YouGov show YES campaign ahead in Scotland
A new YouGov poll of Scotland in tomorrow's Sunday Times has YES nudging ahead in the referendum race. Courtesy of Tim Shipman at the Sunday Times, the topline figures excluding don't knows are YES 51%(+4), NO 49%(-4).
The last month of Scottish polls from YouGov have been remarkable. Almost exactly a month ago, before the two debates, YouGov were showing a 22 point lead for the NO campaign, YES 39% NO 61%. This was fairly typical of their polls for most of the campaign, which had been floating at around about a 40-60 split. Since then three polls in a row have shown sharp movements towards the YES campaign, culminating in today's poll giving the YES campaign a tiny lead.
51%-49% is, of course, well within the margin of error, the smallest lead you can get once rounded to integers. It doesn't mean YES will necessarily win, and as ever it's only one poll. There's at least one other poll to come tonight, which may or may not echo the Yes lead. What will be fascinating to see is how a campaign that has, up to now, show a consistent NO lead for months changes in response to polls showing YES could actually win. Will people recoil from the risk of it actually happening? Will it enthuse people now it could be a reality? I'll update later with the other polls.
UPDATE: There is also a new Panelbase poll out tonight, conducted for the Yes Scotland campaign. Throughout most of the campaign YouGov have tended to show some of the largest leads for NO, Panelbase have tended to show some of the smallest leads for NO. Given the movement towards YES in YouGov's recent polls many people reasonably expected that Panelbase would be the ones to show YES ahead, in fact they still show a small lead for NO. Topline figures with changes from the last Panelbase poll in mid-August are YES 44%(+2), NO 48%(+2), Don't know 8%(-4). Without don't knows it's YES 48%(nc), NO 52%(nc). In contrast to the collapsing NO position in YouGov, Panelbase are showing no real change - strange. We should have TNS and Survation polls in the coming week (and should be due an ICM at some point), so we'll see what trends others pick up.
