CON 37%(39)
LAB 27%(25)
LD 20%(17)
OTHERS 16% (19)

But have the seat calculators got it right?

There’s a new poll out tonight from ComRes for tomorrow’s Independent which has the Tory lead down to ten points but with the Lib Dem continuing to do well.

For the Tories another poll having them below the 40 mark might add to the jitters as we enter the run in period to the election. Only ICM of the six firms that regularly poll UK opinion has recorded a share above that mark.

The simple additive seat calculators are suggesting that this would leave Cameron just short of a majority though it has to be said that these have never been tested when there has been such a chunk of support going to others.

So we get the odd situation that if the lead had stayed exactly the same as this poll’s 10 points but with shares of C41 - L31 then the projection would be for an overall majority.

As I’ve been arguing for a few weeks I’m far from convinced that the projectors can cope with “others” in the mid-teens.

Mike Smithson

Is the wise strategy not to bet on exit polls?

If there is a huge increase in the number of day-time counts, as many are predicting, then the general election exit poll is going to become even more important.

For its projections will be what will dominate perceptions of the election for several hours and maybe into the following morning.

Arrangements, I understand, have been made for just one such survey to be mounted which will feed all the main outlets. The field-work will be carried out by Ipsos-MORI and the analysis and projections will be in the hands of a team of professional psephologists including Professors Curtice, Rallings and Thrasher.

They’ve got quite a task on their hands although in 2005 the exit poll projection of Tony Blair’s majority proved to be very good.

Factors that will make it much more complicated are that in England and Wales there are new boundaries and we are likely to see a bigger share going to “others” than ever before in modern times. How accurate are the calculations on the 2005 notional results?

In my betting I have a long record of making my biggest mistakes on elections days themselves. I’m resolved not to do so again next time.

Mike Smithson

Mike

CON 37 LAB 36 LD 17
ComRes: Nov 30 2008

UKPollingReport

Whatever happened to Brown’s Bank Bailout Bounce?

On November 30 2008, precisely a year ago today, ComRes finished their monthly poll for the Independent which had Labour just one point behind - figures which suggested that Mr. Brown was within a whisker of an overall Labour majority.

This followed an extraordinary couple of months after his widely acknowledged role in the bank bailout - not just for the UK but globally as well. His confidence was at a high and the media narrative was with him and his party.

At the time, as the PB thread shows, the initial reaction was to dismiss the survey as a rogue but other surveys in the run-up to Christmas suggested that the gap was narrowing sharply though to nothing like the margin that ComRes was showing.

Perhaps the most startling was ICM’s December Guardian survey which found a margin of just five points compared with the fifteen recorded only three weeks earlier. Something was happening out there.

Then we had Mr. Brown “saviour of the world” slip at PMQs and the collapse of Woolworths. The mood started to turn and the poll gap edged up again.

Was December 2008, I often wonder, the last time that Brown could have gone to the country and staved off a Tory victory? His argument could not have been more simple. The challenges required a government with a clear mandate not constrained by an imminent general election.

Brown didn’t and the spring of 2009 saw the Damien McBride dismissal and the MPs expenses explosion.

Mike Smithson

YouGov/Citizenship Foundation

But how much importance can we attach to it?

Thanks to Gabble for spotting that YouGov have put up on their web-site the result of a 4,000 sample poll of 14 - 25 years olds which was carried out over the past fortnight.

The dataset runs to an enormous 200 pages and covers a whole range of issues about this age group’s view of the politics.

There was a voting intention question which asked “Which TWO or THREE, if any of the following political parties are you MOST likely to vote for at the next General Election you can vote in or will you not vote? (Please tick up to three options.)” making it difficult to draw conclusions.

As far as I can see the only question where respondents were asked to choose between the parties is the one above and each of the three main parties is “winning” in at least one segment.

Labour are ahead amongst the 16/17 years old

Lib Dems are ahead in the oldest segment - the 24/25 year olds

Conservatives are ahead in all the other segments

The only ones who can vote, of course, are those of 18 and above and, quite surprisingly, there is not that much support for lowering the age of voting as Labour has suggested.

Mike Smithson