The polling that should worry Mrs May and all Tories
Comparing May's lead over Corbyn with @IpsosMORI's net satisfaction ratings compare with Cameron's lead over EdM 1 week before the election pic.twitter.com/Qn8CVeQQUE
— TSE (@TSEofPB) June 4, 2017
Mrs May has picked the worst time for her ratings to crater
With polls ranging from a Tory lead of 1% to 12%, and recent polling failures, it is wise to look at the various satisfaction/well/badly leadership ratings because they (coupled with best/most trusted on the economy) have consistently predicted the winner of the general election since the second world war, even when the headline voting intention figures have turned out be wrong.
Mrs May up until a few weeks ago had a commanding lead over Corbyn with all the pollsters on the leadership/approval ratings. As we can see with the above chart, with Ipsos MORI one week to go we can see with one week to go, her lead over Corbyn isn’t as large as Cameron’s lead over Ed Miliband at the equivalent stage, her lead over Corbyn was much larger than Cameron’s lead over Miliband a few weeks ago, but her ratings collapse is even more starker with YouGov, where she moved into negative territory for the first time during her Premiership.
Comparing May's @YouGov net well/badly ratings lead over Corbyn at the start of the campaign vs now. A 69% lead is now a 3% deficit pic.twitter.com/QJnY7NeYDl
— TSE (@TSEofPB) June 4, 2017
The only time I have seen such a swing between the PM and the Leader of the Opposition was when Gordon Brown decided to cancel a snap election in 2007, the similarities are eerie, a mandateless Prime Minister, who says they won’t hold a snap election, then changes their mind. And the last time I saw a Prime Minister trash their ratings like this was David Cameron during the run up to last year’s EU referendum.
Seasoned poll watchers, looking at past polling, do say that ‘A lot is made of leader ratings, but they matter less and less as Election Day approaches’ Mrs May has picked a really bad time for her ratings to fall, as David Cameron and Gordon Brown can attest, it’s only downhill from here. She’s very lucky to be facing Jeremy Corbyn, a better Leader of the Opposition would have made exploited her ratings fall, in the way David Cameron did when Gordon Brown’s ratings fell.