What do we think of the Anthony Wells explanation? YouGov staffer and operator of UKPollingReport, Anthony Wells, has put up a long post seeking to answer some of the points about the firm’s weightings that have appeared here in recent days. The essence of his article is that there have been adjustments to deal with the new way it is doing the daily poll which do not involve members of its panel being asked to take part in a specific…
CON 29% (21.4) LAB 37% (42.7) LD 12% (18.4) PC 14% (12.6) But the Tories are down on January A new YouGov poll of Welsh Westminster voting intentions points to a 6.6% swing to the Tories since the May 2005 general election and the possibility of eight gains. The comparisons above are from the last general election. But in spite of all this the poll shows a significant weakening of the Tory position there since the last such poll in…
Will ICM and Populus be going with the flow? One of the difficulties looking at current polling is that YouGov are doing so many surveys that they almost drown out everybody else – and we have not heard for some time from the two firms, ICM and Populus, which will be going into this election using the same broad methodology as in 2005. All the other firms doing monthly surveys – YouGov, ComRes, Angus Reid and Ipsos-MORI – are either…
CON 38% (38) LAB 32% (32) LD 17%(19) So what IS going to move the numbers? The incredibly consistent daily poll continues to remain very stable – unmoved by bullygate and now by Michael Ashcroft – that you begin to wonder what could change the numbers. The Tories would feel much more comfortable if they were back in the 40s while the Labour recovery appears to have run out of steam a bit. With the Lib Dems down two then…
UPDATED But the swing is only two points better A YouGov poll for Channel 4 in 60 key seats by YouGov has the gap between the parties down to just two points – but given what happened in the seats in 2005 this represents a 6.5% swing. This compares with a swing of 4.5% in recent national YouGov polls. As Anthony Wells points out at UKPR the differential is consistent with previous YouGov marginals polls. Here is the link. I’m…
BBC News There’s been news within the past half hour that the Electoral Commission is to rule that donations to the Tory party by a company owned the controversial deputy chair, Michael Ashcroft, have been declared to be legal. The body has been examining 173 donations totally more than five million pounds in the five years up to February 2008. This will obviously help him and his party and take some of the sting away from the attacks. If the…
What’ll be the consequences in the marginals? Did I miss the glaringly obvious when I wrote that I did not know what had caused the 3% boost for the Lib Dems in the overnight YouGov daily poll for the Sun? For the reason was plain to see as Mike L commented on the previous thread: “Last night’s news was dominated by the announcement of the Leader Debates – Clegg was side by side on split screen with Brown and Cameron…
CON 38% (38) LAB 32% (33) LD 19%(16) And the Lib Dems move up three Apart from that blip at the weekend when the Tory lead slipped to just two points the daily poll has had pretty stable figures and tonight’s numbers are no exception. The Tories stable, Labour down one and the Lib Dems up three. Given that the big political story has continued to be Lord Aschroft’s tax affairs then the Tories will be a tad relieved that…