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Category: Polls

Will a new PH marginals poll show the same trends?

Will a new PH marginals poll show the same trends?

PoliticsHome Sept 2008 How many seats will the Tories get in Scotland? My understanding is that PoliticsHome is considering updating its massive marginals polling exercise that sought to make predictions for 238 battle-ground seats in the coming election. This is great news for as we get closer to the general election and more betting markets open up I find myself relying more and more and on the massive survey last year in which more 34,000 voters were questioned. Featured above…

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Does Fred’s pension put stopping the Tories beyond reach?

Does Fred’s pension put stopping the Tories beyond reach?

How can minsters claim competence after agreeing to this? The numbers involved are on such a scale that it’s hard for the ordinary voter to comprehend the crisis that the financial system has been going through in the past five months. The challenge for ministers has been to appear confident and competent without being complacent. And for the most part since then the government has given off an aura of knowing what it’s doing which has been picked up in…

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The Tories down 3 points with YouGov

The Tories down 3 points with YouGov

Updated CON 41(-3) LAB 31(-1) LD 15(+1) But there’s still a double digit lead? The Daily Telegraph’s YouGov survey for February is just out and as predicted on the previous thread is showing a 10 point Tory lead. The changes are all within the margin of error though they do offer a spot of comfort to Labour. Interestingly the best poll findings for Brown’s party are coming from the on-line pollster at the moment and the margin is the smallest…

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Could a 12% Tory lead still not be enough?

Could a 12% Tory lead still not be enough?

UK Polling Report Is the outcome much closer than it appears? There will be 650 members of the next house of commons and if David Cameron’s Conservatives are going to win a majority then they will need a total of 325 seats or more. And if you input the numbers from today’s Guardian ICM poll into the UKPollingReport you get a projected total of 353 seats – or 28 above the magic number. This gives a comfortable overall majority of…

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Is Rentoul’s polling commentry mis-leading?

Is Rentoul’s polling commentry mis-leading?

Could over-stating Labour be a thing of the past? John Rentoul in his latest column for the IoS makes some observations about the polls which I believe are out of date and could give a misleading view of what will happen at the next election. He writes: “…Of course, the quirks of the system mean that the Conservative share of the vote has to be eight percentage points larger than Labour’s to win a Commons majority. But I suspect that…

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Can Cameron convince public sector workers?

Can Cameron convince public sector workers?

Ipsos-MORI Are public purse voters the bedrock of Labour support? Last July Ipsos-MORI introduced a novel new weighting to try to deal with the over-representation of Labour supporters in polling samples. Unlike the other polling firms who weight by past vote or past party ID MORI now split their samples into those who are on the public pay-roll and those who are not. Just look at the chart above to see two key elements. Conventional telephone polling seems to reach…

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Is now the time to take this back off the shelf?

Is now the time to take this back off the shelf?

PoliticsHome Sept 2008 Are September’s projections still applicable? Last September the then new PoliticsHome site published an amazing poll that covered more than 34,000 separate online interviews in a total of 238 parliamentary constituencies where the big battles at the next election are going to be fought. The sample was seventeen times the current maximum for the polling of marginals and the PH team, in conjunction with YouGov, devised some interesting approaches to testing things like tactical voting. Fieldwork was…

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What happens if a proportional swing is applied?

What happens if a proportional swing is applied?

Could this affect Commons seats projections? Most people with an interest in politics and election outcomes are familiar with the term – Uniform National Swing. But how many understand how the numbers are made up and that there are two very different approaches to making the calculations. I raise this because I have to admit that until not so long ago I got it all wrong. My assumption was that if Party A was up by a tenth on the…

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