Thursday, December 12, 2019

This is sensational if true: Survation's full-scale Scottish poll appears to give SNP a mammoth 19% lead. Now only one question remains: CAN WE ACTUALLY GET THE VOTE OUT?

Survation, who used to regularly conduct Scottish polls but haven't done so for quite a while, have released their final GB-wide poll of the campaign.  They announced that the Scottish sample was going to be a full 1000-strong and would be conducted as a full-scale, properly-weighted Scottish poll before being integrated into the GB poll as a subsample.  We were supposed to see the full-scale Scottish numbers at some point tonight - so far that hasn't happened, but the subsample percentages have appeared in the datasets of the GB-wide poll.  Unless I'm missing something, these figures will be identical to the Scottish poll, because I can't see why there would be any point in reweighting them.  If I'm wrong I apologise in advance for getting people's hopes up, because the numbers are nothing short of incredible for an eve-of-election poll.

Scottish voting intentions for the general election (Survation, 10th-11th December):

SNP 46% (+5)
Conservatives 27% (+3)
Labour 15% (-7)
Liberal Democrats 10% (+2)

Seats projection (Electoral Calculus model): SNP 47 (+12), Conservatives 6 (-7), Liberal Democrats 4 (n/c), Labour 2 (-5)

The percentage changes are measured from the last full-scale Survation poll in April, so are only of limited use in judging the effect of the campaign.  For example, April was before the Lib Dem surge really got underway.  But Labour don't have any obvious alibi for these figures - Survation have been a particularly favourable pollster for them in the recent past.  It's really surprising to see them performing 5% worse than in the YouGov MRP (particularly as the MRP suggested they had been gaining ground over the campaign).

I'm far, far more sceptical about what this poll is suggesting in respect of the SNP-Tory contest, because there's such a long history of polls overestimating the SNP's position in relation to the Tories.  And by long history I mean even back into my childhood - in the 1992 election, every poll suggested that the SNP would finish second and the Tories third, but every poll was wrong.  In 2017, Survation did a better job of picking up the late anti-SNP swing than any other pollster, but their final poll still overestimated the SNP's lead over the Tories by a couple of points.

The main thing that went wrong in 2017 is that people who would have voted SNP simply didn't make it to the polling stations, while Tory voters did.  We've got to move heaven and earth tomorrow to make sure that doesn't happen again, no matter how cold or wet the weather is.  No stone left unturned.  Come on, let's do this.  In 19 hours from now it'll be too late.

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UPDATE: In my excitement, I missed a very obvious point here - this poll was conducted by telephone rather than the more common online method, so that might explain why the figures seem so surprising. Of course in the old days we would have automatically assumed that telephone polls are more accurate, but that question has been less clear-cut since 2016, because online polls actually performed better in the EU referendum.

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UPDATE II: Unfortunately the Survation numbers reported above did prove to be inaccurate, although it's still a very good poll for the SNP.  You can find the correct numbers in a fresh blogpost HERE.

21 comments:

  1. good luck everyone for tomorrow voted snp so my family done its bit, hope this poll is wrong and the snp vote is higher.

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  2. Unionist Media BDSM ClubDecember 12, 2019 at 12:59 AM

    Thanks to James and the non-psychotic regular contributors here for the analysis throughout the campaign.

    Please get out there tomorrow and help make political history, everyone. Help end the Cringe forever and make this country a non-fascist, non-submissive northern European social democracy. Vote SNP.

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  3. Still waiting for Jo Swinson to turn up in her constituency that it's been the privilege of her life to serve in, according to the polls Willie Rennie is 1% in front in East Dunbartonshire so I'm sure Ms Swinson will be relieved and hoping she wins in abstentia

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  4. I've seen it suggested that although this poll was conducted separately, it will have been weighted into GB demographics in being incorporated into a GB poll. We will find out the proper figures tomorrow, but hopefully the high numbers here are a sign the vote is at least holding up.

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    Replies
    1. Britain Elects have already posted these numbers as definitive (with a small discrepancy on the Tory vote) so let's hope they're not mistaken. Admittedly they've been wrong before, but with a bit of luck Survation tipped them the wink before going to bed.

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  5. Labour should win most seats if the Scots remember who fought the class struggle for over a century. Then the middle class Scottish Nat sis arrived on the scene with their fake credentials. History will suss them out.

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    1. How do you and the other Tory-voting toffs feel about having won the class war, GWC?

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    2. I do not know how Tory toffs feel. Perhaps you Nat si Tory Mellow Yellow know the answer. You are the same ilk.

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    3. Yep, the class war like the war they waged in the courts to keep from paying women in Glasgow equal wages. History has indeed sussed someone out. That would be the ones in Scotland who cared only for sucking up to the British elite and waiting for their ermine robes.

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    4. I prefer the class war being waged by Baron Splendid of Darling, Lord McConnell, Lord Reid, Lord Robertson, Baron Bottle of Foulkes, Baroness Lidl, Baroness Smith of Snobsville and the rest. The war is a bargain at £300 a day per head.

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  6. Is there no seat projection to go with this?

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    Replies
    1. The Electoral Calculus projection is below the vote shares.

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    2. Oh thanks, I see it now. I'd take that, in fact I'd bite your hand off for it. Still not convinced there isn't a catch though.

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    3. The only catch would be if we get the numbers up to 50. Then we'd have to suffer Colonel Ruth skinny dipping in Loch Ness. That's a vision I could never burn from my memory.

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    4. My granny's house looks over the loch. And she has a pair of binoculars and a camcorder.

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  7. Survation is aslo projecting 1% for both Brexit and Greens. This changes the Electoral Calculus projection to 48 seats SNP, 5 seats Conservative, 4 seats LibDem and 2 seats Labour. As they also put the SNP vote at 0% for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and does not give any number for independent, that second Labour seat is not a sure thing,.

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  8. I'm still hoping Scotland will see sense, not vote for chicken liar Bozo, and turn out in even greater numbers for the SNP - over 50%.

    But I'd happily take the Survation figures :-)

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  9. No sign of the party figures yet, but the poll has indepndence at 49% - 10% higher than Survation's final call poll in 2017.
    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/1039926/exclusive-courier-poll-showing-rise-in-support-for-independence-gives-election-day-boost-to-snp/amp/?utm_source=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

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  10. Here they are. SNP on 43, Con 28%, Lab 20% and Lib Dem 7%

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/uk-politics/1039917/general-election-exclusive-courier-poll-suggests-conservatives-and-snp-to-be-tonights-big-winners/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

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  11. it's a telephone poll
    respondents are 16+yrs old
    even with the statistical wizardry of weighting, I wouldn't get too excited about it.

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