Constituency polls and Rochester and Strood
As part of his speech today Nigel Farage showed off polling for various target seats. A couple of the polls were just the figures from previous Ashcroft polls that showed UKIP doing well, but three are Survation polls for UKIP that we haven't seen before. They show UKIP well ahead in Boston & Skegness - on 46% to the Conservatives 26%, one point behind in Thanet North and on 37% to Labour's 48% in Rotherham. Of course, polling conducted for political parties should be treated with a medium sized ocean of salt until you've see the tables with your own eyes (I'll put up a link once Survation put the tabs up (UPDATE: here)), but the previous Survation polls for UKIP donor Alan Bown have used their standard methodology.
The polls got very brief attention as they were rapidly followed by Mark Reckless defecting to UKIP and precipitating a by-election in Rochester and Strood. Rochester and Strood probably won't be the complete walk in the park for UKIP that polls have suggested in Clacton (Clacton's demographics are absolutely perfect for UKIP and Carswell particularly well thought of). UKIP came top in Medway in the European elections, but that was hardly unusual and as an all-out unitary authority we have no recent local elections in Medway to judge from. The seat does not appear in Rob Ford and Matt Goodwin's list of the most UKIP friendly Con seats. The unusual circumstances of a by-election though mean anything is possible - and from a national polling point of view, it keeps the UKIP bandwagon rolling, keeps them in the public eye, keeps the publicity coming, keeps them looking like a viable choice.
