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Category: General Election

Three words pollsters would rather you didn’t mention; differential non response

Three words pollsters would rather you didn’t mention; differential non response

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A special column by ex-ICM boss & polling pioneer, Nick Sparrow While trumpeting the fact that samples are representative of the adult population, researchers seldom, if ever, publish response rate data. Truth is that for telephone polls, response rates are frighteningly low and falling. The reasons for this are varied, but include the fact that many of us have become wary of calls from strangers, having been bombarded with unsolicited sales calls and by “suggers”, the industry term for people…

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Clegg’s YouGov ratings were substantially better than Corbyn’s now getting just before the election that saw his party almost wiped out

Clegg’s YouGov ratings were substantially better than Corbyn’s now getting just before the election that saw his party almost wiped out

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me> Corbynistas in denial about his dire ratings – historically best pointer to GE outcomes. Chart via @liamjlhill pic.twitter.com/w4rR3LGPyw — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 27, 2015 One of the polling elements that I’ve been highlighting in recent weeks is how leader ratings have proved to be a better pointer to electoral outcomes than voting intention polling. The above charts seek to put into context Corbyn’s latest ratings. Clearly there’s four and a half years still to go and things can…

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The GE2015 polls weren’t wrong – we were just looking at the wrong numbers

The GE2015 polls weren’t wrong – we were just looking at the wrong numbers

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Leader ratings have proved a far better guide to election outcomes A month today, on January 19th, the investigation into what went wrong with the general election polling will be announcing its findings at a special event in London. No doubt all sorts of tweaks will come out of it but the main factor. I’d argue, is that we (and I include myself in that) paid far far too much attention to the voting intention numbers. In almost every case…

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The Labour share of the vote in 2020

The Labour share of the vote in 2020

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Ladbrokes have a market up on whether Labour’s share of the vote will rise or fall at the next general election. My initial reaction was to back ‘fall’ because of the appalling personal polling figures that Jeremy Corbyn has, but to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there’s quite a few known unknowns about the next general election that might have an impact on this bet, they are, inter alia, We don’t know who will be leading the Conservative Party (whomever it is…

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The repeated Heathrow delays don’t square with Cameon’s image about being able to take tough decisions

The repeated Heathrow delays don’t square with Cameon’s image about being able to take tough decisions

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There’s a danger, as Gordon Brown found, in being labelled a “bottler” One of the features where Cameron generally polls very well is on the ability to take tough decisions. A couple of months ago Opinium found 40% thought saying ‘being able to take tough decisions’ best described David Cameron compared to 16% saying the same about Jeremy Corbyn. In a pre-GE2015 comparison between Cameron and Boris the PM had a big lead over the mayor on the tough decision…

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At 10.30 am we’ll find out if the 2nd by-election of the 2015 parliament will be in Orkney and Shetland

At 10.30 am we’ll find out if the 2nd by-election of the 2015 parliament will be in Orkney and Shetland

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UPDATE Carmichael cleared Wednesday's The National front page:Carmichael:Judgment Day#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers #scotpapers pic.twitter.com/mVRAzpxg2w — Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) December 8, 2015 The election court will announce its decision in the Carmichael case If the case goes against the former Scottish Secretary then the LDs could lose the one seat in Scotland they hold and have to fight a by-election. Based on what happened in the Phil Woolas case in 2010 the Speaker might delay calling a vacancy in the constituency pending the…

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In a 140 charcacter tweet Glen O’Hara sums up the YouGov investigation into its GE2015 polling fail

In a 140 charcacter tweet Glen O’Hara sums up the YouGov investigation into its GE2015 polling fail

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Basically, too many pol engaged and/ or young people as a share of the sample. A bit like listening to Twitter. https://t.co/xoRZf2Klo9 — Glen O'Hara (@gsoh31) December 7, 2015 The big polling news tonight has been the publication of YouGov’s own inquiry into what went wrong. There’s a good summary by the firm’s Anthony Wells on his blog UK Polling report here. A real problem that has been mentioned many times before is that those who take part in political…

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