Politics

How to grab onto an England victory

Published

4 months ago

July 5, 2026

LONDON — England is on the cusp of joining the World Cup’s final eight, and hope is tentatively starting to spread that this month could finally end 60 years of hurt for a nation that has come home emptyhanded from every tournament since.

This week’s Westminster Insider podcast explores the strange but powerful relationship between soccer and politics — and the unwritten rules politicians should follow if they want to use the unique emotional power of the beautiful game to their advantage.

1. Get your timing right

It looks highly likely that Andy Burnham will become Britain’s new prime minister on July 20 — just one day after the World Cup final. If England were to lift the trophy, Burnham’s first day in office would coincide with a wave of national euphoria. History suggests this could be somewhat helpful to a new prime minister.

Ten days before England’s 1966 World Cup triumph, Prime Minister Harold Wilson introduced an emergency package of tax rises and spending cuts as Britain grappled with inflation and economic pressure. Morale was low.

Then came Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick and England’s glorious win over West Germany. England’s victory at Wembley gave the country a huge psychological lift — and boosted the standing of the government. Richard Crossman, then leader of the House of Commons, said in his diaries there was “a big change in Harold’s personal position.”

But if Burnham is hoping for a well-timed World Cup-inspired polling boost on arrival, he should be aware that there are obvious risks if England doesn’t go all the way.

In 1970, Wilson had hoped another deep England run would help create a feel-good factor before a general election. Instead, England surrendered a two-goal lead to West Germany in the quarter-finals just four days before polling day.

Home Secretary Roy Jenkins reported after canvassing that voters were despondent — less about the economy or immigration than who was to blame for England’s defeat. Wilson lost to Ted Heath’s Conservatives.

The electoral impact of the 1970 World Cup disappointment is still the subject of debate, though an intriguing fact has only added to the folklore: English voters swung more towards the Conservatives than Scotland and Wales.

2. It’s more than a game

Playwright James Graham, creator of the hit play and BBC TV series “Dear England,” argues politicians often underestimate soccer’s deeper social importance.

Amid the “hollowing out” of British civic life — declining high streets, weakened public spaces and fractured communities — the soccer stadium is one of the few places left where people still gather physically and collectively, he says. So it matters not just every two or four years during major tournaments, but every single week, shaping people’s routines, their communities and even their identities.

When people support their club, they are investing in something bigger than themselves: shared rituals, symbols, songs and belonging. “You have to turn up in person and in proximity with your physical community,” he says.

Graham argues that politicians who understand this are more likely to connect to voters in what he sees as an age of growing disconnection, as people’s lives are increasingly shaped by AI, growth targets and digital life.

“It’s a powerful opportunity to show the kind of country we are,” says Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. “The very best of people coming together.”

3. Be authentic

No discussion of the potential peril of mixing football and politics is complete without mentioning David Cameron.

The former prime minister — supposedly an Aston Villa supporter — famously claimed to support West Ham during the 2015 election campaign.

He later blamed a “brain fade” — but the damage was done.

Scarlett McGwire, political commentator and former Labour adviser, says authenticity is everything.

“One of the reasons it’s so important for politicians to be authentic is there’s this myth that politicians always lie,” she says. “If they’re not authentic, people think: if they’re lying about this, they could be lying about everything.”

Soccer fans can smell performative fandom instantly. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage recently faced criticism after posting what appeared to be recycled football content from Euro 2024 during this World Cup.

Writer and journalist Adrian Goldberg says when politicians are genuine fans “football can just be a little bridge between the electorate and the prime minister.”

Although this didn’t seem to help genuine Arsenal supporter Keir Starmer.

4. Remember the home nations

Navigating loyalties across the United Kingdom — which fields four separate national teams — is hard.

McGwire recalls former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s advisers deciding he was “too Scottish” and working to place a Daily Mail story about how he cheered on the English team.

“It was completely set up,” she says. “Nobody believed it.”

Scottish Labour backbench MP Brian Leishman — a long-suffering supporter of the Tartan Army — is less concerned about courting England fans.

“It would be intolerable if England won the World Cup,” he says. “I would hate it.”

That result could boost support for Scottish independence, he adds — only half-jokingly.

5. There is no single football audience

Soccer teams are cheered on by a wide range of people — from younger fans to older traditionalists, England obsessives to club loyalists, politically engaged supporters to those who simply want politics kept out of the game.

It has grown more difficult for politicians to balance them without stumbling into divisive culture-war debates. Goldberg argues the controversy over players “taking the knee” during the Black Lives Matter protests in the early 2020s left fans on the terraces divided.

“There were some fan bases where taking of the knee was booed, there were others where it was embraced and others where fans were kind of somewhere in the middle around that,” he says.

That makes targeting your desired crowd crucial. Farage and his Reform UK party appear to be seeking the support of football fans with a campaign of turquoise football shirts, and visits to clubs like Ipswich Town.

Politics

‘A warning sign for polling’: Why one GOP pollster thinks a blue wave may fall short

Published

4 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are salivating over, and Republicans are bracing for, a potentially massive blue wave. One GOP pollster is urging everyone to calm down.

Patrick Ruffini, a founding partner at Echelon Insights, has been loudly throwing cold water on Democrats’ hopes of sweeping the red state Senate seats that have become battlegrounds in a worsening national environment for Republicans.

“The polls are, I think, intentionally inflating the size of the battleground,” Ruffini told Blue Light News.

Democrats are pushing to flip Senate seats in Iowa, Texas, Ohio and Alaska — all states that President Donald Trump won by at least 11 points in 2024 — with dreams of going even deeper into the map Kansas, South Carolina and even Mississippi. Sensing a potential disaster, Republicans have significantly curtailed their investments in North Carolina and Georgia to direct resources elsewhere.

Ruffini, who isn’t polling for candidates or party committees in any federal races, said he’s skeptical of Democrats flipping some of those seats, particularly in the Midwest, and gives the GOP a coin flip’s chance at keeping control of the Senate.

If a blue wave were to come, he said it would defy the ingrained partisanship in deep-red states that has mirrored growing political polarization around the country.

“I think it would be somewhat of a historic shift if that were to happen,” he said.

Here’s more from Blue Light News’s chat with Ruffini, edited for length and clarity. A more condensed version of this interview ran in Blue Light News’s Morning Score campaign newsletter.

You’ve been pretty publicly skeptical of polling that indicates a big tsunami for Democrats in November. Why is that?

I think we can read the environment right, but the map wrong.

The pretty large shift towards Democrats that we’re seeing on the generic ballot and in a lot of individual races, I’m not saying that’s not going to materialize. What I am more skeptical of is… the ability of any major party in this polarized era that we’re in to rack up significant gains in states that went double digits for the other side.

I’m not ruling out — I think there will be some [examples]. I think Alaska is one where it’s both an idiosyncratic state, and [Democratic nominee Mary] Peltola has shown some specific candidate-centered strength. Nor would it shock me if [Democrat] James Talarico wins, despite the history in Texas. That would not surprise me, just given the candidate quality disparity, particularly on the Ken Paxton side.

Where I get more skeptical is when you move into the Midwest, where there has historically been pretty large polling errors [overstating Democrats’ chances] in states like Iowa, Ohio. And I think you can extend that to the Democratic enthusiasm around Kansas.

Is your skepticism coming more from the quality of the individual polls that you’re seeing that are showing massive Democratic surges in the Midwest, or is it the history of these states that you’re betting will ultimately win out?

I think fundamentals are going to play an important role, particularly in states where there was a solid Trump advantage. We’re not talking about a state like North Carolina or Georgia that’s only for Trump narrowly, where Democrats, at least in the Senate races, are clearly favored.

Historically the presumption is that states tend to converge on their base partisanship in the closing days of an election, but especially that’s been the pattern in the Midwest.

Specifically as it relates to the polls this year, I think any pollster you would talk to, including myself, is experiencing significant non-response bias favoring Democrats.

When you’re seeing high-propensity Democrats [responding to polls] at twice the rate of high-propensity Republicans, when we know that the turnout on both sides would be roughly evenly paired, that’s a warning sign for polling in this cycle.

It seems like there’s some GOP internal polling saying that Republicans are worried about these states, because they are moving money around to triage certain races. I’m curious if you feel like they’re wrong to be making those decisions?

Absolutely not. They’re not wrong. You do have to take the polls somewhat seriously in the sense of, if you do get a poll that’s within the margin of error, I think you’re duty-bound to spend money in those places and not to ignore what could be a potential signal.

I think that control of the Senate comes down to Texas, so they’re right to be spending money there. If you just look at the amount of money being spent in Texas versus Kansas, obviously it’s a much, much bigger state, and you need to spend much more money.

But it’s not something along the lines of ‘the battleground has shifted. It’s a foregone conclusion. Democrats are going to win the Senate,’ and then the battleground entirely shifts to a state like Kansas or to Iowa, right? I don’t think we’re seeing that.

It sounds like the issue you have is how the broader public is interpreting these polls rather than the polls themselves?

The polls are, I think, intentionally inflating the size of the battleground. And to some extent it’s happening both ways. The polls showing a margin-of- error race in Minnesota is possible, right? I’m not as concerned about a polling error in Minnesota as I am in Kansas.

But because of the number of Democratic internals and because of the incentive of Democratic internals to show close races across the battleground, what you generally tend to see is more of an inflated sense of how big the battleground actually is. A lot of these races just break a certain way.

We’ve reported that Republicans are privately conceding that the House is lost. Is that your reading of the data too?

That’s the best reading of the data. That said, if there’s a three-point polling error or something, then I think it gets very, very tight and anything can happen. But I think that’s the most likely outcome.

What is your prediction for the number of Senate seats Republicans will have?

My prediction for both the probability and the seat count is 50-50. There’s a 50-50 chance Republicans hold the Senate. I think if they do, it’s with 50 seats, probably. But obviously, that can tilt very easily.

Which of these states do you think are going to flip for Democrats?

Alaska is clearly favored. I mean, I don’t know if it’s clearly favored, but I think it’s at least still Democrat. I think Texas is going to be very, very close. I just think the partisanship of the state is — people forget it’s a little bit more Republican than it was back in 2018. I think Republicans are probably being underestimated in Ohio because of the past Midwestern polling error.

At the same time, I would say it’s still uphill in Maine and Michigan to some degree. I think Susan Collins has really been the lone bright spot, at least in terms of the conventional wisdom, the narrative in the Senate for Republicans. I think she has a fighting chance, but I think Republicans are still probably under a 50% chance in both Michigan and Maine, just due to the nature of their partisan lean.

If at the end of all of this it is a real blue wave in the Senate, what will have happened to have made you wrong?

If that happens, we will have seen a level of depolarization in the electorate that we haven’t seen since around 2012. You really have to go back in history for a state like Kansas to flip.That would be pretty unique historically, where it’s a flip where you have an incumbent losing.

That’s the kind of thing that used to happen in Senate races a lot, and then things, starting with Trump, got a lot more polarized. So what that would mean is, maybe this is the start of a new political era. But I think it would be somewhat of a historic shift if that were to happen.

Politics

Ohio returns as a bellwether

Published

7 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ohio returns as a bellwether

lead image

Politics

Inside the quiet money pullback — for both parties — in Georgia’s Senate race

Published

8 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The money spigot is sputtering in Georgia’s Senate race amid growing expectations that Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff will win reelection.

The Senate Leadership Fund, Republicans’ top Senate super PAC, did not spend on broadcast television in the state last week — the first week they were off air in the race, according to tracking firm AdImpact. Neither did Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC.

Senate Majority PAC will also be dark again this week, the Chuck Schumer-aligned group shared first with Blue Light News. It was not immediately clear whether SLF would follow suit. The group declined to comment on their future spending plans in the state.

The spending slowdown underscores how dramatically Georgia’s place on the Senate map has shifted, as Ossoff maintains wide margins over Republican Rep. Mike Collins in public polling and fundraising. Georgia was expected to be one of the cycle’s most expensive and preeminent battlegrounds — now some of the biggest outside spenders are pulling back and turning their attention to more competitive races in redder territory.

The two major Senate super PACs have closely mirrored each other’s spending decisions in recent weeks, with neither fully retreating from the state. They still both technically have future ad reservations booked past this week, but those are not binding, leaving both sides with the flexibility to redirect money as they assess the Senate map. And with two weeks until Election Day and early voting already underway in Georgia, it’s unclear whether either will spend any more in the state.

“National Republicans are abandoning Mike Collins as he continues to show Georgians why he’s unelectable and unfit for office. We are committed to seeing Jon Ossoff through to victory as we come to the final days of this campaign,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.

Collins’ campaign, in a statement, said they were “grateful to every group that’s standing with Rep. Collins and welcome their continued support.”

“With early voting underway, he’s working every day to earn the vote of every Georgian, because Jon Ossoff is a radical leftist who wants to raise their taxes and make their families less safe. Rep. Collins will keep making that case until Ossoff is held accountable on Election Day,” Collins spokesperson Meyer Siegfried said in a statement.

Ossoff’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

SMP had pledged in the spring to spend $20 million on television for the race, but as of Friday had only spent or reserved $11.5 million, per AdImpact. SLF had announced an initial $44 million investment, but has so far only spent or reserved roughly $20 million.

No Going Back PAC, which is affiliated with President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, has also dramatically scaled back its own spending on the race over the last two weeks, according to AdImpact.

Republican operatives are still monitoring Georgia’s governor’s race, where recent public polling shows GOP nominee Rick Jackson slightly ahead of Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms. Republicans believe Jackson’s strength could keep the Senate race closer than currently expected.

But they have grown increasingly pessimistic about their prospects of flipping Georgia’s Senate seat, as Collins trails Ossoff in the polls and the overall environment for the GOP continues to grow more difficult. SLF’s decision to go dark last week — so close to the election — raises questions about how much more the group will ultimately invest in the state.

“Every dollar Schumer spends in Georgia is one not spent on offense in red states. Republicans’ financial advantage doesn’t just show up in more ads, it keeps Dems on defense,” a person familiar with SLF’s spending plans told Blue Light News.

Ossoff also holds a massive fundraising advantage over Collins, who had just over $1 million cash on hand as of Oct. 1, giving Ossoff a major financial cushion in the final stretch even before the major Senate super PACs pulled back their spending.

The GOP has been triaging races across the map: SLF shifted money out of North Carolina, another perennial battleground, while moving resources toward defending GOP-held seats in states like Kansas and South Carolina, where the Senate contests have become increasingly competitive.

Still, even as the money going into Georgia has continued to slow, Trump appears to be prioritizing the longtime battleground.

At a rally in Dalton on Friday, he urged voters to “pretend” he’s on the ballot, while praising Collins and the state’s GOP governor’s nominee, Rick Jackson.

Meredith Lee Hill and Andrew Howard contributed.