Jake surveyed 506 of its members anonymously on
their voting intentions between 18 and 21 June and carried out a separate survey of 600 of its largely male membership on their general attitude towards the big three parties.
Not exact matches
In doing so, we did find a statistically significant positive correlation
between performance and
voting intention as measured by Public Policy Polling data around the same time.
These polls typically do not show much sign of switching
between general and constituency specific
vote intention, except in Liberal Democrat seats where it is unclear whether the switching is tactical or due to the personal popularity of the sitting MP.
Between now and the general election, which if we believe Alan Johnson is at most eight months away, there will probably be more than 100
voting intention polls bandied about, so I thought it would be helpful to offer Total Politics readers some basic pointers to help pick their way through this particular thicket.
I recently wrote to David Cameron outlining our
intention to contest the 30 most marginal Conservative seats in 2015, where majorities in the 2010 general election ranged
between 54 and 1,692
votes.
The changes in 2015
vote intention among those people who
voted Liberal Democrat in 2010
between the first (February - March) and second (May - June) BESIP survey show small increases for the Conservatives, UKIP and the Green Party.
Notes The numbers in Figure 1 do not add up to 100 % because a proportion of each party's 2015
vote intention comes from people who join
between 2010 and 2015.
In this set of seats there is no consistent pattern in the difference
between the standard
voting intention question («if there were a general election tomorrow, which party would you
vote for?»)
YouGov also asked how people would
vote in a re-run
between Boris and Ken — 49 % would
vote Boris, 33 % Ken (respondents were not offered the chance of
voting for other candidates, so this was not a genuine
voting intention polls by any means, but since the London electoral system does redistribute
votes between the top two candidates it offers a rough guide).
The Communicate research poll in the Independent was much shorter, and just did a forced choice question
between Labour and Conservative under David Cameron and David Davis (why a forced choice rather than a
voting intention I don't know).
The surveyed elector may change his or her mind
between the survey and the election, they may be deliberately lying, they have no
intention of actually
voting on the day.
What used to be the dividing line
between British voters is now rendered useless in determining the results, as age takes over as the new key predictor of
voting intention in British politics.