Daily polling roundup 3rd of April

Well this wasn't expected, a post-debate opinion poll already! Last night's debate was followed by a raft of snap polls, which I reviewed in yesterday‘s daily roundup. In summary, there was no clear winner, with the first four separated by just two points once the four polls were averaged:
Cameron 22
Miliband 21.5
Farage 21
Sturgeon 20
Clegg 8.5
Bennett 4
Wood 2.5
Viewing figures were around 7 million, compared with 9.4 million for the first 2010 debate. The dropoff is actually bigger than it appears, because since 2013, viewing figures include online streaming, whereas beforehand they didn’t. Nevertheless it was considerably more than last week’s interviews, so its potential to move polls is greater.
Tonight Survation published a new, post-debate poll for the Daily Mirror. What’s surprising is the lack of movement, with the Tory VI down a point due to rounding and otherwise very little change:


What was notable, however, was the sharp move in leader approval ratings. If taken at face value, they suggest the debate was a positive for everyone’s personal ratings. Every leader except Nick Clegg now has positive net approval, and in particular that meant a big gain for Ed Miliband:


It’s a bit odd to see such sharp moves higher in net approval for all leaders, without any volatility at all in topline voting intention. We’ll get more polls, but for now, everyone’s ratings are up (and especially those of Ed Miliband).
Tomorrow we get Opinium/Observer (fieldwork pre-debate) and probably YouGov/Times (post-debate). Additional polling wouldn’t be a surprise…





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