General Election year polling opens with LAB having small leads and a big divide over the Greens

General Election year polling opens with LAB having small leads and a big divide over the Greens

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The first two polls of 2015 pic.twitter.com/fzK2c1eIFp — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 6, 2015 The first two pollsters to report at start of 2010 had CON leads of 9% & 10%. At GE10 CON vote lead was 7.3% — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 6, 2015 YouGov now follow Survation & ComRes in prompting for UKIP So the the general election year polling begins with LAB on small leads from the online pollsters which poll most often, Populus and YouGov. Not…

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PB Nighthawks is now open

PB Nighthawks is now open

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Home of the web’s best political conversation Relax, and converse into the night on the day’s events in PB Nighthawks. If you’ve always been a lurker, why not take the final few Steps, and become a poster on PB, it would be a Tragedy if we missed your contributions, hopefully this will set off a Chain Reaction amongst you lurkers and at least 5,6,7,8 of you lurkers will delurk, The round up of recent events (click on the links below,…

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Main party switchers to UKIP in the key battlegrounds represent just on 11% of the overall vote

Main party switchers to UKIP in the key battlegrounds represent just on 11% of the overall vote

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Putting UKIP’s polling into perspective Interesting that the two peaks came after the UKIP success in the Euros and then just after the Douglas Carswell defection. These figures are quite a bit lower than the normal shares for the purples that we see. This is because they are confined to 2010 main party voters only. Balance of support came from OTH or “did not vote”. Secondly they are from the key CON-LAB marginals where you’d expect UKIP to be squeezed…

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At GE2010 1 in 6 are thought to have voted tactically and the signs are that it could be even more prevalent at GE15

At GE2010 1 in 6 are thought to have voted tactically and the signs are that it could be even more prevalent at GE15

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How will the parties deal with the messaging challenges? Suddenly, it seems, the Westminster village has woken up to the idea that in the new complex and much more multi-partied political environment tactical voting looks set to play a much bigger role. We all think we know what we mean by this. Supporters of party A, which is not seen to be in contention in a particular constituency, are encouraged to vote for party B, which is, in the hope…

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Boris might be a CON election winner but it could be that he just gets over-stated in the polls

Boris might be a CON election winner but it could be that he just gets over-stated in the polls

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Look at what happened with his 2012 election Hills have cut their odds for Boris Johnson to be the next Prime Minister from 8/1 to 6/1 second favourite behind 4/5 favourite Ed Miliband. This seems weird because just about the only chance there is of a vacancy occurring is if Cameron wins the election when he’ll remain at Number 10. The mayor’s big opportunity will most likely come if Dave loses or he decides to step down in a few…

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3½ weeks before GE2010 leading pollsters were asked to make predictions: All but one said CON majority

3½ weeks before GE2010 leading pollsters were asked to make predictions: All but one said CON majority

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In a similar exercise reported today the consensus is a hung parliament Poll of the pollsters: Labour by a whisker… the polling firms place their bets for May http://t.co/s2lm5b0Pfd — IndyPolitics (@IndyPolitics) January 4, 2015 Whenever I get asked to make political predictions I now say that that is not what gamblers do. What we do is to make an assessment of what’s on offer and decide whether it is worth a punt or not. So if you think that…

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More than a quarter of UKIP voters would prefer a LAB government and fewer than a third want a CON one

More than a quarter of UKIP voters would prefer a LAB government and fewer than a third want a CON one

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More polling that undermines notion that UKIP voters are "Tories on holiday" A quarter would prefer LAB government pic.twitter.com/bBvTsAd2iX — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 3, 2015 Tonight’s poll Tonight's Opinium poll for Observer sees LAB lead down from 7% to 1% CON 32+3 LAB 33-3 LD 8+2 UKIP 17+1 GRN 4%-1 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 3, 2015 The tend in Opinium polls for the Observer pic.twitter.com/6hcx13yGVW — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) January 3, 2015 Important to remember that GE15 not a national party popularity contest – but…

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Raising the expectations game

Raising the expectations game

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pic.twitter.com/WJ3lPQIUPB — PolPics (@PolPics) December 14, 2014 David Herdson on the GE2015 battle over the economy The cost of living crisis: five words that are likely to be repeated by Labour and the unions for another four months at least; yesterday’s rail fare increases being just the latest opportunity. For the opposition, it’s an easy hit and an easy narrative: the cost of x is rising faster than wages therefore people are getting worse off therefore the government is a…

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