Latest Polls and Latest Odds

[Mr. Bojangles]

Just filled in a big survey for Yougov. Asked a lot of good questions, but I noticed a question about a successful no vote and how confident I was on whether there would be lots of new powers; a few new powers or no change. Nothing about stripping powers.

Still, I got to say I hated Nick Farage, so that was fun.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I think it will be incredibly close. Anyone saying it will be a landslide for either side is quite simply over-confident.

I think it will be a 52% - 48% for either side.

We could run a book on the %s - I'd say the split will be 57% No 43% Yes.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

You got your tiny wee jump after the big and much heralded white paper came out, now it's gone after the better together campaign fought back. Support for yes is (unsurprisingly) falling given all the uncertainty regarding the currency and the EU. You're not only failing to make any head way, you're actually losing ground. As some yes voters have said in this thread, 60%-40% is a realistic prediction for September, although 70-30 wouldn't surprise me. Yes is getting humped, and it's absolutely fantastic to watch

I agree that the reaction of the yes campaigners and supporters to differing polls stinks of hypocrisy, good point. It's as if they can't face up to the reality of their impending defeat?

An STV journo asked wee Eck a good question last night. Words to the effect of ' Are you thinking about managing defeat now? ' Wee Ecks face was a picture for a second, he just looked a bit sad, and it's clear that's exactly what he's thinking about, and who can blame him. He then snapped back into delusion mode and went for the ' we will win blah blah ' diatribe. Poor guy, wonder if he will retire after the defeat? He certainly should, he's clearly struggling badly.

You say i'm trolling, then link to the exact same poll i linked too.

Are you trolling too?

Look out, facebook boy is back

One interesting part of the poll i and Ivo linked too was the disparity between deprived areas and affluent areas:

It's something i had noticed when talking to people about the debate, but had never seen in a poll. The more affluent they are, the more likely they are to be behind the union, the less affluent, the more likely they are to be separatists. In the nations most affluent areas support for yes is astoundingly low, only 20%. Anyone have any idea why?

In Dundee the areas that were staunchly Labour that switched to SNP over the past 10-15 years were all in what you could call deprived areas. So it doesn't surprise me - Labour lost touch with it's core vote and the only place it could go was the SSP and the SNP. Once the Trots imploded the SNP were the only real option for disillusioned Labour voters. The same may be true regards independence - a feeling if it can't get any worse. For middle income voters the SNP (and independence) is seen as more of a risk - the notion of we are not doing too badly so we don't want to risk change.

That might be a simplification of things - people do vote for all sorts of reasons. I know a number of folk who will consistently vote SNP in elections but No in the referendum - I also know some who vote Labour who will vote Yes.

Edited March 9, 2014 by DeeTillEhDeh

[doulikefish]

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-within-snp-s-grasp-poll-1-3281655

[Lex]

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-within-snp-s-grasp-poll-1-3281655

That's from 6 weeks ago?

[doulikefish]

That's from 6 weeks ago?

ive been in vegas and angola

[ecto]

Got nothing going for them just now, so lets re-hash a 6 week old poll, priceless, last week they were back down to 32%

Edited March 11, 2014 by ecto

[1320Lichtie]

Got nothing going for them just now, so lets re-hash a 6 week old poll, priceless, last week they were back down to 32%

Only one that matters is September 18ths one.

[renton]

Got nothing going for them just now, so lets re-hash a 6 week old poll, priceless, last week they were back down to 32%

Why is it so hard for folk to understand that you cannot just take each different pollster together. it's not a like for like comparison. That goes for both sides, the Yes vote isn't jumping from 37% to 32%, it's a difference in how ICM and Ipsos process their data.

[H_B]

Why is it so hard for folk to understand that you cannot just take each different pollster together. it's not a like for like comparison. That goes for both sides, the Yes vote isn't jumping from 37% to 32%, it's a difference in how ICM and Ipsos process their data.

Whilst that is true, that's exactly what Colkitto types spent last summer doing in an attempt to show "momentum!!"

Likewise the Poll of Polls thing you seem keen on is pointless for exactly the same reasons.

[renton]

Whilst that is true, that's exactly what Colkitto types spent last summer doing in an attempt to show "momentum!!"

Likewise the Poll of Polls thing you seem keen on is pointless for exactly the same reasons.

I posted that one because it doesn't average out the results, in other words you can resolve the individual points for each pollster per month, it was really not much more than superimposing a set of individual graphs for each pollster. Alas it does not resolve methodology changes made by pollsters.

Still, as a broad picture it is instructive to a degree.

[ecto]

Why is it so hard for folk to understand that you cannot just take each different pollster together. it's not a like for like comparison. That goes for both sides, the Yes vote isn't jumping from 37% to 32%, it's a difference in how ICM and Ipsos process their data.

Not the old, its how they process data argument, already, really

Only one that matters is September 18ths one.

that is true, it is going to be fun til then

Edited March 12, 2014 by ecto

[Marshmallo]

http://news.stv.tv/politics/268383-independence-poll-yes-393-no-476-dont-know-131/

The survey found 39.3% said they would be voting Yes in September's independence referendum, compared to 47.6% who said they wanted Scotland to remain part of the UK.

The remaining 13.1% of those who were questioned were undecided, according to the survey, which was carried out by polling firm Survation for the Daily Record newspaper and the Five Million Questions project at Dundee University.

Take away the "don't knows" and that's 46/54 in favour of no. Getting there

[AUFC90]

Still gaining I see. Pleasing.

[renton]

Still gaining I see. Pleasing.

It's actually pretty static, Yes went up by 1, so did No, but then on an error of +/- 3% a 1% swing is neither here, nor there . Another +/-0.2% on the headline figures would have been rounded up to the magic 40% and the No lead would've been reduced by two points, on a sample of 1,000 people, two folk changing their minds would have led to far more dramatic headlines! Such is the limitations of charting political progress via polls. The positive aspect for yes here is that yes has not slipped back when measured against the previous Survation polls.

Edited March 13, 2014 by renton

[Guest]

The Union Flag next to a Saltire for any article that relates to the referendum has become tiresome to say the least.

I don't have an alternative suggestion.

But it's tiresome.

[ayrmad]

The Union Flag next to a Saltire for any article that relates to the referendum has become tiresome to say the least.

I don't have an alternative suggestion.

But it's tiresome.

Obviously appealing to the shallower voters amongst us.

[ayrmad]

An interesting piece from WOS, pretty much echos what I told my flapper of a son weeks ago.

Last month there was a mild flurry of activity in the press about the so-called “missing million” – Scots entitled to vote, but who choose for one reason or another not to. Catchy as it is, the phrase seems a significant understatement. Around four million people in Scotland meet voting criteria, but fewer than half of those turned out for the 2011 Holyrood election, and under 2.5m at the 2010 Westminster one.

pollbooths

Obviously that’s a bad thing in principle in its own right. But it could also be seriously distorting polling for the independence referendum, because – perhaps for the only time in their lives – an awful lot of those missing millions ARE going to go out this September and put a cross in a box. And nobody knows which one.

The Survation poll we looked at earlier today illustrates the issue neatly. It asked a question which explicitly noted that only 50% of those eligible to vote had done so in 2011, and asked its respondents whether they had or not. 74% of the sample said yes.

nonvotes

Alert readers will deduce that – not unreasonably – polling companies produce results tilted heavily towards people who are more engaged with politics. And that’s all well and good, except when you get to a one-off event like the referendum.

The lowest estimates for turnout in September are 75%, and many are closer to 85% or even more. That’s hundreds of thousands of people who, like folk who only gamble once a year when they bet on the Grand National, we know almost nothing about.

(Of course, there’s a flaw in those figures, because they too come chiefly from opinion polling. Nevertheless, few pundits are prepared to predict a turnout lower than 75%. The Survation poll we’re discussing records 86% of respondents saying they’re at least 8/10 likely to vote, and 90% if you widen it to 7/10.)

Except we know some things about them. Non-voters tend to be those from the lowest income groups, the “C2DE” demographic. Which is coincidentally the same band that tends to be most in favour of independence. And even the simplest analysis of any poll reveals that these people are dramatically under-represented in samples.

Indeed, they’re often not even tabulated. Look at the graphic above – the Yes and No votes are broken down according to whether people voted SNP, Labour, Lib Dem, Tory or other in 2011, but there’s no column for non-voters. We made some enquiries recently about doing a poll solely of such abstainers, but polling companies just don’t have enough of them on their books.

If there’s an 80% turnout in September, that’ll be 3.2 million people – 1.2m more than voted at Holyrood, and 700,000 more than in 2010. Even if they only divide slightly more favourably to independence than those who turned out in 2011, their sheer numbers will make a significant difference to the balance.

It’s just one of many reasons we always advise caution about polls. The referendum isn’t an election, and anybody treating it as one might be in for a rude awakening.

[Jamaldo]

An interesting piece from WOS, pretty much echos what I told my flapper of a son weeks ago.

Last month there was a mild flurry of activity in the press about the so-called “missing million” – Scots entitled to vote, but who choose for one reason or another not to. Catchy as it is, the phrase seems a significant understatement. Around four million people in Scotland meet voting criteria, but fewer than half of those turned out for the 2011 Holyrood election, and under 2.5m at the 2010 Westminster one.

pollbooths

Obviously that’s a bad thing in principle in its own right. But it could also be seriously distorting polling for the independence referendum, because – perhaps for the only time in their lives – an awful lot of those missing millions ARE going to go out this September and put a cross in a box. And nobody knows which one.

The Survation poll we looked at earlier today illustrates the issue neatly. It asked a question which explicitly noted that only 50% of those eligible to vote had done so in 2011, and asked its respondents whether they had or not. 74% of the sample said yes.

nonvotes

Alert readers will deduce that – not unreasonably – polling companies produce results tilted heavily towards people who are more engaged with politics. And that’s all well and good, except when you get to a one-off event like the referendum.

The lowest estimates for turnout in September are 75%, and many are closer to 85% or even more. That’s hundreds of thousands of people who, like folk who only gamble once a year when they bet on the Grand National, we know almost nothing about.

(Of course, there’s a flaw in those figures, because they too come chiefly from opinion polling. Nevertheless, few pundits are prepared to predict a turnout lower than 75%. The Survation poll we’re discussing records 86% of respondents saying they’re at least 8/10 likely to vote, and 90% if you widen it to 7/10.)

Except we know some things about them. Non-voters tend to be those from the lowest income groups, the “C2DE” demographic. Which is coincidentally the same band that tends to be most in favour of independence. And even the simplest analysis of any poll reveals that these people are dramatically under-represented in samples.

Indeed, they’re often not even tabulated. Look at the graphic above – the Yes and No votes are broken down according to whether people voted SNP, Labour, Lib Dem, Tory or other in 2011, but there’s no column for non-voters. We made some enquiries recently about doing a poll solely of such abstainers, but polling companies just don’t have enough of them on their books.

If there’s an 80% turnout in September, that’ll be 3.2 million people – 1.2m more than voted at Holyrood, and 700,000 more than in 2010. Even if they only divide slightly more favourably to independence than those who turned out in 2011, their sheer numbers will make a significant difference to the balance.

It’s just one of many reasons we always advise caution about polls. The referendum isn’t an election, and anybody treating it as one might be in for a rude awakening.

I already made a similar point on another thread: If indeed there is an 80% turnout (quite unlikely but anyway), then that would mean that to win, No would need around 1.7 million votes. Can anyone honestly see 1.7 million people voting No in the event of a turnout figure this high?

I think if the turnout is below 50% we could be in bother however.

[ayrmad]

I already made a similar point on another thread: If indeed there is an 80% turnout (quite unlikely but anyway), then that would mean that to win, No would need around 1.7 million votes. Can anyone honestly see 1.7 million people voting No in the event of a turnout figure this high?

I think if the turnout is below 50% we could be in bother however.

The turnout will definitely be over 75%, I think 90%, others disagree.