Nigel Farage held Clacton with 63.3% to Count Binface’s 26.9%, a margin of 36 points. The satirical candidate Count Binface took more than a quarter of the vote. Our July poll had already started to show the movements behind the numbers.

What was Binface’s range?

Our July poll for Mandate Research – 502 adults, 16th to 24th July – put Farage on 73% and Binface on 20% on a named ballot, with the last 7% scattered across a 34-candidate field.

When voters were asked to choose in a head-to-head between Farage and Binface alone, Binface climbed to 31% – showing the increase in protest vote when there was only one anti-Farage vehicle.

We went back to Clacton voters on 11th August with a poll of 102 adults that didn’t prompt candidate names at all. The aim was to find out whether the Binface and Farage numbers were being inflated by name recognition among 34 candidates. Binface came back at 21%. Whether named or unnamed, three weeks apart, one voter in five said Binface.

How the final result measured up

Binface’s 26.9% sits between the two July findings: above the named ballot’s 20%, and below the head-to-head’s 31%. It is possible his high-profile campaign carried him past the 20% baseline, while the 32 other names on the paper stopped the anti-Farage vote consolidating fully behind him. The remaining 10% of the vote went to minor candidates – close to the 7% our standard ballot found. 

Where Farage’s ten points went

The fall from our published 73% to the declared 63% was likely not Farage’s voters leaving, but undecideds breaking against him.

Asked in the same July poll to choose in a head-to-head between Farage and Binface, 98% of his ballot supporters stayed with him in that straight choice. The movement came from minor-candidate voters, who went to Binface four to one, and from the undecideds – most (58%) would not choose at all, but those who would broke heavily to Binface. That forced choice put Farage on 69% to 31%, which ended as 63% to 37% as the field split in the by-election result.

Voter retention does not appear to be an issue for Farage, with his base holding firm. Our July poll showed that 97% of 2024 Reform voters would back him again in the by-election if they voted on the full ballot. The poll also put Reform on 57% in Clacton if there were a general election – an 11pp increase on 2024.

A bloc assembled around a man in a bin

With no Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat candidate standing, 37% of Clacton voted against Farage, and 27% gathered behind a single candidate: Count Binface. The major parties may reasonably view this as a ready-made anti-Farage bloc.

The 63% is boosted by the absence of the mainstream parties – with those parties on the paper in 2024, Farage won here on 46.2%. In this by-election, anti-Farage voters simply took the most obvious vehicle available.

At a general election, or even another by-election, with major parties running proper campaigns, that same bloc becomes easier to consolidate. A credible Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat candidate would give tactical voters a far stronger focal point than Count Binface. The question for the major parties now is not whether that vote exists, but whether it can be effectively organised.

The broader implication is what this means for a general election. Reform’s support is held up by a seemingly solid base, but contested by a bloc of voters willing to take any vehicle to oppose them – including the man in the bin.

Methodology

Survation’s Clacton polling comprised a telephone (CATI) poll of 502 adults, 16th to 24th July 2026, for Mandate Research, using a named ballot plus a Farage-versus-Binface head-to-head, as well as an unprompted telephone poll of 102 adults on 11th August 2026 that read out no candidate names. Both were weighted to the profile of the constituency by age, sex, ward, 2024 general election vote, 2016 EU referendum vote, qualification and employment, with voting intention factored by likelihood to vote.

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