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Does pre-election polling help squeeze out the third party?

The main reason why I have been so confident in my Crewe and Nantwich predictions is the impact that yesterday’s ICM by election poll will have on voting dynamics, particularly in taking the wind out of the Lib Dems’ standard strategy.

For with the huge Tory poll surge the only real threat to Cameron was if the Lib Dems could establish themselves as a challenger to Labour thus splitting the anti-Brown vote. The LDs are always able to summon a massive activist army and they have the expertise in literature production to produce the right message at the right time.

Just look back to the start of the campaign when I published their first C&N bar chart which was shrewdly, if somewhat misleadingly, designed to show that they were the best-placed challengers.

Their problem now is that anything they say has been pre-empted by the ICM poll which had them on 16% behind Labour’s 39% and the Conservative 43%. The message from this is that it is a battle between Labour and the Tories knocking for six the argument that the best way of giving Labour a kicking is by voting Lib Dem.

This is similar, in many ways, to the Mayoral battle in London - the polls showed it was a struggle between Ken and Boris and the third party candidate just got squeezed out. If there had been no polls at all my guess is that the Brian Paddick would have done better and the overall result might have been tighter.

By elections polls have become something of a novelty. The only two we have had in recent times were in Hartlepool in September 2004 and in Blaenau Gwent last year in 2006. The former had Labour 33% ahead of the Lib Dems making the third party’s task that much more challenging. The latter had Labour 12% ahead but on the day Labour came in 9% behind in its attempt to win back the seat from an independent.

Latest Crewe and Nantwich betting.

Mike Smithson

All Change in Russia – But No Change At All

Balakirev considers the Putin-Medvedev handover

After a week in Russia where reminders of past Soviet and pre-Soviet glories were much in evidence, clues to the future under Dimitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin are still hard to find. Medvedev was sworn in at a stunning ceremony which looked more like a tsarist coronation than an inauguration. The next day, the ex-president, Putin, was voted in as prime minister by Russia’s parliament.

Then, on Friday, Russia’s annual “Victory Day” holiday, the tanks rolled, as the week’s consolidation of political authority was given tangible expression with the first major military parade through Red Square since the 1991 Soviet collapse. For outsiders, the blatant appeal to imperial nostalgia may have seemed disturbing. But there are more important concerns about what was not on display. Specifically, we do not yet know how the Medvedev-Putin duumvirate and the machinery of power will function.

Here’s what we do know.

After eight years in power, most of that time with Medvedev at or near his side, Putin has stepped “down” to become head of government. He did this ostensibly to remain in compliance with constitutional term limits.

In the past, under both Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, the prime minister was essentially a public whipping boy, someone to take the blame when things went wrong. Clearly, the notoriously thin-skinned Putin is not about to put up with that sort of nonsense from his protégé Medvedev. So it’s all change at the PM’s office, with Putin about to get up to 11 deputies (compared with five in the recent past). He’s bringing in his own press and protocol officers, and the press corps assigned to the building where the prime minister sits, called the White House, have now been banned from most areas.

It’s not hard to guess what’s next. Instead of the head of government being held responsible for every pothole in the country, authority and accountability will presumably descend to ministers and deputy PMs. None of this is necessarily negative. Managing Russia’s mammoth bureaucracy is more than a one-man job, as Medvedev himself well knows.

Back in 2005, when Putin put Medvedev in charge of several major programs to fix the ailing education, health and other national services, he described excessive bureaucracy as the main obstacle. Asked at a press conference how he thought this could be dealt with, he said, “To fight in the way that all countries fight against bureaucracy, that is by concentrating administrative resources on solving priority tasks that face the country and those tasks the citizens of the Russian Federation are waiting to see resolved. For this very reason Dmitry Anatolevich Medvedev has been delegated to the Government.” It’s worth noting, however, that Medvedev wasn’t terribly successful in this assignment.

More importantly, where Putin is in charge, secrecy prevails, with all important policy debate conducted behind closed doors, with decisions announced in stentorian terms after a minimum of trailing, often via intentionally false speculation by spin doctors. With such a “modus” now extending downwards into ministerial offices, it is hardly likely that governance is set to grow more open.

But what about Medvedev? His public persona of pleasantness to the point of banality has led some to imagine signs of liberalism and modernity. Wishful thinking. Elected entirely on the basis of Putin’s endorsement, Medvedev’s authority is in fact Putin’s – and both know it. The precise architecture of power will start to become clearer over the coming weeks, as Putin – more likely than Medevedev – reveals more about the shape of his government. But if there were a betting market available on whether much of substance will change under the new Russian president – there isn’t by the way – you’d do well to put your money on no change at all.

The author is a Russia & Eastern Europe specialist working in public relations and is a former international correspondent.

Edward Timpson - Conservative - 796 views

Elizabeth Shenton - Liberal Democrat 469 views

Tamsin Dunwoody - Labour - 181 views

Where candidates have more than one video on YouTube I have taken the one with the most views.

Mike Smithson

Mail on Sunday

My assessment: the Tories have a 90% chance of winning

We’ve now got more information about the Mail on Sunday’s ICM poll on the Crewe and Nantwich by election and it’s clear that the situation is even worse for Labour than was being reported last night. The panel above is reproduced from the paper.

For the Tory by election poll margin of 4% would have been 12% but for ICM’s “sprial of silence” adjustment. This is a standard procedure and involves allocating to Labour half the votes of those party supporters from the last general election who now say they they will turnout but “don’t know” yet what they will do.

I cannot recall a survey in the past when this adjuster has produced changes on this scale - normally it affects the shares by a maximum of 1-2%.

My guess is that the final votes on May 22nd will be much closer to ICM’s 16% Tory lead on general election voting intention than the reported figure of 4% for the by election. Based on these figures my view is that Cameron’s Conservatives have at least a 90% chance of taking the seat.

In many ways the Crewe and Nantwich general election voting figure is more dramatic than YouGov’s national 26% Tory lead that was reported on Friday. For C&N is constituency number 165 on the Tory target list and if a 16% lead actually occurred here then Cameron would win the general election with a massive land-slide.

Another survey in the Observer also suggests that there has been a sea-change in opinion. The paper notes that “a Tory government is preferred to a Labour one by a margin of 50 to 32 per cent. In another significant boost for Cameron, more voters think the Conservatives would do a better job of governing than believe they would do a worse job”

It’s not clear from the online edition of the paper who carried out the survey and whether or not the pollster is a member of the British Polling Council.

The latest Crewe and Nantwich betting prices have the Tories at 0.4/1 with Betfair and 4/11 with the traditional bookmakers. It looks good to me.

Mike Smithson

But how much can we trust single constituency polls?

According to Iain Dale an ICM poll of 1000 voters in Crewe & Nantwich is suggesting that the Tories are on target for their first by-election gain since 1982. The figures are:- CON 43% Lab 39%: LD 16%

Clearly this is a very good pointer for Cameron’s party and the real significance is that it is his party, and not the traditional by election Kings, the Lib Dems who are seen as the party that can take the seat from Labour. If the Lib Dem share had been a bit higher then they could have made the case to Labour supporters that they were the best route to stop the Tories. This poll will put the mockers on that.

A note of caution. As has repeatedly been said here single constituency polls have a reputation of being highly unreliable. In September 2004 NOP has Labour a massive 33% ahead in Hartlepool - the winning margin ended up at 7%. And last year a poll agead of the Gwent by election has Labour comfortably winning back the seat from the independent. The party failed.

The fact that this is ICM gives a good degree of comfort and my view is that the Tories are at least 90% certain to secure comfortable victory.

To another question about how those sampled would vote in a general election the response was the response was: CON 49% Lab 33%: LD 15%.

These general election numbers are sensational. Crewe and Nantwich is listed as the Tories 165th target seat. So for a poll to be suggesting a margin as big as this indicates a Tory landslide and, in many way, supports the latest YouGov national voting intention poll.

Latest by election betting.

UPDATE - There’s an intriguing point in Iain Dale’s report - He says:“I am told the by election figures were adjusted downwards to take account of large number of Labour don’t knows. If they stayed at home on polling day, the Tories would win by 13 points.”

We desperately need to see the details but this might explain the disparity between the by-election figures and those for the general election.

If you tell ICM that you will vote but that you don’t know who that will be for the pollster assumes that 50% will go in line with what they did last time. This is known as the “spiral of silence adjustment”. My guess is that a very large number of 2005 Labour voters answered don’t know and this is what makes up the 13%.

Whatever this poll is very good news for the Tories.

Mike Smithson

  
Picture of Obama rally in Portland by Photoscott 
 

She has the potential to rally her flagging campaign with solid wins in West Virginia (13th May), Kentucky (20th May), and Puerto Rico (1st June). South Dakota and Montana (both 3rd June) herald the end of the primary campaign on June 3rd, and whilst both are winnable for either candidate, her focus must be on building momentum during the month of May if she is to stand a chance of the nomination.

The state most likely to deny her between now and the end of the contest is the west-coast state of Oregon. Considered a Democrat-leaning swing-state in General Elections, Oregon is split East-West with the rural Republican-held 2nd District covering two-thirds of the area, but the four Congressional districts on West Coast and surrounding the city of Portland trending strongly-Democratic.

One of the most liberal and least Christian states in the USA, Oregon has been at the forefront of controversial legislation, including medicinal marijuana, same-sex unions, and voluntary euthanasia. Although chiefly known as a ‘young’ city (which would seemingly favour Obama), Portland also has a large gay population, one of the demographics said to be most loyal to Clinton. The largest non-white demographic are Hispanics, and its African-American population is below 2.5% - significantly less than Asian-Americans or even Native-Americans & Pacific Islanders. In short, there is little to suggest that demographics hand Obama an obvious victory - indeed, had he not proven himself strong by winning Washington state and northern California, Oregon would have been a state that many would have assumed would trend towards Clinton.

There has been a dearth of information coming from the state for much of the contest. In one of only two recent Democratic statewide polls, SurveyUSA had Obama on 52%, Clinton on 42%, with 3% declaring themselves Undecided 3% (as of April 8th, 2008). Previous polls of all voters have shown that Oregon would favour Obama over McCain, but McCain over Clinton in the presidential head-to-heads. However, these are a poor guide for the Democratic primary, given that a different constituency of voters has been polled - the margins in head-to-heads being provided by Independents and others not able to vote in the closed (Democrat only) primary election. Previous polls all showed Clinton leading, though since the Iowa caucus, only one such poll has been published (Clinton 36%, Obama 28%, Edwards 14% in late January 2008).

Governor Ted Kulongoski has endorsed Hillary Clinton, along with retiring Congresswoman Darlene Hooley (Dem, OR-5 - as an open seat, the only Democratic district in Oregon at risk in November). Earl Blumenhauer (Dem, OR-3) has endorsed Barack Obama, but the remaining 3 Oregon Congressmen and Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wydon have chosen not to endorse either candidate at the time of writing. Joining the fence-sitters, former Governors Barbara Roberts and John Kitzhaber, and the non-partisan Mayor of Portland, Tom Potter. Obama has, however, received the backing of both the full Democratic delegations to the Oregon State Senate and State House of Representatives.

Politically, the only other race of any interest in the state is choosing a Democrat to face (and possibly beat) incumbent Republican Gordon Smith as US Senator in November. With Kitzhaber and the entire Democratic US House delegation ruling themselves out, Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Jeff Merkley (an Obama supporter) is facing disabled Environmental campaigner Steve Novick for the Democratic nomination, and a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, John Frohnmayer, is likely to run in November as an Independent. Merkley’s campaign is doing well in fundraising, and the presence of committed activists working the streets for an Obama supporter could make all the difference in a tight race.

What seems apparent is that Oregon could trend either way - both Clinton and Obama enjoy institutional support, and both can see demographics that typically support them. Little polling of Democrats has taken place, and neither lead enjoyed by either candidate in January and April respectively could reasonably be described as insurmountable. I believe that this state is still very much in play, and Obama would be foolish to assume that he could rely on its support.

If we accept that Obama has won the season on both Pledged delegates and the Popular Vote, the only reason that Superdelegates would be waiting before supporting him (assuming they are not all closet Clintonistas) is that they do not want to disenfranchise the few remaining states who have yet to vote.

Clinton’s major challenge will be to stop them from going wholesale to Obama on 4th June, preventing her from being viable until the Convention in late August, or even until the Credentials Committee meets on Florida and Michigan at the end of June. The question is whether (excepting North Carolina) Clinton can put in the necessary effort in Oregon to chance a near-clean sweep from her victories in Rhode Island and Ohio on March 4th through to the South Dakota and Montana challenges on 3rd June.

If so, the momentum could be sufficient to persuade Superdelegates to further delay open judgment, and thus keep her alive beyond the 4th June, thereby giving her the opportunity to ‘steal’ the ticket at the Convention in Denver. Should she lose Oregon, which seems quite possible, even she may be forced to accept that it is all over.

UPDATE: In the most recent poll on May 1st reported that Obama enjoyed a 51% - 39% lead over Hillary Clinton.