Will it be the wealthiest contender who gets the GOP prize? After Florida on Tuesday the whole nature of the battle for the Democratic and Republican nominations changes and, more than at any stage so far, the importance of money to fund a campaign becomes critical. For a week on Tuesday there will be primaries in states that make up nearly half the population of the US and it’s going to be very hard to make a big impact across…
Will Bill and Hillary be happy after Obama’s big win? Please continue the discussion here. Latest betting on the Democratic nomination is here. What is interesting tonight is the sheer scale of Obama’s victory which totally dwarfs what the polls were suggesting. UPDATE – 0300: With a likely margin of 27-28% the polls were further out here than they were in New Hampshire. It’s very easy to get carried away by the moment and certainly there has been a big…
Will Obama get the breadth of support that he needs? With the polling stations in South Carolina due to close at 7pm ET (0000 GMT) there is not long to wait for the next chapter in the extraordinary drama of this year’s bitter contest for the Democratic nomination. For Obama tonight is pretty crucial. Not only does he need to carry the state with an emphatic margin he needs to show as well that his support is more broadly based…
How an automated canvas is made to sound like a poll This week the excellent Pollster.com site in the US carried this video of what was purported to be a survey from a pollster but was probably what is known as “push polling”. This is defined by Wikipedia as “…a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large…
Will today’s polls bring a smile back to his face? Following the good news for Labour in last night’s YouGov poll on the London mayoralty there’s a further boost for the party in new national voting intention surveys from YouGov and ICM this morning. And one of them has Labour’s deficit down to just two per cent. The latter finding is in the monthly ICM survey for the Guardian which has, with comparisons on the last poll from the firm…
YouGov puts him 4% ahead After one of his most controversial weeks since becoming Mayor in 2000 there’s a boost tonight for Ken Livingstone in his bid to secure a third term in the most powerful directly elected office in the UK. A Yougov survey for ITV London found – with changes on its last poll a month ago – Ken 44% (-1): Boris 40% (-4): Paddick LD 8% (nc) The poll detail is not yet available so it’s hard…
Could the Lib Dems Replace Labour? An electoral system based on First Past the Post forces voters to choose between two alternatives. Constituencies that are three (or even four) way marginals rarely remain in that position for very long. Sooner or later, they revert to a two way contest. Sometimes, the party that originally held the seat will be relegated to a distant third place. What is true at constituency level has historically been true at national level. There is…
Can the pollster be accused of “persistently understating” his ratings? With the row over Ken Livingstone’s custodianship of the London mayoralty continuing unabated the election on May 1st that will determine his future looks set to be the biggest UK political betting bonanza since the 2005 general election. It has all the ingredients that make it attractive to punters – high profile contenders who everybody knows by their first names; passionate feelings across the political spectrum about the current incumbent…