As
with voting intention polls, if you look at oppositions that went on to win the next election, they won mid-term local elections hands down.
Not exact matches
Small - business owners,
with their strong
voting records and firm
intentions of hitting the
polls in November, represent an untapped but potentially game - changing force in this presidential race, particularly if overall voter turnout comes in low.
The graph below shows the BBC Projected National Share of the
vote (PNS) from local elections together
with general election
vote intention from the
polls for the month before each round of local elections.
The forecasting model works by combining the number of seats won by parties in the previous election
with vote intentions data from
polls conducted six months prior to the election — in this case the data is from November 2014.
This is the only
poll of the campaign that would usually be regarded as a «final
poll», that is one that has been conducted sufficiently closely to
polling day that its accuracy can reasonably be assessed by comparing its
voting intentions with the tally of
votes that actually emerges from the ballot boxes.
ComRes's monthly
poll for the Independent has topline
voting intentions with changes from last month of CON 38 % -LRB--3), LAB 31 % (+1), LDEM 17 % (nc).
We still haven't seen a post-election Populus
voting intention poll (though to answer Mike Smithson's question here, I understand they are still doing them, they are just having a quiet period following the election), but Lord Ashcroft has commissioned them to do some
polling in marginal seats,
with some interesting findings.
A new ComRes
poll in the Independent on Sunday has topline
voting intention figures —
with changes from the last ComRes
poll — of CON 46 % (nc), LAB 25 % (+1), LDEM 16 % -LRB--2).
ICM also asked a
voting intention question asking how people would
vote assuming that Gordon Brown was Labour leader — like YouGov's
poll earlier this week this showed Labour doing worse under Brown than under Blair;
with Brown as leader
voting intention would be CON 40 %, LAB 37 %, LD 18 %.
Westminister
voting intentions in Wales,
with changes from the previous ICM Welsh
poll in February, are CON 23 % -LRB--1), LAB 38 % -LRB--4), LDEM 7 % -LRB--2), Plaid 13 % -LRB--1), UKIP 14 % (+7).
Not confimed yet, but apparently a new YouGov
poll for the Standard has topline
voting intentions,
with changes from their last
poll, of JOHNSON 47 % -LRB--2), LIVINGSTONE 37 % (nc), PADDICK 10 % -LRB--2), Others 5 %.
Previously, Essential
polled weekly,
with a rolling two - week sample used for
voting intentions.
The
polling company Tamedia asked 20,000 people about their
voting intentions on the next referendum day (which includes 3 other issues along
with basic income).
In one
poll on
voting intention last week the Tory lead was trimmed to 7 %
with Labour up two to 32 %, the Conservatives on 39 % and the Liberal Democrats on 18 %, leaving the Tories 25 seats short of a Commons» majority.
In the constituencies surveyed, Labour lead the
voting intention poll, at 38 %, three point ahead of the Tories at 35 %
with the Lib Dems in third at 21 %.
YouGov analysed the
voting intentions of individuals
with the 130 most common first names among the 46,000 people it's
polled in the past two months.
A new ComRes
poll for Tuesday's Independent has headline
voting intention figures,
with changes from last month, of CON 40 % -LRB--1), LAB 27 % -LRB--6), LDEM 18 % (+2) and Others 14 %.
The usual caveats apply about it being just one
poll, but it shows Labour support perking up in Wales since Jeremy Corbyn's election — Westminster
voting intentions with changes from last month are CON 26 % -LRB--2), LAB 42 % (+5), LDEM 5 % (+1), Plaid 10 % -LRB--2), UKIP 16 % (+1).
A YouGov
poll in the Sunday Times has
voting intentions with changes from their last
poll of CON 45 % (+2), LAB 32 % (nc), LDEM 14 % (nc).
Topline
voting intentions are REMAIN 42 %, LEAVE 40 % — so wholly in line
with ICM's
polling before the deal.
It is
polling as the third largest political force post-Brexit
with 15 % of
voting intentions.
Note also that, judging from the tables, ComRes have switched over to prompting for UKIP in their main
voting intention question in this
poll — as
with their last national
poll, it does not seem to have had a major effect (UPDATE — I think this is because ComRes have changed turnout weightings, so that there is a tighter turnout filter for the Greens and UKIP than for the main parties).
Topline
voting intention figures,
with changes from the Thursday
poll, are CON 43 % (nc), LAB 36 % (+2), LDEM 16 % -LRB--1).
Topline
voting intention figures,
with changes from their previous
poll a week and a half ago, are CON 40 % (+4), LAB 31 % (+1), LDEM 18 % -LRB--5).
Topline
voting intentions with changes from YouGov's
poll last month are.
No proper figures yet, but Matthew D'Ancona's column in tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph is already up and reveals ICM have a new
poll including European election
voting intentions, and that it shows Labour in third place
with less than 20 %.
Secondly there is a ComRes
poll of Londoners, the first I can recall seeing since Brian Paddick was selected as the Lib Dem candidate (and, therefore, the first to have a
voting intention question
with a proper candidate names for all parties, rather than featuring «a Lib Dem candidate»).
Like the Sunday Telegraph
poll, ICM's Guardian
poll also asked a theoretical
voting intention poll with Gordon Brown as Labour leader.
Voting intention with Johnson was CON 42 %, LAB 25 %, LDEM 22 % — a 17 point Tory lead, compared to 13 points in the normal
voting intention question in the same Populus
poll.
Still, for those getting rather bored
with the
voting intention figures, we can look ahead to several potentially significant events — many commentators have suggested Gordon Brown is putting great weight in the G20 summit this week to give his premiership a boost, beyond that is the budget, which could work either way, and past that we have the local and european elections, which often lead to realignments in the national opinion
polls.
The ICM
poll for the Guardian also included a
voting intention question
with Brown as Labour leader, which showed the now normal pattern of the Conservatives doing better against Labour
with Brown instead of Blair.
A new ICM
poll for the Sunday Mirror has headline
voting intentions (
with changes from ICM's last
poll) of CON 36 % (nc), LAB 35 % (+3), LDEM 19 % -LRB--3).
Since Cameron became leader, every time a hypothetical
poll about
voting intention with Gordon Brown as leader has been asked, it has shown either the parties neck and neck or a Tory lead, and the majority have shown Brown doing worse than Blair.
Polls like this can only either be hypothetical, so we'll never know what will really happen until Blair is replaced, but what would give us the best idea is a normal
voting intention question prompting
with party leader names, and then another
voting intention question but
with Gordon Brown as the Labour leader (and then possibly, just to put the cat among the pigeons, some
with Alan Johnson, John Reid, Hilary Benn, etc, etc...)
Being utterly bored
with what passes for news in the media, in particular the endless opinion
polls supposedly showing
voting intentions 3 months before the general election — and how many of those questioned actually know why they will be
voting for the party they choose; even more importantly, how many of those questioned even understand what democracy is or how politics works in this country — I thought a little light relief was called for.
Past
vote weighting of phone
polls invariably involves making the sample more Conservative and less Labour and the cross-breaks of the ComRes
poll for the Indy shows that answers to this question are very closely correlated
with voting intention — 72 % of Tory voters answer Cameron & Osborne and 80 % of Labour voters answer Brown & Darling.
Unlike many other
polls asking about
voting intention in the referendum YouGov's tracker on the Alternative
Vote referendum starts
with text briefly summarising what First Past the Post and Alternative
Vote actually are.
Despite being level
with Labour on
voting intention, the
poll finds that the Conservatives are in a strong position on the crucial issue of the economy.
The topline
voting intention figures,
with changes from their previous
poll a week ago are CON 38 % -LRB--2), LAB 30 % (+1), LDEM 20 % -LRB--1).