Are LDs viewing the battle differently in the marginals?
Is this just a quirk or an election pointer?
As PB regulars will know I keep a close eye each month on the forced choice question that is put in the Telegraph’s YouGov poll. It’s been done in the same format for years and the party split might be an indicator of potential tactical voting.
For a long period, up to the past couple of years Lib Dem supporters were much more inclined to respond “Labour under Brown” rather than “the Conservatives under Cameron”. That started to change and over the past six months the LD voters in the national polls were putting the Tories ahead, if only by a point or two.
In the latest poll Labour had edged into the lead again with this group of voters. I was about to write about this move and I thought I’d better check the poll of northern marginals which was carried out for the paper at the same.
And wow. Look at the difference. Nationally Labour had a 3 point edge amongst this segment – but in the marginals poll they were trailing by 16 points.
As far as I can see this question has not been asked in a YouGov marginals poll before so we have no comparative data. Also in LAB>CON marginals the Lib Dems have been squeezed sharply so the size of the party’s sub-sample is quite small.
This might be nothing – but something could be going on there.