Tag Archives: polling

December 18, 2014 · 11:26 am

Green Party to hold Brighton Pavilion in 2015 General Election

Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas

Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas

According to the latest Lord Ashcroft polling of marginal constituencies across the UK, the Green Party are set to hold onto their only current seat, Brighton Pavilion.

The polling puts the Green Party ten points ahead of Labour (38 to Labour’s 28%).

Both parties see the Brighton Pavilion seat as their number one target for the South East of England.

Significantly the polling finds the Green Party picking up a huge 44% of 2010 Lib Dem voters. Labour in contrast picks up just 21% (with the Lib Dems picking up just 13%). This is opposite of the national picture which sees Labour picking up roughly double the Green Party of former Lib Dem voters.

Equally, the polling suggests Labour have been unable to plug the hole that saw so many former Labour voters turn to the Green Party in Brighton. The polling found that 27% of 2010 Labour voters were planning on backing the Greens. This is compared to about 4% nationally suggesting that either the Greens/Labour are doing something locally that is swaying voters and/or that Labour voters do switch to the Greens when they think the Greens have a chance of winning.

Labour however, to their credit, do appear to be matching the Greens in their campaigning efforts with about 1 in 4 of those polled saying that had heard from Greens and/or Labour in recent weeks.

It will be a bitterly battled fight but at the moment it looks like the Greens are on course to return their only MP, Caroline Lucas.

Read more on the marginal polling here.

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September 30, 2014 · 11:08 am

On Lib Dems, Greens and the selective use of polling data

Anyone with any connection to the Green Party will have probably seen the below image over the last few days. Produced by the polling company YouGov it shows the Green Party neck and neck with the Liberal Democrats on 6% of the intended vote share.

GreenLDVI

Having an external and highly respected polling company like YouGov produce such an image is extremely useful to the Green Party as they continue to try and convince voters that they are a credible option and not a ‘wasted vote’.

What I am about to write does not contradict that.

That said, any assertion that the Green Party are currently neck and neck with the Lib Dems in the polls (plural) as some Greens are claiming is flagrantly not true.

An accurate description of what has occurred would read more like, “One poll, which stands as an exception, shows the Green Party neck and neck in the polls”.

Indeed, YouGov’s latest polling which directly followed the above quoted polling has the Lib Dems on 7% (+1) and the Green Party on 4% (-2).

In addition, the previous Lord Ashcroft and Populus polling both had the Lib Dems on 9% – significantly higher than YouGov has had them for months now. YouGov represents the worst predictions for the Lib Dems.

The UK polling report average, a calculated polling average from across the polling companies, currently has Lib Dems on 8%.

Equally, the 6% vote share for the Green Party represents a (fairly consistent) high for The Green Party. They are currently averaging 5% (according to the UK polling report average).

In short, there are, on average, a clear 3 percentage points between the two parties. And there is no reason to think that this will change anytime soon. It appears that the Lib Dems have reduced their support down to its committed core and the Green Party have impressively expanded their support beyond most people’s expectations.

Looking back 5 years it is interesting to remember where these parties have come from in terms of polling data. At this time 5 years ago with half a year or so until the general election ICM/News of the World polling had the Green Party on just 2% and the Lib Dems on 17%. Some Ipsos Mori polling had the Green Party on 3% and the Lib Dems on 25% (with the day before the poll results having Lib Dems on 27% with no mention of the Green Party). Some YouGov polling (that also didn’t bother recording Green voting intention) had Lib Dems on 21%.

In 5 years the Green Party have gone from not being counted or receiving 1-3% of the vote to consistently polling 4-7%. The Lib Dems have gone from being ‘the next big thing’ polling 16-30% to being stripped down their bare bones of voter support (6-9%).

So, where does this leave us in terms of expected vote share for May 2015? Well, I predict the Lib Dems will still be the third largest party in the Commons (with around 30 seats) and I strongly suspect the Greens will return no more than their one current MP (the case for electoral reform is as strong as ever).

Equally in terms of vote share, I expect to see the Lib Dem 2015 vote share a bit higher than the current polling (for common sense reasons such as embarrassment in admitting you plan to vote Lib Dem and support to good local MPs) and I also expect to see the Green Party vote share marginally drop as both Lib Dems and Labour put out ‘squeeze messages’ (if you vote Green you will let the Tories in).

The Greens are growing and working hard to offer a progressive alternative to the established establishment parties but any assertion that they are polling neck and neck with the Lib Dems is, currently, simply not true.

 

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September 8, 2014 · 10:23 am

Scottish Independence: Better Together ‘too negative’ as Yes campaign gains ground

Scottish+independence
Last week Charlie Langan wrote for Hynd’s Blog discussing, amongst other issues, the negative nature of the ‘Better Together’ campaign on the up-coming Scottish independence referendum.

Interestingly some new YouGov research shows that Charlie is not the only one who feels like this:

PKpullquote3

This negativity is part of what Charlie explains has pushed him from a neutral position towards supporting the ‘Yes to Independence’ campaign. Again, this latest YouGov analysis suggests that once again Charlie is representative of a much broader shift in public opinion.

YouGov research shows that support for the Better Together campaign has been vanishing in the last week leaving the two sides neck and neck leading up to the referendum on the 18th.

IndyRefSept

Now, only Conservative voters (who are small in numbers in Scotland) are consistently backing Better Together: 93% of them still plan to vote No. YouGov’s analysis shows that ‘all other sections of Scottish society are on the move, most notably among four key groups’:

  • Labour voters, up from 18% saying Yes four weeks ago, to 35% today
  • Voters under 40, up from 39% to 60%
  • Working class voters, up from 41% to 56%
  • Women, up from 33% to 47%

This all leaves it too close to call and reinforces the message from both camps that if you are eligible and care about the future of Scotland – either as part of the United Kingdom or as an independent country – you need to make sure you turn up to vote on the 18th September.

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September 8, 2014 · 9:33 am

Young voter support for The Green Party has doubled since May’s election

New analysis from YouGov shows that twice as many young people now say they plan to vote Green in May 2015’s General Election than they did before this year’s European elections.

An average of 10-11% of 18-24 year olds now say they are planning to vote Green in 2015 compared to just 3-5% in March-May 2014.

Young Greens

Despite this surge in youth support the party are still only polling 4% on average (according to the UK Polling Report Average).

polling average

The Greens are still being significantly outflanked by the electorally similar sized UKIP (although UKIP are of course much better financed) and consistently unpopular Liberal Democrats. Although, it is again worth noting that a 4% national vote share for the Greens would be a huge step up from their 2010 1% vote share.

In 2015 Greens have announced they will stand candidates in 75% of seats. However, considering this national polling, it is expected that Greens will focus their energy and [limited] resources on firstly retaining Caroline Lucas’s seat in Brighton before also looking to increase their vote share (or take depending on who you speak to) the seats of Norwich South and Bristol West. 

Looking further than 2015 though, this surge in youth support for the Greens is surely a good sign of the long-term prosperity of the party as they seek to establish themselves as a competitive force in British politics.

 

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June 19, 2014 · 11:04 am

Greens polling 8% – neck and neck with the Lib Dems

IpsosMORI_WordMark_CMYK
The Green Party has today latched on to the latest Ipsos Mori polling that puts them on 8% of vote share ahead of the 2015 General Election. This, according to the Ipsos Mori polling, leaves them neck and neck with the Lib Dems.

Cue an excited press release from The Green Party.

Everything about their press release is true but for it to be useful in understanding the Greens prospects come 2015 it needs to be placed in a little bit of context.

1)      The Greens took just 1% of vote in the 2010 election. It looks like they will make big gains on this come 2015.

2)      An average of the last 20 opinion polls put The Green Party on 5% and the Liberal Democrats on 8%. In other words, if I was a betting man I would still be predicting The Green Party will finish 5th behind the Lib Dems.

3)      Lord Ashcroft today confirmed in a separate poll of Tory/Lib Dem marginal seats that the Lib Dems will keep hold of some of them – just not many. However, you can bet your bottom dollar they will return more MPs than the Green Party (who currently hold one).

4)      The Ipsos Mori poll asked just 1,001 their opinion – it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

All that said, the fact that the Green Party are polling like this nationally might well prove to be an additional headache for Ed Miliband’s Labour in their marginal battlegrounds such as Stroud and is a big step up from where they have been coming into previous elections.

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