Monday, June 5, 2017

Electrifying Survation telephone poll shows Tory lead plummetting to just 1%

It turns out that the result of the Survation online poll the other day was not a fluke, because a new telephone poll from the same firm tonight shows exactly the same thing - that the Tory lead has been virtually wiped out.

GB-wide voting intentions (Survation, telephone fieldwork) :

Conservatives 41.5% (-1.6)
Labour 40.4% (+3.1)

(Other parties' vote shares not available yet.)

It's important to stress that these figures do not in any way represent the start of a new polling consensus - they're instead the extreme Labour-friendly end of a spectrum that stretches all the way to a 12-point Tory lead with ComRes, which if correct would translate into a three-figure landslide majority for Theresa May.  There is no sign at all that the more Tory-friendly pollsters are about to converge with the others - the most recent ICM and ComRes polls both showed a very stable picture.  So unless there is a decisive swing back to the Tories over the coming days, it looks very possible that we will go into polling day with some firms pointing to a hung parliament, others pointing to a Tory landslide, and perhaps a third group suggesting a middling Tory majority.  If so, we literally won't have a clue what is going to happen until Big Ben strikes 10 and the exit poll is revealed - although admittedly we're not exactly short of establishment commentators who claim to already know for sure that ICM and ComRes are right, and that "it's over".

19 comments:

  1. Supposedly carried out on June 2nd-3rd so before the London attack, feel that those events could push it either way really, TM is getting a lot of stick for her stint as Home Secretary.

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    1. The YouGov model was updated today based at least partly on fieldwork from the weekend, and there was no obvious sign of the Tories regaining ground.

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    2. From the moment this election was called, I has a suspicion that May was trying to throw it in order not to be in the driving seat during Brexit, due to the assumption that the result of negotiations will be bad for Britain and whoever it be will suffer a backlash. Therefore she has thrown it to put Labour in charge and it is they who will suffer the backlash resulting in decades longer of Conservatives in power.

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  2. Kipper Theresa and her westminster bubble incompetentsJune 5, 2017 at 11:23 PM

    It's gone total Dads Army at CCHQ.

    DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!!

    Followed by comically inept tory media managers looking for an arse to kick that isn't their own.

    You would need a heart of stone not to laugh. :D

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  3. although admittedly we're not exactly short of establishment commentators who claim to already know for sure that ICM and ComRes are right, and that "it's over".

    Sure, but the larger point is as you said - that there is literally no possible way of knowing.

    Unless you have done heavy canvassing and can pull enough of that in from enough different places to build a reasonable picture of where things are, or at least were, to build from. That will give you a decent enough starting point from which to work if nothing else.

    Canvassing isn't perfect of course and it can't take into account late swings. However, it is far more preferable than trying to discern from a host of wildly diverging polling. Each polling company will unquestionably claim till they are blue in the face that they and only they are right. They might even believe it. But they sure as shit can't all be right this time.

    I've heard some of the more comical tories reassuring themselves that May must be working from private polling. All without a flicker of self-awareness that there just might be a tiny flaw with that plan.

    At this point throwing a dart at a dartboard would be as reliable as the polls. Private or public.

    Doesn't particularly matter why in the end. Voter turnout weighting or not, it would be no more enlightening if the chasm was due to some other factor since there is no way to be sure which polling model is correct or even close till the polls close.

    Unless of course you did the groundwork previously and can reconcile that with how things are right this second. All the way to polling day when the GOTV operation will be critical.

    Assuming the various parties have an actual substantive GOTV operation of course and did't rush into this chaotic election relying on the media alone to do all the heavy lifting for them.

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  4. It'll be very interesting to see which pollsters were right-ish in a couple of days time.

    Vital though that people vote and convince possible apathetic, lapsed SNP members/supporters to vote and if this poll is the right could well be the difference between a Labour minority government (backed by progressive partners in a confidence/supply arrangement) and more Tory rule.

    I'm of course getting ahead of myself with minority government talk etc, but you know what I mean..

    Get out and vote folks.

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  5. Vote Labour and boot the two Tory parties oot especially the Tartan mobsters.

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    1. The poster above is a far-right racist tory sockpuppetJune 6, 2017 at 1:19 AM

      The troll 'GWC2' calls scottish people "jocks", advocates arming Leave campaigners, arbitrary deportations and public mutilations, claimed Jo Cox's husband was a fascist, uses racial, homophobic and ethnic slurs, pretends to be Labour (badly) while espousing far-right racist hate-speech, praises Theresa May and the tories and displays a perverted poisonous obsession with Scotland's First Minister & her predecessor

      Delete
    2. All I want for Xmas is a gimp suit and a ball gag

      Delete
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      Delete
  6. Surge too late for postal votes feeling they will swing it for Tories. In Scotland postal votes could also help the Tories against SNP. However if Labour are taking SNP votes now. Postal might have helped us stay well ahead of Tories.

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  7. Surge too late for postal votes feeling they will swing it for Tories. In Scotland postal votes could also help the Tories against SNP. However if Labour are taking SNP votes now. Postal might have helped us stay well ahead of Tories.

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  8. The crossbreaks in Survation show us why the small numbers cannot be trusted. This poll puts the SNP at 45.6, the Tories at 13.6, the LibDems at 3.4 and Labour at an unbelievable 37.5. IF ONLY THESE WERE TRUE!

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  9. Even when the exit poll is revealed, how certain are we going to be of the result?

    The 2015 one wasn't out by miles, but it was still out enough to move it from hung parliament territory (which all the pollsters seemed to agree was pretty much nailed on) to small Tory majority.

    And if anything the variation in constituency-level predictions for this election is much wider. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

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    1. I wonder if the polls have any way to measure any effect of the Progressive Alliance tactical voting effort?

      If not, that and the youth vote could possibly swing it away from the Tories on the night. A shoogly peg on which to hang one's hopes, but a peg nevertheless.

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  10. You make a better political argument than the troll.

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  11. Yougov poll for the Times SNP 41 Tory 26 Lab 24 LD 6 GN 1

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