Sir John Curtice: Burnham's win represents remarkable personal success for him

Sir John Curtice: Burnham's win represents remarkable personal success for himJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleSir John CurticeProfessor of politics, Strathclyde UniversityBBCAndy Burnham's victory in the Makerfield by-election represents a remarkable personal success.Last year in the Runcorn by-election, Labour's vote fell by 14 points. Four months ago in Gorton & Denton, it collapsed by 25 points.In Makerfield itself, Labour were 20 points behind Reform in the local elections on 7 May.Even at the best of times, support for the party of government nearly always falls in by-elections. Yet, in yesterday's ballot, Burnham not only retained every bit of the 45% share of the vote Labour won in the seat in 2024, but actually pushed his party's share up by 10 points.With Labour stuck at just 19% in the national polls, much as it has been ever since last autumn, there has been no evidence of any marked change in Labour's popularity in the last few weeks to account for this turnaround.Indeed, Labour saw its vote fall heavily in both the Scottish by-elections also held yesterday – by 19 points in Aberdeen South and 18 points in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.Moreover, polling conducted during the Makerfield campaign suggested Labour would have lost quite badly if anyone other than Burnham had been Labour's standard bearer.Andy Burnham wins Makerfield by-election, paving way for him to challenge Keir Starmer as Labour leaderThere appears to have been two key foundations to Burnham's success.First, he managed to persuade many of those who voted for the party in 2024 to return to the fold. Polls published last weekend suggest that four in five of those who backed Labour two years ago voted yesterday voted for Burnham.In contrast, the national polls suggest that only a little over half of 2024 Labour voters are currently minded to vote for the party again.Second, as the polls also anticipated, Burnham seemingly benefited from a...