Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Thoughts on the penultimate Survation seats projection

I'm not sure the latest Survation MRP update is as significant as people are assuming, because if the fieldwork dates are anything to go by, it's based on about 80% of the same interviews as the previous update.  The top-up of new data hasn't made the situation better for the SNP but it hasn't made it dramatically worse either.  And as an anonymous commenter pointed out on the previous thread, the credibility of the projection that the SNP will get only 10 seats hinges on whether you believe the popular vote figures, which show Labour 11 points ahead of the SNP.  That's possible, but it's significantly out of step with the conventional polling (so far).  If you think the SNP are a bit closer to Labour than that, it would mean they'd probably end up with more than 10 seats.  

The most recent batch of conventional polls show...

Savanta: SNP level with Labour
Ipsos: SNP level with Labour
Norstat: SNP 4 points behind
More In Common: SNP 5 points behind
Redfield & Wilton: SNP 6 points behind
YouGov: SNP 6 points behind
Survation: SNP 6 points behind

The Ipsos poll was less recent than the others but I've included it because it was conducted by telephone.

24 comments:

  1. Not sure that a poll that uses the electric telephone would get a representative sample.

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    1. What is this "electric telephone" stuff you keep wheeling out to try to discredit phone polls? Are you referring to landlines or mobiles or both?

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    2. That'll be the Cooncil phone that some hooses used to have

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    3. Alexander Graham Bell mate...."putting you through"

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  2. Not long to wait guys and dolls fir the real poll.

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  3. As a crude average the gap is +4 in favour of Labour.

    As I said in the other thread there's been a dip in Labour's UK vote and recent UK polls have hinted at an up tick in the SNP's.

    On a personal level, after toying with not voting, I completed my postal vote on Friday and posted it at a main post office before noon on Saturday. I voted for the SNP, doing so because as much as I am deeply unhappy with them (theyve shown that they couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery) they've been right on Gaza from the off (well done Humza), they've been clear on Labour's evasiveness on the UK's finances (well done to Paul Johnson at the IFS for almost keeping his cool), and there's a need to keep independence prominent (maybe it's the reality check for 2026).

    However I'm likely to end up with a Labour MP.

    I'd point out that I've had five leaflets (2 SNP at candidate level, 2 Labour at candidate level and one to both myself and my wifefrom Rachel Reeves no less), no door-to-door canvassing or any call from a phone bank. I'm on Facebook about once a month for 10min. Where's the money being spent? How's anyone being persuaded?

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    1. The SNP seem to be doing a full canvass in Cumbernauld because Stuart McDonald MP knocked on my door last night. And that's the first time I can ever remember them doing a full canvass here, apart from the independence referendum. Joanna Cherry has a full page ad in an Edinburgh newspaper, so that must have cost a fair bit. They're certainly no longer totally out of cash, because those local fundraisers for each candidate have been pretty successful.

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    2. That's good to hear that there's some local effort. But my point was a wider one, how are people being persuaded to vote for one over the other? I'm politically much more engaged than average and would form a view on the basis of reading lots and watching the debates, but I'm unusual.

      There was a very interesting set of graphs (Lord Ashcroft I think) which showed that most people who vote Reform or Tory aren't politically engaged and dont think about politics much or at all except as it is in front of them there and then. In contrast those who vote Green and LibDem are significantly (perhaps overly) politically engaged. The Labour voter was more than average engaged.

      What I took from that was that for most people who vote on the right was that politics was very instinctual or visceral - what they perceived on a hunch rather than reasoned. It was actually a big shock as it challenged my impression of the Tory voter as an elite type (businessman, stockbroker, lawyer type ie: educated) as there's just not enough of them, it made me think that there's a lot more in common between your regular Tory or Reform voter and the apathetic non-voter, and this then shocks me into realising that this is the same as the Trumpian-MAGA view.

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  4. Anyone else noticed 'Scottish Labours' selective spamming of YouTube? Most videos I've watched recently have started with a Starmer-Sarwar mash-up, or an ad featuring their candidate in my constituency. I've never seen that level of targeted political advertising before. Wonder how much that's costing?

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    1. its a nightmare and must cost a packet; if I voted labour I might change my mind out of spite at the nuisance

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  5. Scotland is a bystander in this election. We know the red Tory is going to win in England. I think it's obvious the SNP are going to have a bad night.

    The bonus is. We have two years to get revenge on Labour. The Scottish election is a different beast. Our movement needs to get back on track by 2026.

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    1. To say it's going to be a "bad night for the SNP" is meaningless. 2 seats could be defined as bad, so could 28. It'll probably be somewhere in between those two extremes, but it really does matter where.

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    2. Well said James

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  6. Well when you are at best losing 16 to 18 seats. How could it be a good night? 28 is also a bad night.

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    1. Er, no. If you're losing 16 seats that's a good night. It means you've still got 32, which is a majority and you've got out of jail.

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    2. (not you James

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  7. The Scotsman is reporting a new Savanta Scottish poll, their final, that has the SNP ahead of Labour.

    It also has analysis of that poll by Sir John Curtice, who is predicting 24 for the SNP and 22 for Labour.

    This would tally with the slight up-tick of the SNP share in UK national polls and the slight dip in Labour vote at UK level.

    He did caution about seat predictions based upon the efficiency of Labour's vote in the Cnetral Belt.

    Quote:
    The SNP is on 34 per cent, which is unchanged from the last Savanta poll carried out between June 21-25. Labour is on 31 per cent, which is a drop of three points. Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives are on 15 per cent (+1), the Liberal Democrats on 9 per cent (+2), Reform UK on 6 per cent (unchanged), and the Greens on 3 per cent (+1). ‘Other’ is on 2 per cent.

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  8. One last full day of campaigning. Keep it short I finally read right through the SNP manifesto and I reckon maybe 50% is about Independence (needed for a future made in Scotland), and things that can only be done with it. 25% is about trying to defend Devolution and the benefits of Devolution which the Colonialist parties are attacking right further right and far far right. And the other 25% includes trying to get things done at Westminster.

    Not quite sure how people can say it’s not all about Indy.

    But the SNP need a big final big message today, and I suggest more detail about the supposed Constitutional Convention - making the point that that would be near useless if the SNP didn't have a majority of Westminster MPs, and preferably as near 57 as possible.

    Can the SNP still rise now, to that challenge today?

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