Political polling
- Thread starter brogdale
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butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Lesson there treelover - read articles beyond headlines before posting. If there is a single thing the internet should have taught people by now, that must surely be it.
That's a very narrow take on 'significant'.
andysays
Love and solidarity
Are there many seats where the size of the Green vote is likely to affect the result, in comparison to seats where, say, UKIP of even the LibDems might have a similar influence?
I ask for info, not because I'm dismissing the idea out of hand...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Brighton and one of the Norwich's - i think that's it really.
Bristol West?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Really can't see them doing anything beyond current levels - and softer greens going straight to labour. I noticed the other day that that Iain Dale had it down as a probable lib-dem hold. If that sort of miles-out reading is the basis for all his other lib-dem probables, then he's going to lose a lot of money.
edit: a really tight finish - which i can't see - would see them having some say if they do maintain their current vote though.
I added the question mark because they've grown their council vote since 2010 so it's a little uncertain how that'll translate. Agree that softer Greens will be Labour - think the Green vote will be up but whether it affects the result we'll see. If we see Greens gaining at LD expense then that could help Labour. The Gloucester Road strip has been weird in the last 20 years with regard to party affiliation so I never know quite what to think tbh!
andysays
Love and solidarity
To be clear (which I probably wasn't before) I'm wondering if there are marginal seats where all the potential Green vote supporting one of the two front runners would be likely to swing the result.
My (totally uninformed) hunch is that there may be a few, but not too many.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Brighton will see greens going labour.
andysays
Love and solidarity
Enough that Labour will take it? Is that a hot tip, BTW, should I rush out and put a few quid on them?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Better bets out there, but i think yes, nailed on.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Only if the green rise means labour fall or they are going to tory in larger numbers. And it hasn't. And it only matters in seats where they hold the balance or are likely to - that's two. Sorry mate, your reading is miles off on this one.
1/3 lib-dem going to labour - that's electorally effective. A 1/3 of them going green won't mean anything - and the highest for lib-dems-->greens (and remember, these are already the least effective votes) is 11%.
Haven't looked at the seats so can't really comment, but presumably if at 7% in England, they're on 10%+ in quite a few seats? Or do you think that really is concentrated in a tiny handful? (Would that show up in polling?)
But I originally just meant 7% (and rising, where to? Last time this happened Ukip didn't stop.) is significant in most general sense. for fringe politics, for big three, for labour in particular, as a sign of where things are , for Greens themselves etc. And it surprises me that nobody seems to be picking up on it.
But I originally just meant 7% (and rising, where to? Last time this happened Ukip didn't stop.) is significant in most general sense. for fringe politics, for big three, for labour in particular, as a sign of where things are , for Greens themselves etc. And it surprises me that nobody seems to be picking up on it.
andysays
Love and solidarity
It's not just to do with crude nationwide numbers though, it's to do with how those votes or potential votes are distributed in particular seats, and crucially, how all the other votes are distributed in those particular seats.
I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about why the Green party never quite took off to the extent that they're truely electorally significant, and how/why UKIP have, but this thread isn't the place for it.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
In constituency polling they just don't show up. They only show up in a i hate them all national poll.
There's a reason people you might expect to pick upon it not thinking it means anything. They don't think that it means anything. There's no reason at all why they would.
And they didn't before.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
They've been up there before. They've even had results that high before - in i hate them all elections. The result is always 1/4 million people vote for them when it counts. If they increase their vote in the same way as the last decade they'll have 300 000 votes and the same effect. With 50 000 of them in two seats.
I'm normally in agreement with your readings, but this is nowhere near.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
What were they polling before the 2010 election?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Don't know - prob 1%.
We'll see. I'm definitely not making any election predictions, it looks a soft 7% (if polls actually correct). I'm definitely not suggesting they are here to stay either. Over 5% is when I think things become worth monitoring though.
I do think its a sign of Labour weakness though, when they should have most of that 7% locked down.
And of general discontentment.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The greens polled within the same sort of range in the 2009 european election as the 2014 one, thats as far as I've got so far.
It's premature to compare them with UKIP since we don't yet know what UKIP can actually do with their current momentum come a general election.
I don't think there are too many seats where the green vote will upset the result. But if I thought this was more likely then I'd certainly pay attention to how many seats they stand in this time and how many they did historically.
In terms of how the greens have actually faired electorally, this article is too old to include the 2010 general election but sections of it are pretty handy for studying performance prior to that:
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bp/journal/v3/n2/full/bp20085a.html
It's premature to compare them with UKIP since we don't yet know what UKIP can actually do with their current momentum come a general election.
I don't think there are too many seats where the green vote will upset the result. But if I thought this was more likely then I'd certainly pay attention to how many seats they stand in this time and how many they did historically.
In terms of how the greens have actually faired electorally, this article is too old to include the 2010 general election but sections of it are pretty handy for studying performance prior to that:
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bp/journal/v3/n2/full/bp20085a.html
elbows
Well-Known Member
There are full results by each constituency for the 2010 general election on this page. You'll need to press the show link next to the constituency table header to see the list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_England_and_Wales_election_results
Given how few seats they've tended to be able to save their deposit in, its not surprising I can't find prettier, e.g. map, versions of this info.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
Don't know where he gets the idea that Leeds NW will stay lib dem from either.
This seat was labour 2 elections ago, and the big swing to lib dems last election was an anti tory, with a huge student vote swung on the fees issue, as well as a large number of people who work in the 2 universities living in the area.
If they keep it it will only be down to nobody else getting their act together in the campaign, but labour could easily win this seat despite the apparently massive lib dem lead.
Loads of local anger as well about a badly thought out trolley bus scheme the council are trying to push through against fierce local opposition, and the MP has done fuck all about it / sat on the fence most of the time.
To put some numbers on it, the tories have had 11-12k votes every election since 2000 down from 16k in 97, the combined lib dem and labour vote has been relatively steady at around 28-32k since 92, for half that time Labour took the majority of that, more recently the lib dems, but really they both have around 10k core vote, 10k floating between them as an anti tory vote for whichever of the 2 looks the most likely to be winning / has the best campaign / best sounding policies for students.
Worth noting in this that this constituency was historically tory for a long time, with liberals/sdp and labour splitting the majority anti tory vote at similar levels since the 70s, and we only stopped having a tory in 97 when labour stormed it taking 2500 votes from the lib dems in the process, where lib dems had been slightly ahead of them at the previous election.
So that 11k lead over labour at the last election doesn't really mean anything if labour got their act together here, particularly if they hammered the lib dems over tuition fees, but mainly just on letting the tories in and giving them the cover to carry out their devastating policies. I doubt that 10k anti-tory swing vote is going to let them off the hook, unless labour run a really shit campaign.
elbows
Well-Known Member
As for north of the actual border, the Scottish greens are a separate party that have had reasonable success with the voting system used for the Scottish parliament, although I think they only stand for regions rather than constituencies. The energy injected into Scotlands politics by the referendum means they have increased their membership substantially and some recent poll has them capable of getting 9 MSPs. I think they've only got 2 at the moment but had as many as 7 at one point, back in 2003.
Aye, it was the polling rather than voting history I was thinking of. I've seen the suggestion that they'll be increasing their vote in the SP, but was just curious if any of the polls had a geographical breakdown for their vote on the GE to see if it was also translating to increase share there.
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