Cameron faces election bloodbath as shock poll reveals Farage's 44% lead over Tories

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ad-Tories.html

Cameron faces Ukip by-election bloodbath: Party set to win first Commons seat after shock poll reveals Farage's staggering 44-point lead over the Tories

- Ukip set to win first Commons seat with a landslide 64 per cent of the vote
- Douglas Carswell is set to win Clacton by-election sparked by his defection
- Figures predict a record 48 point swing towards Ukip, humiliating the Tories

Ukip are set to win their first Commons seat with a landslide 64 per cent of the vote following the biggest swing in modern political history.

Turncoat MP Douglas Carswell is set to humiliate David Cameron at the Clacton by-election sparked by his defection, a Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday has revealed.

The figures – the first test of public opinion since the politician rocked Westminster by defecting to Nigel Farage’s party – predict a record 48 point swing towards Ukip.

And they put the anti-Brussels party a staggering 44 percentage points ahead of Mr Carswell’s former party in the Essex constituency.

If the results are repeated in the by-election, expected in October, the swing would exceed the current record 44 points achieved by Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes when he thrashed Labour’s Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, in a by-election in Bermondsey, South London, in 1983.

The biggest anti-Tory swing to date is the 35 points achieved by the Lib Dems in the Christchurch by-election in 1993.

This really IS a political earthquake, writes Damian Lyons Lowe, chief executive of poll firm Survation

Political earthquake is an expression often used without justification, but not in the case of our Clacton poll result.

It shows that the by-election triggered by sitting Conservative MP Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip could go down in British political history as one of the most dramatic of all time.

Based on the poll, the 12,000 majority Mr Carswell won as a Conservative in Clacton in 2010 would turn into an even bigger one for Ukip of more than 15,000 on a similar turnout.

It has alarming implications for David Cameron and the Conservatives.

Mr Carswell has been accused of betraying his party, but that is not how the vast majority of his constituents see him.

Today’s survey lays to rest the notion that Mr Carswell defected for cynical reasons after becoming convinced that if he didn’t, he would lose to Ukip.

Such is his personal popularity that he would almost certainly have won the seat had he fought it with a blue rosette next May, rather than now in the yellow and purple colours of Ukip.

Most worrying of all for the Prime Minister is the reaction of other potential Tory MP defectors to the likely outcome of the by-election.

If Mr Carswell lost or won narrowly, other like-minded Conservatives toying with going over to Ukip would probably conclude it was far too risky.

But if he wins with a record-breaking swing, as our poll suggests he could, they may decide it is more risky to fight the next election as a Tory candidate than as a Ukip one.

And that could change the landscape of British politics.

Holy moly, that poll. If such a thing were to occur at the ballot box it'd represent the biggest by-election swing in modern history.

The Tories now face a huge dilemma, do they decide to really fight the by-election by sending ministers and the PM down to the seat, only to be humiliated - or do they simply make no effort, risking more defections to Ukip?

All reminds me increasingly of this by-election in Canada, one that would change Canadian politics forever.

Thoughts?

[iBlueBox]

green party should win,

[Kardan]

I would be genuinely surprised if this ended up being the result.

Looking at the data, it seems the sample size is small as well, only 700 people in total. And some wards within the constituency have as little as 10 people being asked.

Also, out of those 700 people they asked - 55 of them voted for UKIP in the last election - but UKIP didn't run for Clacton last time around, so I'm guessing all of those voters have moved to the area in the last 4 years?

And then, out of those 700 people, 85 of them voted for Labour in 2010. That doesn't sound like a fair representation to me, I feel like either there's proportionally a lot of UKIP voters, or a lack of labour voters.

And for certain questions, the Lib Dems are getting various percentages on such opinions around ~30% etc. Which sounds like a lot, but only 4 people picked that answer. Also, if we take this poll into account, 0% of Lib Dem voters in Clacton like Nigel Farage (that's 0/12 people!). I'm pretty sure that's not true either.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, out of the 700 people they asked, the age distribution was as follows:

18-24 - 5.9%
25-34 - 12.1%
35-44 - 8.9%
45-54 - 18.6%
55-64 - 13.9%
65+ - 40.9%

Genuine question (because obviously the 65+ range covers more people), are polls always this way?

[-:Undertaker:-]

I would be genuinely surprised if this ended up being the result.

Looking at the data, it seems the sample size is small as well, only 700 people in total. And some wards within the constituency have as little as 10 people being asked.

Also, out of those 700 people they asked - 55 of them voted for UKIP in the last election - but UKIP didn't run for Clacton last time around, so I'm guessing all of those voters have moved to the area in the last 4 years?

And then, out of those 700 people, 85 of them voted for Labour in 2010. That doesn't sound like a fair representation to me, I feel like either there's proportionally a lot of UKIP voters, or a lack of labour voters.

And for certain questions, the Lib Dems are getting various percentages on such opinions around ~30% etc. Which sounds like a lot, but only 4 people picked that answer. Also, if we take this poll into account, 0% of Lib Dem voters in Clacton like Nigel Farage (that's 0/12 people!). I'm pretty sure that's not true either.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, out of the 700 people they asked, the age distribution was as follows:

18-24 - 5.9%
25-34 - 12.1%
35-44 - 8.9%
45-54 - 18.6%
55-64 - 13.9%
65+ - 40.9%

Genuine question (because obviously the 65+ range covers more people), are polls always this way?

700 is a fairly sound sample size, you can see smaller sample sizes have been used at previous by-elections such as at Eastleigh where Survation used samples of 500 early on the campaign and it pretty much mirrored the result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastlei...,_2013#Polling

In terms of all the rest, I am not sure whether you are looking at raw data or data after it has been weighted. For example, some may believe that older people are over-represented in polling as they are usually weighted upwards.. but there's a reason for that, and it historically has bumped the Tories higher in the polls than the raw data. It's because older people are more likely to turn out and vote compared with younger age brackets. Polling has to take into account the demographic balance in a seat (whether it has a older or younger population) but it will also take into account that fact: that older people turn out to vote in much larger numbers.

Damian Lyons Lowe, Mike Smithson of Political Betting and Betting companies are taking this poll seriously, it's pretty much standard.

[Chippiewill]

Methodology reads to be pretty sound. Only objection in my view is using telephone surveying which means the raw results will be heavily skewed towards UKIP. However the results are weighted so it's not too far off. Some of the questions were a bit iffy, and the survey as a whole is largely suspect due to over-testing, but considering the main aim of the poll was voting intention it's probably fairly accurate.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, out of the 700 people they asked, the age distribution was as follows:

18-24 - 5.9%
25-34 - 12.1%
35-44 - 8.9%
45-54 - 18.6%
55-64 - 13.9%
65+ - 40.9%

Genuine question (because obviously the 65+ range covers more people), are polls always this way?

Age distribution will be off because young people don't have landlines and aren't at home during the day.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Lord Ashcroft's Clacton poll just come out -

Lord Ashcroft @LordAshcroft · 29m

My Clacton by-election poll: UKIP 56%, CON 24%, LAB 16%, LDEM 2%, Others 2%. Full details on @ConHome, 2.30pm.

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB · 23m

Ukip lead in @LordAshcroft Clacton poll was 36% before reallocation of don't knows which favours Tories

Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB · 14m

Main differences between the @LordAshcroft Clacton poll & the Survation one are methodological. Big picture same - great for Carswell/UKIP

[Chippiewill]

Just an FYI that Ashcroft's poll is much better in methodology and statistical analysis and backs up the previous poll.

Edit: Interesting tidbit from the poll is that the area are more bothered about the candidate than about nigel.

Edit2: Another fun one is that policy takes a smaller part in a decision to vote for libdems than other parties

Edit3: 56% of the UKIP vote is a protest vote

[FlyingJesus]

Good old telephone polling targeting a tiny number of old and unemployed people and claiming that it's representative of an entire population

[-:Undertaker:-]

Good old telephone polling targeting a tiny number of old and unemployed people and claiming that it's representative of an entire population

Hence... weighting!

[FlyingJesus]

Weighting ie: changing the results based on guesswork