Posted by Prof Neil Carter
This campaign has seen more turbulence in the polls than at any previous election. Just two weeks ago, before the first prime ministerial debate, the Liberal Democrats were running a distant third. Then came Cleggmania and they jumped, briefly, into first place, turning the contest into a genuine three horse race. Clegg and his party’s policies have since been subjected to an unrelenting assault from the pro-Tory media, but although the Liberal Democrat share of the vote has slipped a little, it has settled down in recent days at a very respectable 27-29%, putting the party neck-and-neck with Labour (who don’t seem to have suffered in the polls from the ‘Bigotgate’ affair). Meanwhile the Conservatives have steadily recovered some of the support that was lost to the Liberal Democrats, although with most polls putting the Tories at around 34-36% they are still some way short of the 40% share they were securing at the start of the campaign. So what can we expect in the one poll that really matters?
The problem for the pollsters is that in a three horse race it is much harder to predict how the swings between parties will translate into seats, particularly as there is strong evidence that the swing to the Liberal Democrats is not uniform across the country or amongst age groups. For example, the Liberal Democrats seem to be doing better in the North (which will hurt Labour), and less well in London and the South-east (which helps the Conservatives). They are also attracting large numbers of young (under 35) voters, which raises serious questions about how ‘soft’ their support is. In short, many young voters are not registered, and even if they are it is also the case that young people are far less likely to bother to vote on the day.
Of course, it is the marginal seats that really matter. The most recent poll of marginal seats (by Crosby/Textor for the Daily Telegraph today) suggests a strong swing to the Conservatives of 7.5% in Labour-held marginals , which is enough for the Conservatives to win about 100 Labour seats. However, the poll reports a 3% swing away from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats in Liberal Democrat-Conservative marginals, indicating that the gains that the Conservatives make from Labour may be partly counter-balanced by a failure to win key Liberal Democrats seats such as York Outer. To summarise, the evidence from the marginal seats suggests that the Conservatives are doing better in these key battleground contests, but not by enough to win an overall majority in the House of Commons.
Overall, the polls are predicting that the Conservatives will secure something like 280-315 seats (remember, 326 seats are needed for an overall majority, and something like up 335 for a decent working majority), Labour 220-255 and the Liberal Democrats 80-90 seats – these broad bands reflect the uncertainties involved in translating votes cast into seats gained. However, as I write this blog on Tuesday afternoon the spread betting indexes put the Conservatives on 322-327, right on the cusp of an overall majority. This variation might be explained by the openness of these markets to being shaped by a handful of market-makers from the City, who are perhaps influenced a little by wishful thinking and by their lack of acquaintance with anyone who won’t be supporting the Conservatives. But these guys are also hard headed investors who are probably betting on the hunch that the polls have slowly started to head back in favour of the Conservatives and that the Conservative support is likely to be a lot firmer than the more volatile Liberal Democrat numbers.
