Countdown to the primaries – the Monday selection

Countdown to the primaries – the Monday selection

Leading New Hampshire paper says “No” to Romney Given the overwhelming requirement for GOP second favourite, Mitt Romney, to get a good result in New Hampshire on January 8th the view of one of the state’s leading newspapers has to be taken seriously. In an editorial on Romney the Concord Monitor declares: “When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see…

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ComRes has 48% saying it is “Time for Change”

ComRes has 48% saying it is “Time for Change”

But why has the Indy been sitting on the survey for a week? What is almost certainly the final poll of 2007, ComRes for the Independent, is published this morning and the most surprising element is that the field-work took place during the weekend before last and so pre-dates the latest YouGov and ICM surveys. Quite why the paper has been holding on to this for so long is not clear but it does mean that the poll takes no…

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Countdown to the primaries – My Sunday selection

Countdown to the primaries – My Sunday selection

Is Romney “stretching the truth”? With just a week and a half to go before real voters have their chance to have their say on who should be the candidates in the 2008 White House Race there’s an enormous amount of fabulous material that gives a real flavour of the race and is unlike almost anything that we experience here. So as the build up continues I plan to do a daily round-up of some of the articles and videos…

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Guest slot: Do governments always recover in the polls?

Guest slot: Do governments always recover in the polls?

Andy Cooke challenges the received wisdom One of the most widely held items of received wisdom is “The opinion polls always swing back towards the Government as the Election approaches”. That mid-term blues will always overemphasise an Opposition’s performance in the polls and these will wear off as the Parliament winds down towards the next election. Received wisdom can well be right – there is always a reason somewhere along the line that any given fact ends up as received…

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Could Clarke he be the one to whom they hand the gun?

Could Clarke he be the one to whom they hand the gun?

How big a threat would he be to Brown if things don’t improve? Within Labour Charles Clarke is the one big beast who is still active and who still has the power to wound, if not kill. There’s not a single member of Brown’s cabinet who comes anywhere near to Clarke when it comes to the ability to communicate and put forward a compelling case. He’s lucid, has good diction and has the ability to think on his feet. When…

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Did you take Roger’s advice on our 50/1 Obama tip?

Did you take Roger’s advice on our 50/1 Obama tip?

With 12 days to go to Iowa – what are Obama’s chances? Cast your mind back to May 26th 2005. Tony Blair was just completing the third week of Labour’s third term, Charles Kennedy was still Lib Dem leader and Michael Howard had announced that he was standing down with David Davis the hot favourite to succeed him. The main thread that morning was about a young black senator from Illinois who was relatively unknown on this side of the…

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Can you make sense of the GOP race?

Can you make sense of the GOP race?

As the polls converge so do the prices At the top there is a collage of some of the main figures in the race to become the Republican nominee for the 2008 White House race – a contest that at one stage looked relatively simple but is getting more complicated by the day. The chart shows the Betfair prices converted into an implied probability to reflect the changes in punter interest over the past year. The only one thing that…

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Tories lead down to 5% with ICM (revised story)

Tories lead down to 5% with ICM (revised story)

So it’s only five Grumpy Gordons There’s been a dramatic improvement in Labour’s polling position according to the Guardian’s December poll which is due to be published tomorrow. The shares are with changes on the last survey from the pollster CON 39% (-2): LAB 34% (+4) LD 18% (-1). For both the Tories and the Lib Dems under their new leader these figures will be enormously disappointing. Nick Clegg must have been hoping for some sort of boost following his…

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