YouGov poll of Labour marginals

Anthony Wells

— 2 min read
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Channel 4 has a new poll of marginal seats for Channel 4 which once again suggests a slightly higher swing to the Tories in Lab/Con marginals. YouGov has polled this same group of marginal seats four times for Channel 4 over the last two years (for my posts on the previous rounds, see here, here and here). Voting intention in these seats stands at CON 39%, LAB 37%, LDEM 15%.

The 60 seats YouGov poll are all Labour held Conservative targets that need swings of around 3% to 7% to fall (i.e. the Labour seats that the Conservatives would need to win to get an overall majority). At the last election they had a Labour lead of around 11%, so this poll reflects a swing to the Conservatives of about 6.5% in Labour held marginals. YouGov are currently showing a swing of about 4.5% in their national polls, suggesting the swing is 2 points higher in Labour held marginals.

While the Labour lead has gone up and down over the years, this differential is actually pretty consistent with YouGov's last three rounds of polling:

In September 2008 it showed a Conservative lead of 13 points - a 12 point swing when YouGov's national polls were showing an 11 point national swing In October 2008 it showed a Conservative lead of 5 points - an 8 point swing when YouGov's national poll were showing a 5.5 point national swing In February 2009 it showed a Conservative lead of 7 points - a 9 point swing when YouGov's national polls were showing 7 point national swing

Polling evidence from several companies has consistently suggested the Conservatives are outperforming in Labour marginals to some degree (though there are differences in the extent!). This latest poll confirms that... but it is a relatively small advantage. If this swing was repeated in all Labour marginals, it would not be enough for the Conservatives to get an overall majority. It's also worth remembering that it doesn't tell us anything about Lib Dem v Conservative marginals - at the risk of straying into a horrible fairground related metaphor what the Conservatives gain on the Labour held swings, they may be losing on the Lib Dem roundabout.

(On other matters, a TNS BMRB voting intention survey conducted in February has surfaced here. The fieldwork is a bit elderly now, from Feb 18th to the 24th, and other than it being face-to-face I don't know anything about the methodology, but the topline figures are CON 36%, LAB 32%, LDEM 21%.)

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