Somehow polling for Liz Truss only seems to have got worse for Liz Truss following yesterday’s shock YouGov poll. New polling today all shows similar results to the 33 point Labour lead, with PeoplePolling putting it at 30%, Omnisis saying 32% and Techne coming in with 20%. The Ominsis poll is the most striking, with Labour’s 55% being their highest vote share since 2001. Though what really caught Guido’s attention were the responses given by the British public when asked about Liz Truss’s economic policies. You don’t have to be a psephologist to decipher this one…
Clearly more effort needs to be put into communicating a positive message. Taking a look into the tables, it’s difficult to spot a positive adjective. The most favourable responses for the government would almost certainly be the 12 people going with “dunno”, “idk”, “hmm” and “hmmm”…
A new YouGov snap poll also suggests a majority (51%) of Britons want Liz Truss to resign. The number goes up to 54% for Kwasi. Party conference starts this weekend…
Opinium has once again won the crown for most accurate poll during the Tory leadership election. After winning the same accolade at the 2019 election, Opinium were closest to the final result. They add the usual caveats that polling political parties is much trickier than the general public…
All the polls over-stated Liz versus Rishi, Guido reckons the final placing based on their last calls is this:
- Opinium – 7.3 variance
- TechneUK – 13.3 variance
- YouGov – 17.3 variance
- ConHome – 21.3 variance
Liz winning by 14.7 points is decent, though less than the 30-point lead some earlier polls pointed to. Asked whether they reckon the polls were always off, or whether there was a last-minute improvement to Rishi’s numbers, a Team Rishi source said they don’t know, though the fact the first YouGov poll ended up being 15 points off the actual result left them satisfied they ran a decent campaign. Let the spinning commence in earnest…
Despite last night’s Telegraph online poll registering an amazing 73,249 votes with a big majority for Rishi, more traditional pollsters are still finding Liz ahead. Two weeks ago Techne had Liz only 5 points ahead of Rishi, this morning they have her 27 points ahead – an improvement on the 20-point advantage they detected last time among Conservative Party supporters. Rishi supporters claim the more people he meets, the more people he wins over in the room. According to party chairman Andrew Stephenson “over 5,000 members have attended our first five hustings and to date nearly 17,000 hustings tickets have already been sold”, which means Rishi will get to be in the room with some 10% of the selectorate. Hope never dies…
When Italian pollster Techne last did this poll it found only a 5 point gap between Rishi and Liz, it now finds Liz Truss’s lead over Rishi Sunak among Conservative supporters is up 15 points in a week – she is now 20 points ahead. Guido notes that Techne says “supporters” in their press release, not members.
Among all UK voters her lead is up 9 points to 11 points ahead after being tied just two weeks ago. Rishi’s popularity is declining with both the public (-4) and Tories (-7) whereas her popularity is increasing as the contest continues. When Techne’s last poll showed a 5 point gap the Rishi campaign highlighted it and falsely claimed it was private polling commissioned by Team Liz, a falsehood repeated by The Times. Let’s see if The Times splashes on Techne’s polling this time…
As the campaign continues Liz’s name recognition is improving with the public, it seems the more the public see of her, the more they like her. Liz Truss has now taken the lead among all voters for the first time in the race to be the next Tory leader and Prime Minister. Rishi now trails by two points on the issue he has pressed hardest, national popularity.
Over the past week, she has gained two points to be the choice of 35% across the UK compared to 33% for Rishi Sunak.
Her advantage among Tory supporters has also grown – she now leads by five points. In response to asking who they would choose as leader of the Conservative Party, among all voters:
- Rishi Sunak – 33% (nc)
- Liz Truss – 35% (+2)
- Don’t Know – 32% (-2)
Among Conservative supporters only:
- Rishi Sunak – 43% (-1)
- Liz Truss – 48% (+2)
- Don’t Know – 9% (-1)
With Liz more popular in the country than him, Rishi’s “I can beat Labour” case is weakened…
*Techne UK questioned 1,649 people across the UK online on Wednesday 27 & Thursday 28 July. The figures are weighted and representative of the population.
Probably a function of name recognition, this poll put Liz Truss in second place with the public and Conservative voters. Expect lots of manipulative polls to be recycled by the campaigns. Guido notes that Theresa May’s favourite pollster – JL Partners – is pushing Rishi very hard. His track record on predicting general election outcomes is patchy…
UPDATE: Grantham and Stamford Association ran a poll this morning of their verified members.
Rishi in fourth place. It is one constituency association poll, not representative of much, however although they won’t admit it, Team Rishi are worried about the membership vote. They fear he will lose against either Penny or Liz. Something reinforced by this YouGov membership poll.
One old Tory hand told Guido that the race for second place is the race for the premiership…
