In the immediate aftermath of the General Election, Policy Exchange commissioned exclusive polling on perhaps the most poorly understood voter group in the country: the stay-at-home voter. Four million more people opted not to cast a ballot this year than in 2019. These results are concerning and indicate a growing cohort of people who are thoroughly disenchanted with democratic politics in this country.

But our polling also indicates a huge opportunity on offer to the major political parties. 2.7 million of these “sofa voters”, as Policy Exchange has labelled them, strongly considered voting on 4th of July; just these non- voters could have swung the result of the election. To get them off the sofa and down to the polling station next time around, politicians must demonstrate that they are not “all the same”, that democratic governments can deliver on their promises to the electorate, and that politics can make a tangible difference to people’s lives.

• New polling for Policy Exchange today reveals that half of all those who didn’t vote were up for grabs to the parties and did consider voting (47%), a huge untapped potential set of 9.1m voters
• 14% of non-voters ‘strongly considered’ voting, but weren’t persuaded to do so and ended up staying at home
• Just these non-voters who seriously considered voting could have made the difference and changed the winner of the election, with 2.7 million votes up for grabs had these particular non-voters cast a ballot.
• 1 in 4 non-voters (25%) say they are very likely to vote in a future election (7 out of 10 likely or greater). If just those who told us they sat out 2024 but are likely to vote in future turn out at the next election that would amount to 4.8 million votes up for grabs from these non-voters at the next election.
• 1 in 3 of those who stayed at home in this election voted in 2019 – and half of those voted for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. That is 2.8 million votes the Conservatives lost just to ‘the sofa’.
• If all non-voters turned out, Reform UK would have been just four points behind the Conservatives, with eight in ten non-voters stating that politicians let the public down over immigration.