By Lord Ashcroft
Labour’s lead has narrowed to two points in the Ashcroft National Poll conducted between 23 and 25 May.
The finale of the Euro election campaign, together with the coverage of UKIP’s victory, has helped Nigel Farage’s party to 17% in my survey, with the Conservatives unchanged from last week on 29%, Labour down four points on 31%, and the Lib Dems down one on 8%. The UKIP share is the highest yet recorded in a national telephone poll. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Here is the text of my speech to the Conservative Home Spring Conference this afternoon in which I discussed the detail of my latest battleground poll. The slides from my presentation are here.
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Good afternoon, and as the proud proprietor of Conservative Home let me add my welcome to our second annual Spring Conference.
As you will know by now, I am here to tell you what is really going on. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
In the last few weeks I have polled more than 26,000 voters in 26 constituencies that will be among the most closely contested between the Conservatives and Labour at the next general election.
Across the battleground I found a 6.5% swing from the Conservatives to Labour – enough to topple 83 Tory MPs and give Ed Miliband a comfortable majority. But this is a snapshot, not a prediction. The research also found that most voters in these seats are optimistic about the economy, and only three in ten would rather see Mr Miliband as Prime Minister than David Cameron. As I have found in the Ashcroft National Poll, half of voters say they may change their mind before the election – and there is still a year to go. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Tomorrow night’s European Parliament election results will bring a frenzy of analysis and speculation. Why did so many people vote UKIP? Who did they support before? What do they care about? And most of all, what will they do when it comes to the next election?
As we pollsters say: you can guess, or you can find out. In the 12 hours after the polls closed on Thursday night I surveyed over 4,000 people who took part in the Euro election. My poll doesn’t try to predict the result – that would be illegal before voting has finished in all European countries – but it helps explain why voters did what they did, and what they might do next. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Labour are ahead by six points in my latest general election voting intention poll, conducted over the past weekend. The survey puts Labour on 35% (up three points since last week), the Conservatives on 29% (down five), the Lib Dems unchanged on 9% and UKIP down one point at 14%. This looks like quite a reversal in the week since the inaugural Ashcroft National Poll found the first Tory lead since 2012. What is going on? (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
For the first time in more than two years, the Conservatives are ahead in a national voting intention poll. The first of my weekly telephone surveys has found a two-point Tory lead: Conservative 34%, Labour 32%, Lib Dems 9%, UKIP 15%. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
There was no shortage of comment last week to mark the start of the one-year countdown to the election (indeed I offered a few observations of my own). Predictions, however, were rather harder to come by.
One striking and rather cheering exception was the Telegraph’s Dan Hodges, who feels many serious political analysts are unable to see the obviousness of a Cameron victory because they struggle to grasp “the sheer scale of Ed Miliband’s political incompetence and stupidity”. Other commentators were rather more circumspect about the likely winner – though equally bold, in their own way, were the academic team at the Polling Observatory. They concluded from their analysis of long term polling trends that the result is on course to be a draw, with Labour and the Conservatives each winning 36% of the vote.
I am not in the business of predicting vote shares, but the political dynamics do suggest a humdinger. (more…)
By Lord Ashcroft
Towards the end of the last parliament a cartoon showed a lady asking her husband, “Is it possible to be sick of an election before it’s started?” Many will have the same thought long before – 365 days from today – we choose our next government. (more…)