New ComRes and Opinium polls

There are new polls by ComRes, Opinium and YouGov in the Sunday papers. Toby Helm at the Observer has tweeted the Opinium results and John Rentoul has just posted up the ComRes results here.

Opinium in the Observer have topline figures of CON 27%(+1), LAB 36%(-1), LDEM 7%(+1), UKIP 20%(-1). Changes are from their poll a fortnight ago, and clearly don't show any massive change.

ComRes for the Sunday Indy and Sunday Mirror meanwhile have topline figures of CON 26%(-3), LAB 35%(nc), LDEM 10%(+2), UKIP 19%(nc). Changes there are from the last online ComRes poll a month ago.

Here we have two online polls that still show UKIP up around 20% in contrast to the ICM and MORI telephone polls earlier this week that both showed UKIP at 12%. As I said when the ICM and MORI polls were published, the lower score for UKIP wasn't a sign that their support has collapsed again, but the result of methodological differences between telephone and internet polls. For some reason most online polling companies (particularly newer online polls - YouGov tend to show levels of UKIP somewhere in the middle) tend to show higher levels of UKIP support. This could be due to the lack of interviewer effect, or could be a result of sampling problems for one or the other. Either way, its a reminder to take into account the house effects between different pollsters, and not to mistake differences in methodology for changes in support.

Looking at the other findings in the polls, ComRes also asked about whether people had favourable or unfavourable opinions of politicians and parties. They found Cameron was no longer more popular than his party, but neither was he a drag on them - 23% had a favourable view of Cameron, 23% had a favourable view of the Tories. Ed Miliband continues to trail behind Labour - 28% have a favourable view of Labour, compared to 20% for Miliband.

YouGov's Sunday Times poll will likely surface tomorrow morning.

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