General Discussion

expecially high-profile by-elections like this one, you always have to bear in mind tactical voting in our multi-party system.

It's not necessarily true that Green voters who voted for Burnham have changed party allegiances, but they and people who might have voted for other parties in previous elections were keen to avoid Reform living up to some of the more concerning polling in the early weeks running up to the election, especially as Reform had a very strong showing in the area in the recent local elections.

As it happened, Reform's candidate was even more of an embarrassingly useless arse than its candidates usually are, but I'd guess people weren't taking any chances.