The big difference between the UNITE and Lord Ascroft Hallam polls was the latter’s two stage voting question

The big difference between the UNITE and Lord Ascroft Hallam polls was the latter’s two stage voting question

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Response to Ashcroft first question

Second stage when it’s candidates in specific seats

The overnight UNITE/Survation Sheffield poll which had LAB with a 9% lead highlights the very different approaches of Survation and Lord Ashcroft.

The single Survation question: “Let’s say the General Election was tomorrow. Which party would you vote for in your Sheffield Hallam constituency?”

The first Ashcroft question: If there was a general election tomorrow, which party would you vote for? Would it be: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, UK Independence Party (UKIP) or another party?”

The second Ashcroft question: “And thinking specifically about your own constituency and the candidates who are likely to stand there, which party’s candidate do you think you will vote for in your own constituency at the next general election?”

This is a tricky one and an issue over which there has been a lot of debate within the industry. Is the candidate based approach in single seat polls giving us more of an accurate picture. The point, of course, is that we elect individual in Westminster seats not parties.

I understand that in some of the private constituency polling that’s being carried that, with Lib Dem seats in particular, there can be a big uplift when the name of an incumbent MP is mentioned. We also see this with the Greens in Brighton Pavillion and the in CON and LAB seats where the MP is well known.

No doubt that Alex Salmond candidature in Gordon helped him get a lift on the second question in yesterday’s the Gordon poll.

Mike Smithson

For 11 years viewing politics from OUTSIDE the Westminster bubble


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