The Conservative strategy to target Hindu and Sikh voters may have helped David Cameron to sweep into power.
According to new research, over one million ethnic minority votes were cast for the Tories – the highest share the party has ever enjoyed from an electoral group it has failed to connect with in the past reports Sky News.
The survey conducted for think-tank British Future shows Labour remains ahead with minority voters on 52%. But the gap is shrinking between the two main parties.
One third (33%) of ethnic minority voters supported the Conservatives in 2015. Liberal Democrats and Greens took 5% of the ethnic minority vote, with 2% voting for UKIP and 1% SNP.
Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, said: “Ethnic minority votes are more ‘up for grabs’ than ever before.
“While David Cameron clearly took a lot of votes from the Lib Dems in the election, he also seems to have extended his party’s appeal to ethnic minority voters, too.”
The findings are based on an estimated three million ethnic minority voters taking part in the election.
The results equate to 1.6 million votes for Labour, with the Conservatives securing 1 million ethnic minority votes for the first time in the party’s history.
The Lib Dems and Greens both secured around 150,000 ethnic minority votes, with UKIP on 60,000 and SNP on 40,000.
Mr Katwala says Labour found it hard to turn its support from ethnic minorities into electoral success because of where the votes were concentrated.