Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 31%, LAB 44%, LDEM 9% and Others 17% (including UKIP on 8%), so has Labour’s lead at 13 for a second day.
There are also some new voting intention figures from TNS-BMRB, with fieldwork conducted over the weekend, which show very similar figures to YouGov – CON 30%, LAB 43%, LDEM 10% and Others 17%.
(I am out this evening, so this post was written in advance)
Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 31%, LAB 44%, LDEM 8%, Others 17% (including UKIP on 8%). Thirteen points equals the biggest Labour lead YouGov have shown since the election (it’s been hit twice before, both in April).
All the normal caveats apply – sure, it could be the start of larger Labour leads or it could just be normal random variation around the 10 or 11 point leads we’ve been seeing of late. That said, I personally wouldn’t be surprised if we did see bigger Labour leads in the coming days, it is far from unknown for local election victories to give parties a boost (from having the aura of success about them and “looking like a winner”). Equally, it’s far from guaranteed to happen. As ever, time will tell.
Tonight’s weekly YouGov poll for the Sunday Times has topline figures of CON 31%, LAB 43%, LDEM 9%, Others 17% (including UKIP on 8%). Fieldwork was, as usual, conducted between Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon and, in practice, the large majority of the fieldwork would have been conducted before results to the local elections were known, so it’s too early to see any impact.
As usual, I’ll do a full update in the morning.
The polls are closed, results should start coming in a couple of hours. Those hardly souls stayiong up all night please use this thread to discuss the results as they come in. Eyes will be on the millions of actual votes cast tonight, but for the record tonight’s YouGov/Sun poll is CON 32%, LAB 41%, LD 9%, UKIP 9%. Don’t, needless to say, expect the local votes to necessarily reflect that – people vote differently in local elections than they do in Westminster ones!
UPDATE: Since people keep asking, there is no exit poll, or at least, not in the sense of a proper exit poll interviewing people on the ground as they leave polling stations. These days these are only conducted for general elections. Last year YouGov did do an “on the day” poll, but I don’t know if that has been repeated this year.
UPDATE2: And again, since people keep asking, the first results should be around about midnight.
The Sun political team have already tweeted out the results of tonight’s YouGov daily poll. Topline figures are CON 33%, LAB 43%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 8% – so very much in line with the 10 or 11 point Labour leads YouGov have been showing of late.
Voting intention for Westminster is not a prediction for local government elections – people vote differently in different elections, the Lib Dems tend to do better in local elections and Labour worse – but the national polls are significantly better for Labour than they were a year ago, so it’s reasonable to expect a better showing for Labour tomorrow. (For the record, a year ago YouGov were showing Westminster voting intention at CON 36%, LAB 40%, LDEM 11%. Last year they also did a separate Local government poll, which had voting intention of CON 35%, LAB 37%, LDEM 15% – demonstrating how people do indeed consciously vote in a different way in local contests)
