ICM online AND phone polls show six point LEAVE lead

Two weeks ago ICM produced an unexpected result - they did parallel phone and online polls for the Guardian, and found a five point lead for LEAVE in both online and by phone. A five point lead for leave in an online poll was slightly unusual, but not completely out of line with the then average position of neck-and-neck. The five point lead in the telephone poll was remarkable, given most other phone polls (a) were showing a consistently different pattern to online polls and (b) were showing a robust lead for REMAIN. The poll got a lot of attention, but we reserved judgement a little - it was only one poll, and it was conducted over a bank holiday weekend so perhaps the sample could have been affected.

Today ICM have repeated that experiment and confirmed their earlier findings - their online and telephone polls are painting the same picture, and both have LEAVE with a clear lead. Topline figures by telephone are REMAIN 45%(+3), LEAVE 50%(+5), Don't know 5% - equating to a six point leave lead of LEAVE 53%, REMAIN 47%. Topline figures online are REMAIN 44%(nc), LEAVE 49%(+2), Don't know 7%(-2) - also equating to a six point lead for leave. Full tabs for both polls are here.

Following MORI's methodology switch last week, Martin's commentary on the ICM website also includes a note about educational weighting. In ICM's case he says their last two phone polls did have a tendency to have too many people with qualifications... but when they tested correcting for it reduced the weighting efficiency but didn't actually make any difference to the headline results.