You Gov Poll Reflects Dragon Result and Predicts a Narrow Conservative Victory

Published on: 28 Nov, 2019
Updated on: 28 Nov, 2019

A YouGov poll is predicting a close Conservative win in Guildford and, just as last weekend’s Dragon poll showed, confirmed we are in a two-party race here between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Conducted over seven days up to Tuesday (November 26), the YouGov poll was based on approximately 100,000 panellists across the country and an average of 150 respondents per constituency.

The same Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) poll model was among the few to predict, with some accuracy, the 2017 general election result.

On the YouGov website, Professor Ben Lauderdale, co-creator of YouGov’s MRP model, said: “The idea behind MRP is that we use the poll data from the preceding seven days to estimate a model that relates interview date, constituency, voter demographics, past voting behaviour, and other respondent profile variables to their current voting intentions.”

“Despite the strong performance of the method in the 2017 election, it is not magic and there are important limitations to keep in mind. First, we are reporting estimates of current voting intentions, not a forecast of how people will vote on December 12.

“Panellists tell us how they intend to vote on December 12, but they may change their minds and we do not attempt to quantify the probability that they will do so. Second, the samples in each constituency are too small to be reliable by themselves and are subject to more than just sampling error.”

Dragon editor Martin Giles said: “Some readers have criticised the Dragon poll, based on a sample of 100 respondents, and we agree all polls should be treated with caution. They are just indicators.

“Interestingly, when I interviewed Professor Amelia Hadfield, Head of the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey, she, having heard an outline of our method, thought it as good a snapshot as many others.

“But what both polls are showing is that the local vote seems to be polarising between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and that Anne Milton has not been able to build sufficient support to cut through, despite the widespread empathy for her position and stance.”

See also: Dragon Poll Shows Guildford Tories and Lib Dems Neck and Neck

Share This Post