Political polling

[killer b]

I think all it is, is a list of candidates whose image had the words 'non target' in the URL on the tory party website, so it's surely genuine as far as that goes (although the links no longer work - some swift work there). What 'non-target' means is a question...

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Boston & Skegness, Rochester & Strood and Cannock Chase are listed as non-target, yet all are on UKIPs list of top target seats.

Would the Tories actually concede a couple or 3 seats in exchange for a half-arsed UKIP effort in a couple of dozen Con-Lab marginals?

 

[killer b]

no.

 

[killer b]

Even a sniff of that kind of horse trading would be electoral poison to ukip. Cant see it happening.

 

[brogdale]

I think the list is actually most likely to be the corollary of the vermin's "40/40" strategy in which they aim to pile their resources into the 80 marginals...

http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2013/05/by-mark-wallacefollowmarkon-twitter-in-october-cchq-announced-that-it-was-launching-a-4040-strategy-aimed-at-winning-the.html

 

[laptop]

From my clipboard:

Almost one million voters have gone missing since last June, when a new system of individual voter registration was introduced. This raises fears about the turnout at the General Election on 7 May.

Previously, one “head of household” form was sent to each address, and new voters were automatically added to the registered list when, for example, they moved home or reached the age of 18. The new system requires each individual to confirm their details, either on a paper form, or using an on-line government portal.

Most existing voters were automatically registered when the change occurred, but many others have not yet registered individually. Because colleges and universities are no longer putting all their resident students onto the local electoral roll, hundreds of thousands of young people have disappeared, with black and ethnic minority voters believed to be the second largest group to drop out.
...
www.tuc.org.uk/young-workers-forum

 

[JTG]

Bristol South, East & West are all on that list. South & East fair enough (they only held East at the height of Thatcher's power and never managed to get South even then) but West used to be a flagship prize seat of theirs. Can't see them winning it again anyway but it shows how times change I guess

 

[Dogsauce]

A lot of obvious safe seats (mainly big names) are missing, so it's not a comprehensive list of who's safe.

Enjoying some of the posho names on the list though. They'll often stick some of the chinless wonders in no-hoper seats just to keep things sweet with their tory-donor parents whilst not actually having to risk ending up with them on the team.

 

[bemused]

Hmmm. Doesn't the list include seats they don't need to target due to the high likelyhood of winning anyway?

Aye, Croydon South is on that list it's one of the safest seats in London for the Tories.

 

[treelover]

From my clipboard:

Its the hanging chads all over again

 

[elbows]

I see they've given up on North Warwickshire based on that document. Not entirely surprising given the incumbent Tory isn't standing again, and they only took the seat from Labours Mike O'Brien by 58 votes in 2010.

The same part of the country, Nuneaton, where I live, is very much one of the key battlegrounds, having gone Tory at the last election after being Labour since 1992. Top Tories keep coming here, especially in the last year, and Miliband made an appearance at the hospital recently too. Its not on the list, and I obviously wouldn't expect it to be.

 

[brogdale]

Aye, Croydon South is on that list it's one of the safest seats in London for the Tories.

Let's hope that Jon Bigger causes them to regret such arrogance. Anyway, the real reason for CroSouth's inclusion on the list, along with Brake's Car&Wall, is to focus the depleted party 'machine' of the neighbouring constituencies into Barfwell's desperate bid to hold "Centrale".

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Let's hope that Jon Bigger causes them to regret such arrogance.

It's unlikely isn't it.

 

[brogdale]

It's unlikely isn't it.

Yes.

 

[brogdale]

"SNP set to double its vote in general election, poll finds
New TNS poll suggests the party’s lead over Scottish Labour has dropped to 10 points, still putting half of Labour’s 41 Westminster seats at risk"

Guardian

So, different methodology, different pollster, and hugely different to Survation, YouGov, ICM and Ipsos-Mori, who all have the SNP lead at double that (Ipsos-Mori nearly trebling the TNS lead!). But although this may look to some on the face of it like an outlier, I think we're into more realistic territory now. This would still be a huge blow to Labour were the result to look anything like this in May, but they'll be able to say they've pulled back from the abyss and claim it as a victory of sorts.

Also, we're now at a level where, given FPTP and the size of some of the majorities we're talking about, the dominoes might not tumble as evenly as the 20%-28% SNP leads might have suggested.

Useful comment on the Scots TNS poll from YG's Anthony...

The fieldwork for this poll was conducted between the 14th January and the 2nd February. This means the Survation and MORI polls from last month which showed 20 point and 28 point SNP leads for the SNP had fieldwork done at the same time as the start of this poll. The YouGov poll last week which had a 21 point SNP lead had fieldwork done at the same time the fieldwork for this poll was finishing (so is mostly significantly newer than this one!). What this means is that much of the reportingandheadlines on this poll are just rubbish – the poll does NOT show the SNP lead falling. It shows a smaller SNP lead – this may well be for methodological reasons, or perhaps a bit of random sample variation, but given the respective timing of the fieldwork it cannot be that public opinion has changed since the previous poll showing a 21 point lead, as this poll was mostly conducted before that one. It’s a thoroughly bad idea to try and draw trends between polls conducted using very different methods anyway, but certainly check when the fieldwork was done and get them in the right chronological order.

 

[brogdale]

he regular YouGov/Sun poll (last night) has topline figures of:-

CON 32%, LAB 33%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7% –

YouGov continue to show the two main parties extremely close, normally within a point of each other.

 

[brogdale]

An interesting NS piece looking at housing tenure cross-breaks in the key marginals...

...in sixteen of the BBC’s 49 marginal constituencies those who rent their accommodation comprise 40 per cent or more of the population and they are the majority in four seats. By contrast, owner-occupiers vastly outnumber renters in marginals such as Wirral South, East Dunbartonshire and Mid Dorset and North Poole.

 

[weepiper]

SNP and Plaid combined have now overtaken the Lib Dems for share of the UK-wide vote for the first time

http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/snp-and-plaid-cymru-overtake-liberal.html

 

[brogdale]

 

[Pickman's model]

there seems to be an error in the lib dem poll

 

[butchersapron]

Stephen Tall
@stephentall
New ComRes poll of 40 most marg Lab/Con seats: Con 31% (NC), Lab 40% (+1), LD 8% (+1), UKIP 15% (-3), Green 5% (+1). In 2010, Con/Lab on 37%

 

[brogdale]

Stephen Tall
@stephentall
New ComRes poll of 40 most marg Lab/Con seats: Con 31% (NC), Lab 40% (+1), LD 8% (+1), UKIP 15% (-3), Green 5% (+1). In 2010, Con/Lab on 37%

"...poll "represents CON to LAB swing of 4.5%"

Very stable polling for the last few months.

 

[brogdale]

Poll of polls this week...

The big picture remains stable, with Labour and Conservatives very close. There were a couple of Conservative leads at the start of the week, but a couple of three point Labour leads at the end of the week mean the UKPR polling average continues to show a two point Labour lead :–

CON 32%(+1), LAB 34%(+1), LDEM 7%(-1), UKIP 14%(-1), GRN 7%(+1).

Different circumstances and all that, but just thought I'd through in this little thought...

 

[King Biscuit Time]

An interesting NS piece looking at housing tenure cross-breaks in the key marginals...

This graph is a horrorshow.
What do the lines mean?

 

[brogdale]

This graph is a horrorshow.
What do the lines mean?

The lines show party support, expressed by polling, cross-broken by housing tenure type. So, on the left hand side it shows that, amongst the out-right home owners polled, the tories (unsurprisingly?) gained the highest level of support of 37%, with Labour second most popular on 28%, and so on. The numbers indicate the changes since the last election.

If you take one thing away from the graph its the significant changes expressed by the expanding private renter demographic. In part, this might explain Labour's persistent lead in many marginals.

 

[laptop]

This graph is a horrorshow.
What do the lines mean?

The lines mean nothing whatsoever.

Unless you posit the trajectory of someone who falls from the grace of outright ownership through having a mortgage to private renting and on down to the seventh circle of social housing...

It should have been a histogram.

 

[brogdale]

We have three GB polls due in the Sunday papers, Opinium in the Observer, ComRes in the Sunday Indy/Sunday Mirror and YouGov in the Sunday Times. We have the first two already, YouGov will follow later on tonight or tomorow morning.

Opinium have topline figures of :-

CON 33%(+1), LAB 35%(+1), LDEM 8%(+1), UKIP 14%(-1), GRN 6%(-2). Both the main parties up one point and last week’s two point Labour lead remaining unchanged. Tabs are here.

ComRes have topline figures of:-

CON 32%(-1), LAB 34%(nc), LDEM 7%(nc), UKIP 16%(-2), GRN 4%(+1). The Conservatives down one point, so both polls show a two point Labour lead, but neither show any significant change compared to their previous poll.

The two point Lab lead is showing up in a good deal of recent polling.

 

[brogdale]

 

[brogdale]

So much for Lynton Crosby's poll cross-over month. Well, I suppose it has been cross-over month, but not in the way that Crosby hoped it would.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

The lines mean nothing whatsoever.

Unless you posit the trajectory of someone who falls from the grace of outright ownership through having a mortgage to private renting and on down to the seventh circle of social housing...

It should have been a histogram.

maybe whoever did it had been taking anti-histogram medication...