters feel that they can’t be as visible with their support with us as normal in some places due to the divisive nature of this by-election campaign.”
The very diverse constituency, with some 76,000 potential voters, is made up of four south Manchester city council wards, experiencing some gentrification and three wards of the Tameside council town of Denton.
“It’s a very difficult constituency to poll, because it’s a constituency of two very different halves,” Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, told Times Radio.
“The Denton bit, is broadly speaking white, relatively working class. It’s where Reform’s hopes lie.
“The other half in Manchester is a mixture of places with very high Muslim populations...not good news for Labour, and also lots of students, again, not good news for Labour.
“Both those phenomena potentially help the Greens.”
But as for who will win next Thursday, he added: “The truth is, at the moment, we are flying blind.”
Labour won the seat at the 2024 general election with 50.8% of the vote, but this was down on an estimated 67.2% in 2019 after boundary changes are taken into account, as more young people and Muslim voters desert the party.
The by-election was triggered after Andrew Gwynne, who was sacked as a minister and suspended from the Labour Party over offensive messages in a WhatsApp group, resigned as an MP.
