A Feast of Polling

 The 6th May will see the political parties in the UK face their biggest electoral test this side of the next General Election. As with all elections, the polling industry is entering its peak season.

London Mayoral Contest

In London, elections for the Mayor of London use the Supplementary Vote system. Under it, voters make a first and second choice when they vote. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, all except the top 2 candidates, are eliminated.

As a result of the system, since the role of Mayor was established at the turn of the century, no one has won the contest outright on the first round of voting.

New polling by Opinium suggests that this is a record that could be broken this year.

The survey of voters in London for The Evening Standard puts the current Labour incumbent, Sadiq Khan, on 53% of the vote in the first round, with the Conservative, Shaun Bailey on just 28%. This would give Khan an outright victory without the need to go to a second round.

The poll finds also that across all the issues that matter most to Londoners, Sadiq Khan is more trusted to handle them than Shaun Bailey.

Wales

In Wales, the latest Political Barometer points, in the words of  Professor Roger Awan-Scully from Cardiff University, to “possibly the worst ever result for the Labour party” in the elections to the Welsh Parliament.

The voting intentions for the constituency vote section of the ballot, with changes from January in brackets, are as follows: Labour: 32% (-2), Conservatives: 30% (+4), Plaid Cymru: 23% (+1), Liberal Democrats: 5% (+1), Reform UK: 3% (-2), Greens: 2% (-4) and others: 5% (+1).

For the regional list section of the ballot the results are as follows: Labour: 31% (+1), Conservatives: 28% (+3), Plaid Cymru: 22% (-1), Abolish the Assembly: 7% (no change), Liberal Democrats: 4% (no change), Greens: 3% (-2) and others: 4% (-2).

Assessing what this this all means, Professor Awan-Scully observes: “Labour must still be the strong favourites to be the largest party in the Senedd after the election: they still lead in all recent polls, and they have a track-record of having finished well ahead in all previous devolved Welsh elections; even in difficult years for Labour, none of their opponents have yet been able to come close to defeating them for first place. But the evidence from our latest poll does suggest that Labour’s dominance may be challenged more strongly than ever before in 2021.”

Scotland

In Scotland, there is little doubt that the ongoing impact of the Nicola Sturgeon-Alex Salmond spat has had an effect on the SNP’s support, with the prospect of the party securing and outright majority at Holyrood, once thought a shoe-in, now far from certain.

According to polling by BMG Research for The Herald newspaper, on the constituency vote the parties now stand as follows: SNP 48%, Conservatives 21%, Labour 20%, Liberal Democrats 8% and others on 2%.

For the regional list vote, it looks as follows: SNP 42%, Conservatives 22%, Labour 17%, Liberal Democrats 8%, Green 8%, Reform UK 1% and others on 2%.

Robert Struthers, Head of Polling at BMG has noted: “Whilst there is no question the SNP are on course to continue to be the largest party at Holyrood, our polling does suggest Sturgeon’s ability to form a majority is now on a knife-edge.

“Using a uniform seat calculator – a general guide of estimating how votes might translate into seats – our vote intention numbers place the SNP on 66 seats, the slimmest majority of just one. The margin of error, a feature of all polls, coupled with the intricacy of the Scottish electoral system, means if the election was held now, the SNP’s chances of gaining an overall majority hangs very much in the balance.”

The poll also finds that with don’t knows removed, 52% of those polled would vote for Scotland becoming and independent country in a second referendum, with 48% opposing the move.

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