Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Yes campaign remain on all-time high in new Survation poll

New Survation poll :

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 47% (n/c)
No 53% (n/c)

UPDATE : I'm now adding some analysis and a Poll of Polls update in a fresh post HERE.

56 comments:

  1. 53N, 47Y. No change at all. Thank god for that - I was utterly bricking it, thinking we'd lost ground. Instead a Yes vote of 47% (which 2 weeks ago was considered very optimistic) and no increase or decrease.

    The hacks are calling this a "bad day for Salmond" (more like bad day for 47% of the Scottish electorate) but if on a "bad day" the best Better Together can do is no change with a high water mark of 47% then by god we can win this. I'm happy with this result, just as long as we can cover more ground in the other polls.

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  2. how on earth no change is 'quite something' is beyond me - bloody pollsters

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  3. Am I right in saying we get a YouGov poll on Friday?

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  4. Apparently so, for the sun/times.

    But I've given up on polls now. How can some show huge swings and otters stay the same when no change in methodology?

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  5. I didn't know that otters had an opinion on the vote. Surely it's no wonder they wouldn't change their mind, regardless of what the polls are saying?

    They're otters, for god's sake. How would an aquatic mammal know anything about self determination/the big issues of the day? The biggest issue they have must be catching trout or something.

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  6. @Boab

    Because different methodologies can lead to some pollsters identifying movement while others don't.

    We'll discover who was right pretty much on the night of 18 September.

    Xabi

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  7. Survation has 16-24 as the lowest YES group and women lagging behind unlike yougov. weird they ask the question at the end!

    Otters matter :)

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  8. A better poll for No than Yes in the current climate, but still pretty overhyped.

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  9. Odd poll with the weighting apparntly high in the 16 to 24 age group - message is simple: we have to get out there and canvass undecideds

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  10. Survation generally need high weighting in the 16 - 24

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  11. I think it's clear that from now on every polling company/newspaper that has a poll is going to tweet some teaser about it being "shocking" or "incredible" long before it's released just to drum up interest. And to be honest why wouldn't they? The speculation over this Survation poll was genuinely insane on Twitter even though it showed no change.

    For me the real interest in this poll is something we can't really know at this point: namely whether in the time since Survation's last poll the figures genuinely stayed the same, or whether Yes went up (as YouGov have said it did) before falling back again.

    The one thing we're waiting to know in my opinion is whether the electorate is now on a consistent slide to Yes or whether we saw a jump in support that was pushed back by all of the events over the last few days since BT went into panic mode.

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  12. First thing I check for is the 16-24 age group with Survation. This fluctuates like crazy in terms of voting intentions. Last poll had 42% Yes, 45% No. This poll its 32% Yes, 50% No. Every single poll they have for this age group is never even close to one another.

    To make matters worse, as its been pointed out, this is up weighted by a factor of over 2.

    Just goes to show that they dont really know what they are doing with this age group.

    When it comes to the over 65s, however, the figures hardly change - they are stupidly similar.

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  13. If there was a drift to No in the 16-24 group that always gets a huge upweighting, in order to stay the same would there not have been a drift to yes in the other age groups?

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  14. Yes is up overall. Hidden by rounding I believe.

    16-24 an outlier due to silly up-weighting. Yes up in all other age groups.

    James can confirm my quick look.

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  15. Forget the polls. None of them have a clue. They are all searching for the Holy Grail of Scottish polling which will enable them to come out correct. None of them are TOUCHING the great swell of voters who haven't voted before."Nor all their bullshit and faux weightings shall lure Scots back into voting NO". With apologies to Omar Khayyam.

    Seriously the Polls really don't have a clue. And for all James' faith in the scientific method it is time to abandon that and believe with the heart, the street, and the canvassers withall their faults.

    IT IS YES!

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  16. http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Headline-Referenedum-Vote-Table.pdf

    16-24 year olds were upweighted from 57 to 130.

    32% Yes for this age group seems very low, infact it's the lowest of all age groups (among 65+ Yes is on 35%)

    I think most people agree that the youngest, while slightly less pro-independence than people in their 20s to 40s, aren't as anti-independence as that.

    Purely theoretically, if we add another 10% onto this age group's "Yes" score and no change for undecideds, the number of Yes in the total poll would be 424 and No at 449, which is 48.5% Yes (excluding DKs).

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  17. Not as bad as I had been fearing after the noise on twitter today.

    I think this result, in terms of actually changing peoples minds, is good for yes. Will make ground campaign even more determined: been shown winning is possible, but we aren't there yet.

    Might also dampen down the media barrage a little.

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  18. Most of the other groups show a modest increase for Yes of a few % points. If you remove the 16-24 year olds from this sample, then you have Yes on 44%, No on 47% and DK on 9%.

    Compared to the last poll, which showed the 4% increase for Yes, then excluding the 16-24 year olds you had figures of 41% for Yes, 47% for No, and DK on 12%.

    Just a thought.

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  19. A correct thought BVB.

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  20. This vote will come down to national identity, as Scottish Skier has pointed out many times.
    Westminster is shiteing itself, because it knows this.
    Young guys at my work are voting for the first time, and they are voting Yes. Their Scottish nationhood has been challenged. Seemingly England played Switzerland at football during the week, and English fans were heard to chant about 'Scotland get to fuck'.
    That is enough for those young guys to vote Yes.
    We aren't all politics nerds.

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  21. Shows Yes far behind in Glasgow, and also shows Yes far behind in public sector compared to private sector employment.

    These don't 'feel' right to me.

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  22. Is it true that survation are a landline pollster, that explains the lack of 16-24

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  23. Anyone else see the sky news line? Unnamed no mp says their internal polling has yes in the lead....they expect to lose dundee,glasgow and aberdeen.

    No wonder they are going tonto. Its not the behaviour of people who are winning. Cameron up on monday again.

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  24. This poll has the 16 to 24 age group on 32% yes but YouGov were reporting them on 55% yes?

    It is impossible to know what to believe.

    I'm not bothered if the polls show no in the lead as long as we are in the lead in real life. In fact if it gives us a bit of relief from the media frenzy then it's welcome.

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  25. The link at the bottom of this post suggests this poll was done online not by landline or am I being stupid? Even if I'm correct it doesn't explain lack of 16-24's.

    Anyone know if Yougov and TNS had to upweight as much in this age range?

    http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Headline-Referenedum-Vote-Table.pdf

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  26. I suspect we can safely disregard any reports containing the words "unnamed No MP" or "internal polling".

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  27. Why is that then? Bt and yes have internal canvass returns. Its no secret. And would explain the erratic nature of no and the calm of yes

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  28. Yougov use the age groups 16-24 and 25-39, and both are also upweighted, but only by a factor of 1.4 and 1.1 respectively.

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  29. @chalks
    Because we'll never have any way of knowing what the results are, and the MP could be leaking whatever he likes for his own purposes. It's meaningless.

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  30. You would also think that as people get older, they tend to vote No.

    Yougov proves this theory, with the age groups:

    16-24: 19% Yes lead
    25-39: 17% Yes lead
    40-59: 5% Yes lead
    65plus: 23% No lead

    Survation, in contrast, is a bit more over varied:

    16-24: 18% No lead
    25-34: 2% No lead
    35-44: 5% Yes lead
    45-54: 8% Yes lead
    55-64: % No lead
    65plus: 21% No lead

    The over 65s appear remarkably similar for both companies, over the last few polls.

    It just seems that one of the 2 companies has a "young person" problem.

    Would be interested to know what James and Scottish Skier think....

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  31. Surely all the polls in the past week are consistent with Yes at about 49% allowing for 3% margin of error. And that is just among the regularly voting population that polling companies sample. All the newly registered voters and a favourable split in the don't knows can win this for Yes.

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  32. So the theory is that the hundreds of thousands who have not voted ever/recently but who are going to vote on the 18th are not represented very well in these opinion polls?

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  33. "This vote will come down to national identity, as Scottish Skier has pointed out many times."

    If it came down to national identity then it wouldn't even be a contest - Yes would win easily. It doesn't though. This is something we've known for a while: in Scotland most people identify as being Scottish rather than British - the number who say "more British than Scottish" or "only British" is fairly trivial - but a lot of these people still think staying in the UK is a good idea on pragmatic grounds.

    Identity has something to do with it, but it's not the full story. That's why the SNP have generally tried to downplay the identity/nationalist side of the argument and present independence as simply a mechanism for making functional gains. Some of these claims are quite debatable in my view, but this is the only way to win the argument.

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  34. No activist here (don't shoot the messager) based in Glasgow and it does 'feel' like we are behind on the ground but I suspect that a lot of our voters are quieter, the shy noes. Also in terms of spread across the country it's no secret we expect to lose Dundee and win Edinburgh. Glasgow and the west will decide this thing.

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  35. 16-24 year olds were, in my view at least, the hardest cohort to call. As time goes on though it's getting far clearer on the ground.

    A local Yes shop was swamped with that agegroup today so I would take any poll claiming they are firmly in the No camp with a truly enormous pinch of salt.

    The jawdropping stupidity of the incompetent fop Cameron's panic visit was hammered home to me tonight by a fellow Yes campaigner.

    He pointed out that all those uncertain Labour voters are now being seriously asked to vote No because it they don't it will break David Cameron's heart.

    ROFL

    Think about that for a second then tell me the No campaign isn't in complete meltdown with blind panic overriding everything.

    That's not the most astonishing thing though. The most astonishing thing is that the unionist media are still running Cameron's "heartbreaking" quote across all the news bulletins, seemingly without the slightest clue how incredible it sounds. It is being made, after all, by an out of touch tory twit of a PM who has already proved he is too much of a coward to debate anyone on Independence. Cameron also left it till hundreds of thousands of the scottish public had ALREADY VOTED just to hammer home how seriously he should be taken by the scottish public. Believe me, they noticed all right. LOL

    These westminster bubble idiots simply do not get it and never will.

    The diverse grass-roots Yes campaign are utterly determined to keep doing what we have been for years. We will keep talking to the scottish public face to face. The town hall meetings will not stop nor will the campaigning on the ground, town by town, street by street, doorstep by doorstep and voter by voter.

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  36. Oh and I beg to differ but this Vote will come down to trust. Everything else is secondary.

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  37. I honestly didn't think it could get any more hilarious but it has!! Little Nick Robinson is talking in hushed obsequious tones about Cameron's voice breaking and his emotional plea without a FLICKER of irony. I've never seen a supposedly impartial broadcaster make a bigger twat of himself.

    They absolutely do not get it! It's not an act. LOL

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  38. BVB - thanks for the Yougov info

    I'm a bit new to looking at polling tables and trying to figure out whats going on so the following might be nonsense and I would appreciate other thoughts and corrections on where I might be going wrong

    Survation seem to be showing that the turnout in 2011 was over 70%. This is 20% too high. Yougov seem to show a turnout of 56% which is a little higher than what there actually was. Is it possible that Yougov's method is slightly better at picking up previous non-voters hence a more favourable yes vote?

    Also does the Holyrood intention to vote not give some odd results. Yougov seem to be saying that the SNP are only just (5%) in front but Survation have the SNP well in front (approx 10%). I think most people would say the gap is more like 10% which would point to Survation being more correct. However both Yougov and Survation seem to be saying there will be over 70% turnout at the Holyrood election which seems very high.

    If we assume that Yougov would show a 10% lead for SNP if turnout was 50% (i.e. less labour voters actually vote which was one explanation for 2011 results) does that mean that the Survation lead for SNP would be 20% at 50% turnout? If so that looks a bit out and maybe explains why they are showing less Labour supportes that are going to vote yes?

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  39. Yes 47%! Hell, I'd take that right up until the 18th. This is a referendum of the people, not some middle-class polling organization's hobby. Stick 10% onto the Yes total.

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  40. All this validates what I have long said about Survation - my guess is they have a relatively politicised online volunteer panel who they keep surveying again and again

    So of course almost nothing ever changes in a Survation poll, except for a big downward dip during the days after the 1st debate

    And even that could be down to differential response rate (people are less likely to answer surveys when their side is doing badly)

    Some of the rightwingers I follow on twitter are jubilant, which is hilarious I am actually in favour of our side feeling they're in a tough fight and No thinking it's in the bag

    Very interesting that (we think_ Yes / SNP ran 3 Panelbase polls, rumours shot round they were good, then released a 48% no change I think that is deliberate

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  41. A tough day for Yes I think but it was always going to be. Media attention was on the Westminster Three and Yes seemed to be on the defensive. Project Fear continues but in a different guise. It is no longer being delivered by politicians but by the markets and so-called "independent experts" and it was timed to perfection with the UK media focused solely on Scotland at the moment.

    The Survation poll (I didn't expect No to be ahead) could be a blessing in disguise. It'll dampen some of the over-optimism amongst Yes supporters and prevent any displays of triumphalism. The longer Yes "appear" to be behind the better.

    With Cameron back in London and the media still in Scotland, Yes have an opportunity to set the agenda tomorrow. Will they use that opportunity?







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  42. " Media attention was on the Westminster Three and Yes seemed to be on the defensive."

    ???

    I do hope that's deadpan irony because the Yes campaign was certainly not unhappy or defensive over the westminster comedy omnipanic. Roll on Monday and yet more of it.

    I was talking to scots on the street today and nobody was impressed by the last minute panic visits from Cameron, little Ed and Clegg. Quite the opposite.

    Though if you actually mean the westsminster bubble media have tried to portray Yes as being on the defensive then fair enough.

    Thing is though, we've been dealing with the unionist media hysteria and far, far worse polls than this Survation for years and it simply has not worked.

    Yes aren't the ones panicking, No are.

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  43. Daily record front page is a disgrace, also No going big on banks leaving Scotland.

    Project Fear is going into overdrive, let's hope the soft Yes & Undecideds can see through this rubbish.

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  44. It really is quite a turn up for the books where we have the two most traditionally Yes-friendly pollsters Panelbase and Survation showing no change, while two previously No-friendly pollsters YouGov and TNS-BMRB showing sudden massive swings towards Yes. Only time will tell who is correct, if any of them.

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  45. Sorry Mick, "portrayed" would have been a better word. There's no doubt that the media gave Yes a hard time today. The Sky News coverage was particularly unfavourable.

    I stumbled upon the George Square Flashmob today. There was quite a contrast between the large crowd of good-natured Yes supporters and a small group, of what appeared to be mostly hardcore Rangers fans, who had gathered to sing God Save The Queen and wave Union Jacks. Don't expect that to be reported anytime soon in the MSM.


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  46. I was hoping that perhaps the polling was being done honestly but being unable to pick up on the reality because they are not designed for this situation.

    I fear, however, that they are being used to manipulate swing voters and I am afraid they may be effective in this.

    I have mentioned before that YouGov stopped asking me to do political polls when they knew I was a certain Yes. Then, suddenly, they asked me to do two in 2 days, one that was published at the weekend and a huge one that was clearly designed to find out what kind of offer might sway me to No. The latter will not be published, I'm sure.

    I have not been asked to take part in the poll they will publish at the end of the week. Of course not, they used voters like me to push up the Yes scores and they will now use a more No-friendly portion of their panel to show that support has fallen after this week's scares/love-bombing or whatever that was.

    That's my cynical view. The optimist in me still hopes to see a larger lead for Yes from the next YouGov but I won't be taking seriously any poll which fails to register the quite amazing move of real people around me to Yes in the past few days.

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  47. Bob I've had similar contact from You Gov, looking at how this has been played, I think you're absolutely right, that poll was an agenda setting exercise

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  48. I find it worth noting keaton.....sky news faisal islam political editor now says the no camp are bereft at the state of their internal polls.

    100 labour mps coming up 2moro.

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  49. "100 labour mps coming up 2moro."

    100 10% pay rises. Let them come. Pretty damn obvious what they are most concerned about and it sure ain't democracy or a campaign that has been going on for years.

    I also doubt too many of those Labour MPs will be holding up signs that say..

    "we want you to vote No to save Cameron from heartbreak." :-D

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  50. Bob: yes, me too, I've been polled every day. My take was that they are trying to see if anyone has moved back from yes to no following the visit from the Westminster Boy Band. And yes, wouldn't be surprised if they only asked yes people.

    We could give them a wee surprise tomorrow and say we are all 100% no, LOL.

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  51. Polling companies are playing "Longitude" before there were accurate clocks.

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  52. chalks: "Anyone else see the sky news line? Unnamed no mp says their internal polling has yes in the lead....they expect to lose dundee,glasgow and aberdeen."

    As someone who's canvassed in Aberdeen just about every day over the past few weeks, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Assuming we get our vote out, Yes will win Aberdeen. Torry, Kincorth, Northfield, Tillydrone and so on - they're all voting Yes in huge numbers. Contrast that with the middle class suburbs where No are ahead, but not by much. It's ours to lose.

    It's obviously no surprise to anyone that Dundee is voting Yes, and it's been an open secret for some time now that Yes are winning Glasgow. So I see no reason to disbelieve this unionist MP.

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  53. It was always going to get to this .. The select few Money Men asking us to give up our wealth so that they can keep theirs.

    Its all about strength of belief now. The polls will be manipulated from now on to test this belief to stretching point in my view, twinned with the financial threat (remember we are the frugal nation supposedly!).

    The strength of the groundwork for the last year is what I hope prevails.

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  54. "That's my cynical view. The optimist in me still hopes to see a larger lead for Yes from the next YouGov but I won't be taking seriously any poll which fails to register the quite amazing move of real people around me to Yes in the past few days."

    I'm amazed at how many people buy into this conspiracy stuff.

    Polls are always going to vary from what you see anecdotally. I couldn't name a single Tory where I live, yet they got just under 17% of the vote in 2010. I can't name a Lib Dem voter either. That's just the way it is - people in different regions/cities are voting in different ways.

    I do genuinely worry that with so many people seeming to buy into this conspiracy nonsense (and the No side aren't any better) we're going to see lasting complaints about electoral fraud after the 18th. For all the talk about economics, the one thing that would undermine Scotland (independent or not) would be a divided population, and this kind of "everyone's out to get us" mentality both sides are suffering from is taking us straight in that direction.

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  55. "we're going to see lasting complaints about electoral fraud after the 18th"

    Let's see how the conduct of this referendum actually goes before jumping to the conclusion that complaints will automatically be inappropriate or illegitimate. There are a hell of a lot of postal votes sloshing around - it's not an ideal situation when we know there has been cheating in the past.

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