As a general rule we over-estimate the impact of media stories on voting intentions
If #Eastleigh goes the way of the Ashcroft poll we’ll have to revise our view of the power of the press twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 26, 2013
The influence is on the decline
On the face of the Lib Dem should be taking a real beating in the polls at the moment. Since the Rennard story broke on Thursday evening there has been increasing coverage and the party’s response has been less than optimal.
But what’s happened in the voting polls that have come out? ComRes last night had a 1% decline in the LD share which the Telegraph’s Ben Brogan described as a “slump”. Eh?
Today’s YouGov has the party at 10% which is completely in line with where it has been for several months.
And on top of this we have the Ashcroft-Populus poll on Eastleigh showing no change on what the same firm reported on Friday evening.
As Peter Kellner writes today on the Rennard allegations:
“well, it’s not as if the public thought of politicians as people of the highest moral calibre before Channel 4 News shocked viewers by suggesting otherwise. Why should the Lib Dems’ diminished core vote erode further?”
I think there another big trend in play. Far fewer of us actually read papers or watch TV new bulletins. Things don’t get communicated in the same way.
Mike Smithson
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