How online polls are producing higher LAB and UKIP shares while phone surveys are best for the LDs and Greens

How online polls are producing higher LAB and UKIP shares while phone surveys are best for the LDs and Greens

CON is about the same under either approach After my post last night on how there is a big gap between phone and online polling on the CON+LAB aggregates I decided to take this a bit further looking at how each party fared under each approach. The results, based on the last public polls of nine firms, are featured in the chart above. Essentially LAB and UKIP do better with the online polling while the LDs and Greens come out…

Read More Read More

Daily Express reporting new poll with UKIP in second place

Daily Express reporting new poll with UKIP in second place

Daily Express reporting on its front page that UKIP in SECOND place in new poll. No details of the pollster. pic.twitter.com/rOQHv6Goeq — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 23, 2014 No other details known at the moment UPDATE Could the ExprEss poll be this Sun readers' survey which IS NOT A PROPER POLL. Known in business as a "voodoo poll" pic.twitter.com/M6DwP7KT7T — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 23, 2014 2nd Update 0430 The poll appears to be based on a subset of Sun…

Read More Read More

Here’s a funny thing. Polls that carry out fieldwork online are 3-9 points more favourable to the “big 2” than phone surveys

Here’s a funny thing. Polls that carry out fieldwork online are 3-9 points more favourable to the “big 2” than phone surveys

The big methodology difference is in sampling. The phone firms used randomised dialling and theoretically anybody with a landline, and now mobile, can be included. Online polls are generally carried out amongst members of a polling panel who perhaps are slightly different from the electorate as a whole in they’ve signed up in the first place and are doing the survey for money. It was only when I was looking through recent findings from the different firms that I found…

Read More Read More

The NT should repeat “This House” – a taste of what happens when you have a minority government

The NT should repeat “This House” – a taste of what happens when you have a minority government

This should be screened again before May 7th Suddenly people are talking about a possible minority government after the general election because of the way the maths appear at the moment. With the polls looking so tight with UKIP and the SNP expected to have much bigger contingents at Westminster it’s quite likely that neither LAB or CON will secure a majority and a future coalition very difficult to achieve. Last year I wrote enthusiastically about James Graham’s “This House”…

Read More Read More

Marf on a great PB gathering at Dirty Dicks and the Saturday night rolling polling blog

Marf on a great PB gathering at Dirty Dicks and the Saturday night rolling polling blog

Thanks Marf for capturing the spirit of last night’s PB gathering at Dirty Dicks in the City of London. This was the best attended PB event that we’ve ever had and it was great to compare notes and betting strategies with fellow PBers. The pub was absolutely packed with Friday night drinkers that our little corner felt very over-crowded at first but it worked well and I, for one, had a great time. We had people with five different party…

Read More Read More

Latest betting prices – GE2015 and possible UKIP defections

Latest betting prices – GE2015 and possible UKIP defections

Only change on Sporting Index http://t.co/56fhx8BJCR GE spreads. LDs up one seat pic.twitter.com/1P3z6gIpFO — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 22, 2014 William Hill betting http://t.co/orbZ1ewJDz UKIP 5/1 to be part of a coalition – 18 months ago they were 33/1 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 22, 2014 William Hill http://t.co/orbZ1ewJDz now make CON 4/6 to win back Rochester. Yesterday morning they were 2/1 — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) November 22, 2014

David Herdson on Saturday: We might have passed peak UKIP?

David Herdson on Saturday: We might have passed peak UKIP?

pic.twitter.com/r9B3dMy5oD — PolPics (@PolPics) November 22, 2014 Is the message from Rochester that 2015 will be ‘close but no cigar’ for Team Farage? Politics can be a contradictory old business. In many ways, UKIP has been the Party of the Year for the second year running. The SNP might dispute that but the reality is that the SNP lost their big vote in September while UKIP won theirs in May, becoming only the third party since WWI to win a…

Read More Read More