Browsed by
Author: MikeSmithson

Chances are that half of all the votes will have been cast by Monday

Chances are that half of all the votes will have been cast by Monday

Comments 0 Comment

Postal voting starts for the Euros pic.twitter.com/PrO0foV8JO — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 4, 2014 For them the elections are over The latest for postal vote packs to have gone out was yesterday and will have arrived this morning. Given what we know of how quickly postal voters generally act and the level of turnouts that these elections attract it is not too dramatic an assumption to say that getting on for half of all the votes have now been cast….

Read More Read More

EdM’s Labour is attracting far fewer Lib Dem converts for the May 22nd Euros than for the general election

EdM’s Labour is attracting far fewer Lib Dem converts for the May 22nd Euros than for the general election

Comments 0 Comment

The voter churn is much nuanced than many in the red team think The above chart is based on the last three Euro2014 polls where there were Westminster numbers as well. The figures shown are proportions of 2010 LDs saying they’ll vote LAB in the general election and those who’ll support the party in the May 22nd Euros. As can be seen there’s quite a difference which raises questions about the LAB strategy with this key group of voters who…

Read More Read More

Welcome back Marf and the second 35% share for LAB from YouGov this week

Welcome back Marf and the second 35% share for LAB from YouGov this week

Comments 0 Comment

@YouGov Two 35% LAB shares & a 37% this week – the worst period for LAB since Jul 2010. pic.twitter.com/qnEiLypmSF — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 9, 2014 Looking back over the past decade there’s little doubt that Westminster voting intentions can be all over the place in the closing phase of the Euro elections campaign. It happened in 2004 and 2009 so maybe there’s a case for saying that we oughtn’t to read too much into the current comparatively poor…

Read More Read More

The Tories still odds on to break the 25 year long series of failed by election defences while in government

The Tories still odds on to break the 25 year long series of failed by election defences while in government

Comments 0 Comment

The Tories still very strong favourite to hold Newark. Ukip now out to 5/1 pic.twitter.com/8cY37u9Vvs — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 8, 2014 Will this survive the first poll? So far I have not had confirmation that a Newark poll is in the pipeline but it is hard to envisage such a key contest taking place without a survey. Maybe we’ll have to wait until after the May 22nd elections. Until then punters are flying blind. Will UKIP’s Roger Helmer split…

Read More Read More

The Populus monthly aggregates show LAB losing a seventh of its 2010 LD switchers over the past quarter

The Populus monthly aggregates show LAB losing a seventh of its 2010 LD switchers over the past quarter

Comments 0 Comment

The red team’s electoral crutch is getting shorter One of the best polling innovations this year has been the Populus monthly aggregates for the FT based on its twice weekly online polls. Whilst there can be greater variation in individual polls the aggregate helps us see the bigger picture and here, as the chart shows, the LAB shares have been edging downwards. Digging into the poll detail one of the reasons might be a lessening of the level of 2010…

Read More Read More

Lord Ashcroft teases us about his latest poll of the marginals. Can anyone decipher this?

Lord Ashcroft teases us about his latest poll of the marginals. Can anyone decipher this?

Comments 0 Comment

What a tease @LordAshcrof is. His exchange with @DPJHodges Does this mean new marginals poll is good or bad for EdM? pic.twitter.com/I7S8dtP3Z9 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 7, 2014 Just to note that Telegraph blogger, Dan Hodges, is an ex-LAB staffer who has never knowingly written anything that is positive about the younger Miliband. My reading of the exchange is that there’s been little movement in the marginals – but maybe I’m wrong. We’ll know two weeks on Saturday. Mike…

Read More Read More

Labour showing that is doesn’t understand the current electoral dyanmic

Labour showing that is doesn’t understand the current electoral dyanmic

Comments 0 Comment

What Labour's petty attack ad, sorry PPB, tells me is they have no economic plan and nothing positive to say. Petty politics. — Tim Farron (@timfarron) May 7, 2014 On this @DPJHodges is right. LAB PPB is shallow & silly and could alienate LD switchers on which all party's GE2015 hopes are dependent on. — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 7, 2014

UKIP Euro voters are more than twice as likely to say they’ll support party in general election compared with five years ago

UKIP Euro voters are more than twice as likely to say they’ll support party in general election compared with five years ago

Comments 0 Comment

The first data from the 20,000 sample British Election Study Exactly a year to go and this morning I’m off to London for the launch of the British Election Study – a huge academic exercise involving Manchester/Oxford/Nottingham universities which is monitoring and will produce regular reports on the coming general election. The chart above is from findings that have been released overnight as a sort of taster. They seek to answer the big unknown – the extent that UKIP support…

Read More Read More