In recent months, YouGov have slipped out of line with other pollsters with regard to Holyrood voting intentions, showing the SNP in a somewhat weaker position. However, this week's new poll that provided such encouragement on the referendum front also shows the Nationalists increasing their constituency lead over Labour by an extra point, and drawing level with Labour on the regional list ballot.
Scottish Parliament constituency vote :
SNP 38% (-1)
Labour 35% (-2)
Conservatives 13% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+2)
Scottish Parliament regional list vote :
SNP 33% (n/c)
Labour 33% (-2)
Conservatives 13% (-1)
Greens 7% (+1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (+2)
In contrast to the recent Ipsos-Mori poll, though, the SNP haven't made a stride forward on their own vote share, which maintains at least the possibility that YouGov's status as a relatively No-friendly pollster is directly linked to the fact that they are also finding fewer people planning to vote SNP. By extension, that means that real votes in forthcoming local council by-elections (there's one today!) and in the European Parliament elections could give us a vital clue as to which pollsters are likely to prove most accurate on the referendum - if the SNP do well, that would increase the likelihood that Yes-friendly pollsters like ICM and Panelbase are closer to the mark, but if their vote slips back a touch, YouGov could be the ones to watch.
SNP have held Kilmarnock North.
ReplyDeleteBit of a drop in the vote, though. It's always difficult to make much sense of a single result, because there may have been local factors, loss of a personal vote from last time, etc. The European elections will hopefully tell us something more definitive.
ReplyDeleteFirst SNP win at a local by-election since 2011. It looks like a good solid result to me. The late SNP councillor had benefitted from a huge transfer of votes from the very popular Nationalist councillor, Helen Coffey. Some SNP votes are likely to have gone to the Greens who didn't contest last time.
ReplyDeleteIf Helen Coffey has a very strong personal vote, that would be encouraging, because of course the swing is measured from the combined first preference vote for both councillors last time around. It was a 7.6% drop in the SNP vote, of which a maximum of 2.1% can be explained by voters switching direct to the Greens.
ReplyDeleteHelen Coffey has a huge personal vote. She polled around 1450 first prefs to the late councillor's 250 or so.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the hashtag for this bye-election that I stumbled on when looking for the result, you will see the huge effort Labour made in this election. Mp's, MSP etc etc visitng the ward. #Kilmarnocknorth
ReplyDeleteI didn't know there was a bye-election taking place.
The huge effort seems to have had only minimal impact. In my mind this is an exceptionally good result at this stage of the referendum campaign and the lifetime of the current Parliament. I'm very heartened by it. Incidentally the winning candidate is the partner of the former councillor.
ReplyDelete