Nine weeks to go

Anthony Wells

— 3 min read
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Here are this week's polls - just the regular weekly, twice-weekly and daily polls this week.

Opinium/Observer (26/2) - CON 34%, LAB 35%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 14%, GRN 6% Populus (27/2) - CON 31%, LAB 33%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 16%, GRN 6% YouGov/S Times (27/2) - CON 34%, LAB 34%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 14%, GRN 5% Populus (1/3) - CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 14%, GRN 5% Ashcroft (1/3) - CON 34%, LAB 31%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 14%, GRN 7% YouGov/Sun (2/3) - CON 35%, LAB 32%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 15%, GRN 6% YouGov/Sun (3/3) - CON 36%, LAB 34%, LDEM 5%, UKIP 14%, GRN 6% YouGov/Sun (4/3) - CON 34%, LAB 34%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 14%, GRN 6% YouGov/Sun (5/3) - CON 31%, LAB 35%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 15%, GRN 8% Populus (5/3) - CON 31%, LAB 33%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 16%, GRN 5%

There was a little group of polls showing the Conservatives ahead at the start of the week, provoking some speculation about whether or not we were seeing some sign of movement. By the end of the week though we'd had five polls showing Labour leads, two showing a draw, three showing Tory leads. For now, at least, the UKPR polling average continues to show a one point Labour lead -

CON 33%(+1), LAB 34%(+1), LDEM 7%(-1), UKIP 15%(nc), GRN 6%(nc).

Sub-national polls

YouGov had a London poll earlier in the week showing topline figures of CON 32%, LAB 44%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 10%, GRN 5% - a five point swing to Labour since the general election. I wrote more about it here.

We also had a batch of Ashcroft constituency polls which I discussed here. He polled four Conservative held seats in England and Wales and a fresh batch of Scottish seats. The first lot of Scottish polling Ashcroft did which concentrated on Labour seats in areas that voted YES. This set were more evenly spread across different areas of Scotland, but showed the SNP surge also happening in NO voting areas. They included polls showing the SNP ahead in Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, ahead in Charles Kennedy's seat and just a point behind Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire.

Week 9

  • The week began with reaction to Labour's tuition fees policy. A lot of the reactions to it in the media were critical, claiming out that because graduates who earn low wages don't pay off their loans, it would only really benefit better off graduates. As ever, it's perceptions of a policy that counts - and YouGov polling at the start of the week found that, while more people thought it would help better off graduates, 32% of people still thought it would help out graduates earning a low salary, and overall people supported it by 49% to 31%.
  • UKIP announced their immigration policy, with Nigel Farage surprisingly rejecting any form of cap or limit in favour of a general reduction. More polling on that to come, but again, remember that people don't necessarily pick up on the details of policy. In the same way that many people will simply have picked up that Labour will cut tuition fees, the details of UKIP's immigration policy probably don't much matter - most voters will just be aware that UKIP are generally in favour of cutting it.
  • And the debate debate may finally be nearing its endgame. The Conservatives wrote to the broadcasters saying Cameron's final offer was to take part in one, seven-way debate in the last week of March. The broadcasters wrote back saying they would still do the 7-7-2 debates in April without him. I wrote about the potential polling impact of the debate debate here

    - the weekend polls on Sunday will be our first opportunity to see if it actually has had any effect

Projections

The latest forecasts from Election Forecast, May 2015 and Elections Etc are below, along with the Guardian's new election projection (note that May2015 have got a problem with their site, so the figures below are the corrected ones they should be showing). As usual, everyone is projecting a hung Parliament, though all four are now projecting the Conservatives to have the most seats.

Elections Etc - Hung Parliament, CON 286(+7), LAB 278(-5), LD 22(-1), SNP 40(nc), UKIP 3(nc) Election Forecast - Hung Parliament, CON 286(+1), LAB 280(+4), LD 24(-3), SNP 38(-1), UKIP 1(nc) May 2015 - Hung Parliament, CON 276(+6), LAB 271(nc), LD 23(-3), SNP 55(-1), UKIP 3(-1) Guardian - Hung Parliament, CON 275(nc), LAB 271(nc), LD 26(-1), SNP 52(+1), UKIP 4(nc)

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