Prior to the election, there was speculation, the pollsters weren’t picking up “Shy Kippers”.

Though every single phone poll underestimated UKIP, it was within an acceptable amount, and the largest errors were from the online polls from Panelbase and Survation, who overestimated UKIP by 3%.

The polls that underestimated UKIP, on average, underestimated UKIP by 1.6%, and the polls that overestimated, did so on average by 1.9%. The online pollsters overestimated UKIP by 0.8% and the phone underestimated UKIP by 1.7%.

So for shy Kippers in the phone polls and overrepresented Kippers in the online polls, yes the data does confirm that, but given the smallness of the errors, people shouldn’t put too much faith in the Shy Kippers meme.

In what has been a difficult few days for the pollsters, they can take some comfort that they at least got the UKIP share of the vote largely right.

TSE