Regional Lib Dem Campaigns Officer Becky Carr tells us the story of our gain in Seaford, where Isabelle Murray has become our youngest Liberal Democrat Parish Councillor.
Obviously having just lost the Parliamentary seat it was going to be tough for the team to pick themselves up for this by-election. However this wasn’t the first election that they faced after May 7th. Due to the death on polling day of a Candidate in a different Seaford ward (which was a Tory/UKIP marginal ward) for the Town Council that meant that particular election was void and all 4 seats were re-run on June 25th. Whilst they didn’t gain any seats on that day they did come within 5 votes and this certainly drove the team onto making sure that we had success in Seaford Central.
Firstly the team made good use of the data from the General Election and took the Shuttleworth they had from that and concentrated on going around to those people making sure it was accurate and that they still had their support. As well as delivering focuses to the entire ward they also made sure to target these voters with a blue letter to postal voters and non-postal voters and made good use of a well-known Lib Dem County Councillor for the area by doing a targeted letter to supporters from her. The team also recognised the importance of postal votes and spent the entire weekend that the postal votes were sent out knocking on the doors of all the postal voters that were supporters or third party supporters.
The team also took advantage of the fact that despite already having their only Town Councillor in the ward Labour were unable to stand a candidate a fact that the team made sure to emphasise both in Literature and on the doorstep. When it came to the Lib Dem candidate it was certainly picked up from a lot of people on the doorstep how nice it was to see someone so young committed to the Community and what great diversity she would bring to the Town Council. Finally the team also made sure that they were consistent and vocal in their message of how this by election had been caused by the Tories at an expense of £6000 when their candidate who was elected in May failed to take up their seat.
This by-election result really was a well-deserved success for the team and showed how they have been able to pick themselves up so well after the defeat in May and the key factors in the success were.
- A local candidate who was keen to work and was engaged in her community
- Making use of the data from May and targeting and firming up those known to be supporters
- A good postal vote knock up campaign
- Taking advantage of the lack of a Labour Candidate and emphasising that in the squeeze message
- Finally a team fully motivated after May 7th to be a part of the #LibDemFightback