Quote:
Originally Posted by bundy5
Hi Mason,
I want to hear your views on the recent phenomena of this notion of the quiet or silent conservative as discussed in the below article of the conservative voter who is not willing to divulge their true voting intent to a pollster compared to their actual voting intentions on the day:
Would also like to hear this. "Shy Tories" was the explanation for the UK conservatives' win in 1992 so this goes back a long way.
IMHO the best defence against it is to weight by previous vote and that's what we do in Britain. Someone who's ashamed to say they're voting conservative is also not likely to openly say they voted conservative in the previous election either, so in that case they aren't going to skew the picture of where last times' voters for various parties are going this time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bundy5
Also internationally as we saw a landslide to the conservatives in the last UK general election that the polls didn't predict
The polls did predict this. The ones taken the same week of the election (12 Dec was a Thursday, so any taken on or after 9 Dec) were basically dead on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinio...neral_election
(obv being Australian you know, but for those that don't know, the UK election is for the lower house of parliament and the majority leader in the house becomes prime minister)
The polls taken earlier in the campaign showed a lead of about 10 points all the way through. Also the cross-tabs of the polls saying that "Brexit" would be a big election issue for a disproportionately high number of people whose 2016 vote was "Leave" rather than "Remain" made it clear that the 3rd party voters would be squeezable for pro-Brexit tactical voting (in favour of the Conservatives) and not for pro-Remain tactical voting. That's not hindsight either:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=144
The really interesting thing about the election was that the media and the betting markets were so convinced the polls were wrong:
Quote:
Originally Posted by LektorAJ
Tory majority is currently available on Unibet at 2.00, NOC is the favourite at 1.88, Labour majority 18.00.
Betfair has NOC 2.06, Conservative majority 2.18, Labour 18.00, BXP 300, Lib Dem 300. - however note that you pay commission off your net winnings in the market.
So basically the betting market seems convinced the polls are wrong or will change, or that Lab-Lib tactical voting will be a much bigger factor than BXP > Tory tactical voting.
(NOC means no overall control, i.e. no majority, 2.18 means +118 in US odds - i.e. you give 100 pounds to the betting shop and you come and back and collect 218 pounds if the selection wins)
When this was posted the most recent polls were Conservative +12, Conservative +16 and Conservative +12.
Last edited by LektorAJ; 11-02-2020 at 07:11 AM.