YouGov’s penultimate Scottish poll before the referendum is out tonight (the last one being the eve-of-poll one next week). Topline figures, with changes from the weekend, are YES 48%(-3), NO 52%(+3) – the No campaign are once again ahead, but it remains within the margin of error.
One can look at this two ways. One is that Yes moved briefly ahead, but there has been a move back – perhaps the Scottish people recoiled a bit from the risk when it began looking like it would really happen, perhaps the stories over the last few days of pension companies and banks redomiciling to the UK had a impact (fieldwork was between Tuesday and today, so later fieldwork would have picked some of it up). An alternative is that it’s just margin of error – the last poll was a little “yes-ey” or this poll is a little “no-ey”. It’s a natural human instinct to look for narrative, to weave data into a coherent story, when sometimes they are just random noise. As we enter the final week of the referendum campaign what we can be certain of is that the polls are now all showing it extremely close – YouGov and Panelbase have YES at 48%, Survation 47%, TNS 49%. No appears to be slightly ahead, but it’s close…
Filed under:
Scotland,
YouGov
Survation have new Scottish poll out tonight for the Daily Record. Topline referendum figures are YES 42%, NO 48%, Don’t know 10%. Without don’t knows it works out at YES 47%(nc), NO 53%(nc) – exactly the same split as their previous poll at the end of August.
We now have a rather odd situation with the polls. For most of the Scottish referendum campaign we’ve had a situation where all the polls were showing a very similar trend (mostly little change, with occassional slight movement towards yes), but there were systemic differences between the overall figures: companies like Survation and Panelbase were consistently showing quite a tight race, companies like YouGov, MORI and TNS were consistently showing much bigger leads for NO. These past few weeks the polls have started to show different trends – YouGov and TNS have been showing a dramatic movement towards YES, Panelbase and Survation have shown things pretty static… but this means the overall figures have suddenly become much the same, everyone now seems to be showing a tight race, with Panelbase, TNS, Survation and YouGov all showing YES between 47% and 51%.
For the many people who keep on asking, here are the remaining Scottish referendum polls that I know about. It’s not necessarily exhaustive, there may be other polls out there still to come, but it’s the sum of my knowledge at the moment:
There is a Survation poll to come tonight, for the Daily Record
There is a YouGov poll for the Sun and Times on Friday
At the end of the week or weekend (not sure of the exact day) there is a new ICM poll
I think there is also a new Panelbase poll at the weekend
Next week there will definitely be final call polls from YouGov and Ipsos MORI, I’d expect both on Wednesday night. I imagine there will also be final polls from other companies like Survation and TNS who have regularly polled during the referendum campaign, but haven’t seen any confirmation yet.
There isn’t an official BBC/ITV exit poll for the referendum – these days you only get them for general elections.
UPDATE: Scratch the idea of a final TNS poll, they aren’t doing one. Post on the new Survation poll coming up later.
TNS have a new Scottish poll out tonight which echoes the big swing towards YES than YouGov have been showing in their recent polls. Topline figures are YES 38%(+6), NO 39%(-6), Don’t know 23%(nc) with don’t knows, YES 49%(+7), NO 51%(-7) without. Taking just those certain to vote YES and NO would be equal. Full tabs are here.
As usual with TNS’s face-to-face polling the fieldwork is a little older than the telephone and online polls we see – fieldwork took place between the 27th August and 4th September, last Thursday. This means that much of the fieldwork is older than the Panelbase and YouGov polls at the weekend. The important finding though is the big shift towards YES. As we’ve seen, over their last three polls YouGov have shown a steady and substantial movement from NO to YES, turning the race from a roughly a 40-60 split to one that’s broadly neck-and-neck. Panelbase didn’t pick up the same pattern, but had consistently been showing a very close race anyway. TNS had been showing large steady leads for NO, similar to those from YouGov, and now they too are showing the race tightening right up so it’s broadly neck-and-neck. The YouGov and TNS polls are conducted using very different methods – YouGov an online panel, TNS a traditional face-to-face quota sampled survey conducted in people’s own homes, yet they are showing the same pattern. Any idea that the narrowing is something to do with online methodology goes out of the window, it looks as if the race genuinely has tightened right up.
The thing to watch now will be how the Scottish public react to the tightening of the race. It’s easy to imagine people recoiling from the risk of voting YES as it becomes something that might really happen. It’s equally easy to imagine a surge of enthusiasm for voting YES as it becomes clear it’s something they can really make happen.
Filed under:
Scotland,
TNS
After their summer break Lord Ashcroft’s weekly GB poll start up again today with topline figures of CON 28%, LAB 35%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 18%, GRN 6%. Tabs are here.
Meanwhile this morning’s twice weekly Populus poll has topline figures of CON 34%, LAB 36%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 12%, GRN 4%. Tabs are here.
Later on tonight there is also a TNS Scottish poll due to be published, so we shall see if the sharp narrowing in YouGov’s recent polling is echoed or not.
