MORI poll of marginal seats
Ipsos MORI have conducted a new poll of marginal seats for Reuters. The poll covered marginal seats currently held by Labour, in which the Conservatives need a swing of between 5% and 9% to win (that's seats with
majorities between 10% and 18%, so some pretty distant hopes in some cases - the top end of that scale will be places like Bridgend and Blackpool South. To get a majority the Conservatives need a swing of about 7%, so this sample of seats is either side of that.)
Current voting intention stands at CON 37%, LAB 41%. This represents a five point swing from Labour to the Conservatives. In comparison MORI's last national poll showed a swing to the Conservatives of four percent, so as with all the other polling we've seen of Lab/Con marginal seats, the Tories are slightly outperforming their national swing... though not by that much.
Depending on where the cut off point was, a five point swing might not be enough for the Conservatives to win any of these particular seats polled! With the polls narrowing the battleground is now seats slightly more marginal than these. The poll was conducted over the weekend, so is entirely before the budget.
UPDATE: The full tables for MORI's poll are here. A few other interesting findings. The Lib Dem share of support in these seats was 11%, but of that 77% said they might change their mind. It suggests some potential for tactical voting, but for it to happen people probably need to think their seats are marginals.
MORI did indeed ask people if they lived in a marginal seat, 30% said they did not, and 45% didn't know. Of course given that these are seats with majorities of between 10% and 18%, this isn't a huge surprise. By most historical definitions these aren't marginals! There was no second choice question in this poll, so we can't say who would benefit from tactical voting if it did happen. The closest are the final questions which asked people what outcome voters thought would be best for the economy. Amongst Lib Dem voters 53% thought a Conservative majority or hung Parliament with the Conservatives the largest would be best, 30% thought a Labour majority or hung Parliament with Labour the largest party would be best.
The purpose of the question, incidentally, was to test people's reaction to the idea a hung Parliament would damage international confidence in the UK's economy, and the result was that it didn't really seem to figure highly in people's preferences. 28% of people thought a hung Parliament would be best for the economy, 23% thought it would be best for international confidence in the economy - lower, but not vastly so.
