YouGov/Sun Scottish poll
YouGov had a new Scottish referendum poll in this morning's Sun - tabs are now up on the website here. The headline referendum voting figures are 36%(-1) for YES, 53%(+2) for NO, changes are from YouGov's last poll in April. Excluding don't knows this works out at YES 40%, NO 60%.
The changes are within the margin of error from April, so don't read too much into the movement to NO. More notable is what it doesn't show - the recent Survation, Panelbase and ICM polls showed movement to YES (albeit, the ICM one was probably reversion to the mean), so it's notable that YouGov aren't showing the same. The wider picture of Scottish referendum polling remains that what movement there is in voting intention is so slow that it is hard to discern beneath normal random variation, and right now it is difficult to be certain whether there is still a drift towards YES or whether things have stagnated. There also remains a substantial and difficult to explain difference between the figures from different pollsters, one I doubt will be resolved until the votes are counted.
If the topline figures here will be a relief to the NO campaign, the rest of the poll is a much more mixed picture. The Yes Scotland campaign is seen as the more positive of the two campaigns - more people think it has been positive than negative, while people are more likely to view the Better Together campaign as negative than positive. However, the Better Together campaign is seen as having been mostly honest (by 40% to 34%), the Yes Scotland campagn
mostly dishonest (by 42% to 35%).
On the question of a televised debate, the Scottish public would much prefer to see a debate between Alex Salmond and David Cameron (48%) than between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling (21%). Finally Yes Scotland seem to have a substantial advantage in the ground war - something you see claimed anecdotally, but it's nice to have evidence to prove it. 49% of people recalled being contacted by Yes Scotland over the last few weeks compared to only 38% saying they've been contacted by Better Together.
