Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, has joined a long line of politicians who have gambled that they understood the populist wave overtaking Western politics and lost. Thursday’s election capped a year in which the latest theory of politics in the populist era perpetually seemed to prove incorrect, as did many […] Read more »
UK election: The day after
On 30 May, the YouGov model for the 2017 General Election was posted here and created a firestorm. At that time, most polls showed double-digit leads for the Tories and nobody else was suggesting that the Conservative majority was at risk. … In addition to the public skepticism, insiders in […] Read more »
The U.K. Election Wasn’t That Much Of A Shock
… The final polling average showed conservatives ahead by 6.4 percentage points. In fact, Conservatives should wind up winning the popular vote by 2 to 3 percentage points. That means the polling average will have been off by about 4 percentage points. … While a 4-point error would be fairly […] Read more »
Political Science and the 2017 UK General Election
Theresa May’s surprise decision to call a snap General Election for June 8th 2017 sets up a contest that may come to define British politics for decades. The work of political scientists can help us to understand the long-term and short-term forces that shape all elections. Changes in society and […] Read more »
UK general election 2017: Making sense of the final polls
Confused about what is likely to happen on Thursday? That would not be surprising. The polls have, after all, produced very divergent results. In the last few days, for example, one has put the Conservative lead over Labour as low as one point and another as high as 12. So […] Read more »
Polling Matters podcast: Reviewing this weekend’s UK polls
Keiran Pedley is joined by Ben Walker from Britain Elects to discuss the weekend’s polls as the campaign enters the final week. Polling Matters Read more »