Final polls remain split on size of Conservative lead over Labour
3 min read
The final pre-election polls have pointed to a Conservative win in today’s general election – but they remain divided on whether the Tories are heading for a comfortable majority or a narrow victory.
All the surveys released last night show the Tories ahead of Labour, but the disparity between the pollsters was still in evidence.
Survation put the Conservatives on 41.3% and Labour just behind on 40.4% – a lead well within the margin of error and, if replicated today, would suggest a hung parliament.
Other polls pointed to a comfortable Conservative majority, with an ICM survey for the Guardian giving the Tories a 12-point lead, a ComRes/Independent poll putting the gap at ten points.
Panelbase had the gap steady at eight points, Opinium at seven points, and a SurveyMonkey poll for The Sun had the topline figures of Tories 42% and Labour 38%.
YouGov, which had previously projected a hung parliament, put the Conservative lead at seven points after tweaking its methodology for the last poll.
It had topline figures of the Tories on 42%, unchanged since Friday, Labour on 35%, down three points, the Liberal Democrats on 10%, up one, and Ukip on 5%, up one.
The Times found the result, when plugged to the Electoral Calculus website and combined with the final YouGov Scotland poll, would give the Conservatives a majority of 48.
The latest YouGov/Times voting intention figures for Scotland saw the SNP on 41% (from 42% in mid-May), the Conservatives drop to 26% (from 29%) and Labour experiencing a boost to 25% (from 19%).
YouGov said it had made “two minor changes” to its methodology to reach today’s numbers.
“The first is that rather than asking people which party they’d vote for, we showed respondents a list of the people actually standing in their constituency and asked which one they would vote for. Hopefully this will help pick up any tactical vote considerations and remove any issue of people saying they would vote UKIP or Green in seats where UKIP or the Greens are not actually standing.
“Secondly we have reallocated those respondents who say don’t know, but who also say they are very likely to vote… We assume uncertain voters who say they ‘don’t know’ at this stage won’t actually vote, but those who say they are 8+/10 certain to vote we have reallocated back to the party they voted for in 2015.”
The ICM poll underlined Labour’s advantage over the Conservatives among the young, showing Jeremy Corbyn enjoys a 66-23 lead over Theresa May among 18 to 24 year olds in personal popularity, with 47-33 among 25 to 33 year olds.
Turnout among young voters is expected to be low however, with the declared intended turnout of both these groups, at 64% and 70%, 10 points below other age groups.
The same poll predict the Conservatives to win the battle of the working class, with a 23-point lead for Mrs May among the key skilled working-class C2 voters.
Mr Corbyn meanwhile is expected to narrowly win over ‘unskilled’ or DE workers, with a 38-36 lead.
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