TNS Scottish polls shows sharp movement to YES

TNS have a new Scottish poll out tonight which echoes the big swing towards YES than YouGov have been showing in their recent polls. Topline figures are YES 38%(+6), NO 39%(-6), Don't know 23%(nc) with don't knows, YES 49%(+7), NO 51%(-7) without. Taking just those certain to vote YES and NO would be equal. Full tabs are here.

As usual with TNS's face-to-face polling the fieldwork is a little older than the telephone and online polls we see - fieldwork took place between the 27th August and 4th September, last Thursday. This means that much of the fieldwork is older than the Panelbase and YouGov polls at the weekend. The important finding though is the big shift towards YES. As we've seen, over their last three polls YouGov have shown a steady and substantial movement from NO to YES, turning the race from a roughly a 40-60 split to one that's broadly neck-and-neck. Panelbase didn't pick up the same pattern, but had consistently been showing a very close race anyway. TNS had been showing large steady leads for NO, similar to those from YouGov, and now they too are showing the race tightening right up so it's broadly neck-and-neck. The YouGov and TNS polls are conducted using very different methods - YouGov an online panel, TNS a traditional face-to-face quota sampled survey conducted in people's own homes, yet they are showing the same pattern. Any idea that the narrowing is something to do with online methodology goes out of the window, it looks as if the race genuinely has tightened right up.

The thing to watch now will be how the Scottish public react to the tightening of the race. It's easy to imagine people recoiling from the risk of voting YES as it becomes something that might really happen. It's equally easy to imagine a surge of enthusiasm for voting YES as it becomes clear it's something they can really make happen.