We are just a a couple of days away from finding out the result of the General Election and finding out which, if any, of the Opinion polls have been most accurate. I wrote here, at the start of the campaign about what we might be able to glean from the opinion polls. At that time, Labour seemed to be polling in the mid-40s (a range of 40-50%), the Conservatives were polling between 19-28%.
As you get to the end of an election campaign you expect one thing to happen and the campaign managers hope for one other thing. We expect the polling numbers to converge, this is known as herding and the parties hope that the campaign will have improved their polling position, relative to other parties.
If you look at the polls at the start of this week, it is fair to say that both Labour and the Conservatives have reason to be disappointed with the campaign. Neither party have improved on their polling. Rishi Sunak would have hoped at worst to see polling converge around the higher results for the Conservatives (about 28%) or improved on that into the early thirties. If he had managed to reduce Labour’s poll lead, then a narrow Labour victory or even a hung parliament as per 2010 could have been on the cards. This looks unlikely now with the Conservatives’ best polling being around 24%.
However, Labour should have even more reason to be disappointed because their polling figures have fallen so that they are polling at between 39-42%. It will be the First Past the Post system, the Tory collapse, Reform’s surge and tactical voting that will give them a super majority if they achieve that.
We are though seeing the herding affect, and it may well simply be the case that it was always the lower polling for Labour and low to mid-range for the Conservatives that was more accurate. If that is the case then I think what we are seeing is that in the end, the General Electino didn’t change anything much. The Country were fed up with the Tories, considered them at best out of touch and incompetent and at worst in it for themselves and tainted by sleaze and corruption but are not particularly enthusiastic for Keir Starmer.
Nigel Farage’s decision to enter the race probably had the same affect as Nick Clegg’s in 2010, it knocked the campaign off balance, though in the end, as then, we may see that things settle down towards the norm.
It looks like the Conservative’s main late campaign message of seeking to deny a super majority is cutting through a little. On its own, that message is perhaps too little too late. They may get a small boost from the way that focus on Reform has exposed the worst aspects of the fledgling party. However, it may also be the case that Reform votes are now locked in and that people already knew what they were getting with them.
Personally, I expect the exit poll to be close to the polling of the last few days though the Conservatives may be a little higher, Labour and Reform a little lower. We don’t have long to wait now.
Faithroots 