Will turnout weighting prove to be the pollsters’ Achilles heel in #GE2017?

The 2017 election campaign has confounded expectations in many ways, none more so than Labour’s continuing surge in the opinion polls. From an average vote share of around 26% at the start of the campaign, they now stand at an average of 36% in the polls conducted over the past week. It is fair to say that few, if any, commentators expected Labour’s support to be at this level as we head into the final week of the campaign.

One of the theories advanced to explain Labour’s unexpectedly lofty position is that the opinion polls are, once again, wrong; their historical tendency to over-state Labour support has not been adequately addressed by the pollsters since the debacle of 2015. CONT.

Patrick Sturgis & Will Jennings, U.of Southampton

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