Is Easterross right – “The SW will be a Lib Dem free-zone”?
PoliticsHome MegaMarginals poll Oct 2009
What does the polling show?
Ever since the PoliticsHome mega marginals survey came out at the start of October I’ve been planning to do specific threads on each of the seat segments that were included within the 33,000 sample survey.
What’s prompted me to do something now is a comment on the previous thread Easterross in which he asserted that “Cornwall, Devon and Somerset will be ALMOST LibDem free zones come 10th May 2010.” He was basing that on the county council election results from June.
He maybe indeed right but I think that we need to look back at the PH survey to examine what it predicted for the South West. The seats included are featured in the panel above and it should be noted that on top of the Tory gains listed it was suggested that Cheltenham, that wasn’t part, would also fall.
But many seats which are included in the current standard UNS swing projections would remain Lib Dem. This was down to a significant incumbency bonus for Clegg’s party as well as a high level of tactical voting by Labour supporters.
Let’s not forget the overall message from the poll – that the Tories are doing disproportionately better against Labour in many target-rich areas of England but were not making anything like the same progress in Lib Dems seats or those held by Labour in Scotland.
There will be many more polls of the marginals in the coming months including at least one from PB’s pollster, Angus Reid Strategies.
On the spread markets I’m a buyer of Lib Dem seats at 50 and 51 but I have no Tory or Labour positions.