Guido keeps a keen eye on the polls. Over the last 10 published Westminster voting intention polls, YouGov’s average for Reform UK has been 24.8%. Across the same period, the average from Opinium is 30.9%. What accounts for the consistently lower Reform numbers with YouGov, is the party really doing worse?
Well, let’s compare it to the other pollsters. Guido’s quants note that with More in Common the average for Reform UK is 29.5%, and Find Out Now is 29.3%. That is said to be broadly in line with Reform’s internal numbers, so the YouGov figure really does seem lower than its main competitors…
Eagle-eyed politicos point out that YouGov consistently produces more statistical outliers for Reform than other pollsters. If you crunch those together, it’s an average differential of -5…
An interesting post by Peter Kellner digs into this – as he puts it: “YouGov is the odd one out.” He quotes Anthony Wells who has probed YouGov’s methodology and finds: “YouGov’s computer… applies a model developed from their large scale MRP surveys to assess each respondent: how likely are they actually vote and, given their past loyalties and the nature of their constituency, which party are the most likely to vote for?” Could this (unpublished) computer formula be skewing the Reform results?
One senior pollster told Guido: “The methodology that YouGov seem to be applying here is quite opaque. It has certainly raised a few eyebrows in the industry.” Shaking up the quants…
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood introduced her speech on migration reforms at the IPPR:
“There’s no denying we meet at a difficult time for my party.”