Daily polling roundup 1st May

May Day saw three new GB voting intention polls. Populus showed a tie – it seems there’s been a slight methodology change, as the online poll now uses a “spiral of silence” adjustment, though the impact was minor in this poll.

Survation/Mirror showed a very close race, with Labour fractionally ahead, but with David Cameron as the winner of the Question Time special:

And YouGov/Sun showed a very similar picture:

For the last time this parliament, Lord Ashcroft presented his findings in ten marginal seats. In the LAB-CON marginals, he found an average swing of 3.3%, and of the four he’d polled previously (in February and March), the CON-LAB swing was down from 4.4% to 3.1%. Labour will be happy with the level, Tories with the change. There seems to be (on average) a 1% tactical swing from UKIP to the Conservatives, while in East Renfrewshire, the poll found what looks like a 5% pro-union tactical swing from CON to LAB, improving Jim Murphy’s chances of holding his seat. Down in North Cornwall, Ashcroft found Dan Rogerson holding the seat on a 12pt move between national and local questions (reducing an 8% swing to a 2% swing). And in Wirral West, a potential problem for the Tories – Ashcroft has the Greens on 2%, but with no Green candidate contesting the seat, who (if anyone) will those 2% vote for instead?

On the betting markets, bookies reported substantial bets going on a Conservative majority, with the odds shortening accordingly. But how realistic or otherwise is an outright Tory win? Because of the number of moving parts, there is no straight answer to the question of what popular vote lead they would need for 326 seats. Assumptions need to be made about a number of factors, not least the vote shares and vote distributions of other parties (and in particular the Lib Dems). But all of the estimates below fall entirely between 7 and 10 points, compared with only a very narrow Conservative lead in polling averages at the moment. Punters are therefore betting that the odds of the Conservatives winning the national vote by that sort of margin are shorter than those on offer.

I intend to publish analysis relevant to the theory mentioned in the tweet above tomorrow…

And finally:

Tomorrow we should get, at a minimum, the usual Saturday releases from Opinium/Observer and YouGov/Times.