Almost all the online polls when tested against real results last Thursday overstated UKIP
As first revealed on #newsnight, online polls seem to be overestimating support for #Brexit https://t.co/zgTmJPLs7Z pic.twitter.com/Wahc54HTFc
— Matt Singh (@MattSingh_) May 10, 2016
This looks like a good pointer to referendum polling
Well done to Matt Singh for picking up this – how in the range of elections last Thursday the online pollsters across the board appeared to be over-stating UKIP. His analysis covers the London as well as the Scottish and Welsh elections.
The details are in the chart from his Tweet above and appear to make a convincing case which given the gap we are seeing between phone and online on the June 23rd referendum could be highly relevant as we follow the polls for that massive election.
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We saw exactly the same broad pattern in the 2014 Euro elections when UKIP finished on 27%. Opinium and Survation’s final polls had the party on 32%, ComRes 33% and TNS on 31%. The YouGov online poll got UKIP spot on. ICM online undershot by 2.
At the last year’s general election, not admittedly the polling industry’s finest hour, we saw the same split with online having larger UKIP shares than the phone firms.
As can be seen from the table below the gap between phone and online ahead of the referendum is very marked.
A key factor, I believe, is that UKIP polling support is heaviest in those socio economic groups which have a long record of being less likely to vote.