General Election Polling - completely off

[Rusty101]

Just been looking at the polling for mine and 2 neighbouring seats and I really do think it is way off the mark. I know the demographic pretty well and the prediction of Labour wiping out these conservative seats doesn’t really seem likely. It’s the shy Tory syndrome where people don’t want to admit that they will be voting for them. Anyone else feel the same when looking at the polling in their area?

www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/newseatlookup.html

Totally agree with this.

Also they are going to come out and say "xyz poll was spot on!" because they have polls for literally every possible outcome and seat split at this point.

Maybe. But if they do, it will be quite a different situation to recent years, when the polls were pretty accurate in 2016 and 2019, and when they underestimated Labour not the Tories in 2017.

What seats are we talking about?

( so I can have a specific opinion rather than just "yes pills can be wrong and this won't happen unless we go and vote for it" )

If you post specific seats I can post the prediction that takes local factors into account.

Why would "shy Tories" be wary of saying they were going to vote Tory in an online poll?

The fact that Rishi is campaigning hard in HIS OWN SEAT and senior Tories are popping up in constituencies with Tory majorities of 15-20,000 suggests that their own canvassing returns reflect the polls. Why would "shy Tories" be wary of telling a Tory canvasser that they were going to vote Tory?

Polls were right in 2019 and weren't all that far out in 2017. Some predicted a Leave win too.

Fwiw Phil Moorehouse - A Different Bias podcast- has advised caution re Electoral Calculus. He prefers the stop the tories site. You can't simply vote for the second placed candidates in every seat. In some places Tory voters are far more likely to switch to LD even if the latter were in 3rd place at the last GE. In others they will choose Labour eg in the Red Wall areas.
Hard to see Reform actually getting 20% . UKIP always performed better in EU elections than in GE. If they fall a bit short it may save a few Tory seats I suppose.

All the people that I know who previously voted Tory are going for Lib Dem or staying home so I think that it will be a Labour landslide.
All the polls have said that for months now and been very consistent.
Starmer has run an effective campaign and not made the usual mistakes that Labour does.

That's strange, all the conservatives voter that I know are still voting conservatives and one is planning on voting reform 💀😂
The labour voters I know are also voting labour still (obviously). I have read of many people online saying they have changed to labour though.

It's an interesting point. The leading Tories are doing more campaigning in their own seats than we'd typically see.

Sunak might be an outlier due to the disproportionate number of voters in the seat with a military connection though. Not sure we'd have seen him make the same campaigning choices if not for the D Day fiasco.

Lib Dems are predicted to win in my currently Tory seat. Last time we had a very strong and popular Independent candidate; but the vote was nearly 50 per cent Tory, and the rest was split between the Independent and the Greens and various smaller parties. If the non- Tories had all voted for the Independent instead, she'd have won. I think that's what will happen again here - the vote will be split and we'll get the Tory again even though Lib Dems are predicted to win.

Electoral Calculus had a blip last week and forecast a Reform gain in my constituency. I nearly had heart failure. It’s back to predicting a Labour gain now - in line with all the other polls but I’ve completely lost confidence in it.

Look at Gloucestershire, I've posted about it upthread.

It why do you think they won't say it to a pollster? They won't get 'abuse' then. They won't even know the person. What reason is there to lie in a poll?

That is not true! The exit polls predicted a hung parliament in 1992. It was too close to call.

If you’re so confident then you could post your actual constituency, and we’ll see whether you or the pollsters were right on Friday.

Our constituency is a safe Conservative seat. Except our MP is currently involved in a scandal where they have been found to be claiming expenses for rent in London whilst also renting out a property in London. I think this has annoyed a lot of their core voters.
I'm sick of corruption so will be voting for the young Labour candidate, as will many of my friends. I don't know anyone admitting to voting reform.

I live in a largely rural seat which had a WHOPPING very long standing Conservative majority until last year. Went Labour at a by election. You can believe it couldn't possibly happen until it does happen.

In 2010 they were predicting a majority, didn't get it but things are different here at least, population change is significant so I believe the polls saying labour swing. Our house (4 people) are all voting labour, 2 for the first time

“Gloucestershire

Cheltenham
Current Holder: Conservatives
Majority: 1,421, 2.5%
Prediction: Safe LD
A slightly smaller version of the old seat, this should be one of the easier Lib Dem gains of the night in a seat they held from 1992-2015. It’s currently held by Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, which is a shame as he’s one of the better cabinet ministers. He’s a barrister who, amongst other high profile cases, represented journalists during the phone hacking scandal. His replacement will be Max Wilkinson, a councillor and local journalist, very much in the classic Lib Dem candidate mould.”

North Cotswolds
Current Holder: Conservative
Majority: 20,997, 41.5%
Prediction: Likely Conservative
The old Cotswolds seat has been split in two. This half has a quarter of Tewkesbury and a chunk of Stroud added in. It’s another one of those seats with a split opposition and a big enough majority that the Tories should be able to hold it. Though the veteran MP, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, did once come out worst in a survey of constituents asking about the level of support they got from their MP. He’s been there since 1992, and has always been a backbencher – an “old right” eurosceptic.

South Cotswolds
Current Holder: Conservative
Majority: 16,092, 30.5%
Prediction: Lean LD
This is the other half of the old Cotswolds seat with half of North Wiltshire added in. And of the two seats this is the one the Lib Dems are targeting, given they are a clearer second place here and hold many of the wards at council level. It’s one of their longer shot targets but, depending on tactical voting and the Reform vote, they might just sneak it. The MP is another right-wing veteran backbencher, James Gray, who was a SPAD to Michael Howard and John Gummer during the Major government and won the North Wiltshire seat in 1997. His opponent is one of the cooler Lib Dems standing this time – Roz Savage, who gave up life as a management consultant to become an adventurer – becoming the first woman to row all of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans solo. She’s also a very good marathon runner and an environmental campaigner.

Tewkesbury
Current Holder: Conservative
Majority: 19,443, 36%
Prediction: Likely Conservative
Three quarters of the old constituency plus wards from Cheltenham and Gloucester, this is another seat the Tories will probably hold due to a split opposition, meaning it’s not being targeted by either party. The beneficiary here would be Laurence Robertson, yet another veteran eurosceptic (lots of them in the south west) whose held the seat since 1997. This is someone who was campaigning for John Redwood to be leader back in 1995.”

What dangerous policies are you afraid they may enact?

Cameron didn't have a huge majority but inflicted enormous economic damage on this country in both his terms as PM and one of those was in a coalition government.

I do find this country a strange place. We've gone through 14 years of utter devastation and the gutting of almost every area of public service, ramped up national debt and left people significantly poorer and more miserable and angry. And yet... people are still terrified by what Labour may or may not do.

People are desperate for change but when it's offered they say it's too radical. IMO, England is going to be locked in decline for a long time because the electorate wants conflicting things: better public services but less taxes; lower immigration but cheaper services and stronger care and health sectors etc. Until we, the people, start to become realistic in our demands, governments will continually offer unworkable policies and promise nonsense like Brexit as the elixir to all our ills.

This

I'd be interested to see this for High Peak

I am in a safe Labour seat but the prediction here is that Reform will come second which is from my perspective very troubling. I have a family member who will be voting tactically in the hope of unseating a very well known and prominent Tory so will vote Lib Dem rather than Labour. Not long to wait to see how accurate the polls are. "Supermajority" is just a daft expression, there are narrow majorities, working majorities and large majorities. Johnson had a majority of 80 and look how that turned out...

Same in my constituency but with the Tory candidate

I have The Fear about this election too, but worth noting that at no point in 1992 were the polls consistently suggesting a Labour lead of 15-20 points.