Thursday, April 29, 2021

EXCLUSIVE: Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll shows a virtual tie on the headline independence numbers, leaving today's Savanta ComRes poll looking like a possible outlier

When I first received the tables from the new Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, I was tearing my hair out slightly, because the numbers were pretty good for Yes in many ways, but just two respondents swung the balance, ie. if just two people who said they were No voters had been in the Yes column instead, the headline numbers would have been rounded to 50-50.  You'll get the best sense of how close it is by looking at the numbers rounded to one decimal place, which make it Yes 49.3%, No 50.7%.  With Don't Knows left in, even the rounded numbers show only a statistically insignificant one-point lead for No.

All of which tells a far better story for Yes than today's Savanta ComRes poll, which is left looking like a possible outlier.  Bear in mind that the Panelbase and ComRes fieldwork dates overlap to a significant extent - the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll was conducted between Wednesday of last week and Monday of this week, while the ComRes poll was in the field between Friday of last week and Tuesday of this week.  It would be a bit of a stretch to claim that the ComRes poll is more up to date and picked up a swing that Panelbase couldn't.  Remember also that recent Survation and Ashcroft polls are bang in line with Panelbase in showing Yes on 49%, and while the last YouGov poll put the figure at 47%, that was only a 2% decrease from a firm that is typically on the No-friendly end of the spectrum.  So that's all fairly consistent with the suspicion that the new ComRes poll may be underestimating Yes due to random sampling variation. For now at least, it looks like public opinion on independence continues to be essentially split down the middle, which is an excellent starting point for a referendum campaign.

Here are the headline numbers from the Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll...

Should Scotland be an independent country?  (Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, 21st-26th April 2021)

Yes 49%
No 51%

Before Don't Knows are removed, the numbers are - 

Yes 47%
No 48%
Undecided 6%

(1075 respondents were interviewed.  The percentages add up to more than 100 due to rounding.)

As ever, the figures for Labour voters are of particular interest - 28% are pro-independence and 72% are anti-independence, which is not quite as good for Yes as some previous Panelbase polls.  That partly explains why Yes don't have an outright lead.

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There's lots more to come from the poll - several supplementary questions of interest to the independence movement, and also Westminster voting intentions.  If you'd like to be the first to know the results, feel free to follow me on Twitter HERE.

6 comments:

  1. "As ever, the figures for Labour voters are of particular interest - 28%
    are pro-independence and 72% are anti-independence, which is not quite as good for Yes as some previous Panelbase polls. That partly explains why Yes don't have an outright lead."

    As Sarwar has not proved (thus far) to be a totally disastrous prone-gaff branch manager for Labour this may be the reason for why only 28% (as apposed to ~ 35%) of this party's supporters are currently in favour of Indy.

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  2. I'm not sure I trust comres what with it's earlier shenanigans, and the fact that 60% of its initial respondents are saying they voted Yes, causing a big downweighing for SNP/Yes (and maybe to some extent Alba).

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  3. I just done a poll today asking voting intentions for next week for both Constituency and list also on Indy too.

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  4. Just done a Poll for a outfit called Lucid Talks on the Scottish election next week and on Independence.

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  5. Have you tracked over time how Labour, Green, LD and Tory voters split on Indy?

    While you.mention it there, I wondered whether there were people who were finding Amas Sarwar's leadership more attractive than Richard Leonard's and moving back to No.

    I've always thought that it's Labour voters who will ultimately swing it.

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  6. Lorna Slater comments that the recovery from Covid and an Indyref are not mutually exclusive, and in fact go hand in hand.
    How can we have a green recovery when the powers for it are hogged by London.
    We need to stick it to Rennie, Sarwar etc that no recovery is credible that relies on the benevolence of our London masters.
    After May 6th the newly mandated scottish parliament should call immediately for talks with London to explore the terms of independence.

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