{"id":2202,"date":"2009-05-26T10:15:47","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T10:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/?p=2202"},"modified":"2009-05-28T14:58:38","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T14:58:38","slug":"european-elections-prospects-and-projectsions-the-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2009\/05\/european-elections-prospects-and-projectsions-the-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"European Elections: Prospects and Projections – the vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a conference I’m attending today organised by Brunel University’s Magna Carta Institute<\/a>. First speaker, Peter Kellner, from polling agency YouGov<\/strong>. Hastily-typed notes follow:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been so uncertain about an election that\u2019s only nine days away than I am today\u201d<\/p>\n

Last time, more people voted for a party other than Labour\/Conservative than Labour and Conservatives combined<\/p>\n

Lib Dems seem to do worse in Proportional Representation elections than First Past The Post<\/p>\n

The expenses scandal<\/strong>\u2019s effect on the polls seems to have stabilised, but could be more twists<\/p>\n

Current projections<\/strong> (as of the morning of 26th May, so likely to shift)<\/p>\n

Tories<\/strong> \u2013 26-28% (roughly the same as 2004) \u2013 a month ago would have been 35% at least<\/p>\n

Labour<\/strong> \u2013 c.20-22%, though wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they ended up on 18-19%
\n(If turnout = 35-40%, that means only c.8% of the electorate voting for the governing party)<\/p>\n

Lib Dems<\/strong> \u2013 15% last time, and likely to be there or there abouts this time \u2013 maybe 16-17%<\/p>\n

UKIP<\/strong> \u2013 16% last time; at the moment looks like they\u2019re slightly up (17-19%) \u2013 but 3 weeks ago = 7% (Telegraph expenses stories boosted them to 19% in a week); “the key thing we find is that UKIP voters are the most determined of all the supporters to say they are going to vote”; BUT: “past evidence shows ‘certain’ voters aren\u2019t certain at all”<\/p>\n

Greens<\/strong> \u2013 9% – last time = 6% and got two seats, but largely due to London and the South East having most MEPs, so a lower threshold \u2013 wouldn\u2019t have got seats in any other region. 1-2 more seats maximum, depending on how close the fight is for the last seat in other regions \u2013 benefiting from the expenses scandal<\/p>\n

BNP<\/strong> \u2013 last time got 5%, but no seats (their strong regions have a higher percentage threshold for election due to fewer MEPs); this time it\u2019s possible they may get to 8-9% in London and get a seat; North West (Nick Griffin); Yorkshire and Humberside; West Midlands
\nNote 1:<\/strong>– it\u2019s a tiny margin between getting NO seats and getting FOUR seats for the BNP
\nNote 2:<\/strong> latest YouGov poll puts them at 7%; ICN poll in the Guardian on Saturday put them at 1% – probably due to reluctance to admit to BNP over the phone; YouGov = online, so possibly more anonymous and honest<\/p>\n

SNP \/ Plaid Cymru<\/strong> \u2013 will probably keep the same number of MEPs and similar share of the vote<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland<\/strong> \u2013 different electoral system \u2013 single transferable vote, so likely to be similar in outcome to 2004, though likely with Sinn Fein with the largest share of the vote<\/p>\n

Turnout<\/strong> \u2013 this was c.25% 1999, but there were no local elections; in 2004 it went up to 35% last time (almost certainly due to local elections \u2013 there were no local elections in Scotland in 2004 and turnout was only 30%)
\nNote:<\/strong> Because county elections are taking place the same time as EU ones this time around, turnout is likely to be above 30% again
\nPossible party effect:<\/strong> Local elections this year are mostly in Conservative areas (countryside not cities); Tory areas tend to have higher turnout than Labour anyway \u2013 so Tories may end up doing slightly better thanks to local election turnout boost<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a conference I’m attending today organised by Brunel University’s Magna Carta Institute. First speaker, Peter Kellner, from polling agency YouGov. Hastily-typed notes follow: \u201cI\u2019ve never been so uncertain about an election that\u2019s only nine days away than I am … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-elections","category-eu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2202"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2209,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions\/2209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}