On the broader point of how Johnson will fare vis a vis 2017: Thanks to Brexit, precisely no one believes Johnson, and the party beneath him, is appreciably more liberal than May. The Tories will struggle to hold scores of seats in the SE and SW, not so much due to vote switching but because a sizeable portion of their core vote will just stay home in protest. On the other side, with the Brexit Party lining up to run virtually everywhere, the Tories will struggle to pick up the votes they need to win Leave heavy Labour seats in the midlands and north. If the Brexit Party rises high enough (anything above 15% or so) the Tories will also struggle to hold marginal seats everywhere.
All good points. If we're looking at a strong Brexit Party, we should instead be looking more to the 2015 election. However, that doesn't work due to the complete decimation of the Lib Dems and the SNP at their virtual maximum seat count. Am I the only thinking this election is going to be very difficult to figure out until the votes are actually counted? And of course, as Theresa May found out the hard way, campaigns do actually matter. I'd feel a lot better about Labour if it wasn't Corbyn leading the party. His approvals are astronomically bad right now when they were roughly net neutral in 2017.
I wouldn't be surprised if the overall result is pretty much the same as 2017.... or indeed the situation as this Parliament comes to an end. More deadlock.
I've been thinking the same actually. It was only a marginal difference from 2015 though. Would the Tory Majority from 2015 realistically have been able to pass anything (under either May or Johnson)? It seems unlikely to me.