Tuesday 9 December 2014

Little change in Welsh polling Intentions.



The recent Scottish Referendum which although there was a NO vote has seen a unbelievable surge in membership and support for the SNP.

Any hope from these quarters that the earthquake might reach us in Wales appears to be dashed according to the latest ITV poll

First,intentions for the 2014eneral election? saw little change from the most recent Barometer poll, in September, in brackets).

Labour 36% (-2%)
Conservative 23% (no change)
UKIP 18% (+1%)
Plaid Cymru 11% (no change)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-1%)
Greens 5% (no change)
Others 2% (+1)


On this the seats to change hands would be: Cardiff North and Cardiff Central, both won by Labour, and Brecon & Radnor, which the Conservatives would narrowly gain from the Liberal Democrats.


Though of course some constituencies may have greater swings.




What about the National Assembly? For the constituency vote, the results of the new poll were also saw little movement (with changes from our September poll again in brackets): Though Ukip vote fell and oddlyit seems that Plaid were the beneficiaries)

Labour 35% (-1%)
Conservative 22% (+1%)
Plaid Cymru 19% (no change)
UKIP 12% (no change)
Liberal Democrats 6% (no change)
Greens 5% (+1%)
Others 1% (no change)

On these figures, and again assuming uniform national swings (which is not guaranted) acrossWales, only two constituency seats would change hands from the results in the last Assembly election in May 2011: the Liberal Democrats would regain Cardiff Central from Labour, while Labour would also lose Llanelli to Plaid Cymru.

For the regional list vote, we saw the following results (with changes from our December poll again indicated):

Labour 31% (no change)
Conservative 20% (-1%)
Plaid Cymru 19% (+3%)
UKIP 15% (-2%)
Greens 7% (no change)
Liberal Democrats 6% (+1%)
Others 2% (-1%)

Again on paper it seems Plaid are the swing seems to be Plaid gaining from Ukip . There may be more complex Party crossovers. But Plaid strategist may be shaking their heads an wondering who these people are.?

Taking into account both the constituency and list results, this produces the following projected seat outcome for a National Assembly election (with aggregate changes from 2011 indicated in brackets):

Labour: 28 (-2): 26 constituency AMs, 2 list AMs
Conservative: 12 (-2); 6 constituency AMs, 6 list AMs
Plaid Cymru: 10 (-1); 6 constituency AMs, 4 list AMs
UKIP: 7 (+7): all list AMs
Liberal Democrats: 2 (-3); 2 constituency AMs
Greens 1 (+1): a list AM (in Mid and West Wales


There may be changes if voting intentions were taken into account. 

It may well be that Plaid supporters are more likely to vote in assembly elections than Ukip backers and maybe when we see more details from the Elections in Wales Blog.

At the moment it looks like Welsh Politics has seen little change over the last year reflected in council Byelection results which have seen labours Hegemony go unchallenged.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How will the loss of Labour votes since the last general election play out in seat like Ynys Mon? If substantial votes are going from Labour to UKIP will that result in a flow of votes from 'left behind' Labour voters on the island to UKIP leave Plaid as the net gainer? It would be ironic if a good UKIP
result as in the European elections result in Plaid taking back the seat. It would appear that in many places in Wales the next general election will be a series of by-elections that will all be fought on the same day.

Anonymous said...

I suppose it is safe to assume the remaining Liberal seat mentioned in the poll will be Ceredigion looking at the size of the incumbents majority. This will be the third defence of the seat for the Liberals since Simon Thomas was defeated by them. The Liberals will have had the recognised
electoral bounce of a first time defence in 2012 and a number of Liberal blogs are now discussing the impact of polling on safe seats suggesting they maynot be as safe as initially thought. This along with the university vote which is so crutial in Ceredigion with Aberyswyth and Lampeter make the seat an interesting one to watch. It is also worth looking at what has happened to Lampeter with the decline of their university. Could this be an omen for the Liberals. An interesting seat to watch.

Anonymous said...

Liberal loss of Brecon & Radnor to the Tories on a 'uniform swing' highlights part of the problem with the poll. A fight between Liberals and Tories with a UKIP surge can only result in theTories failing to oust the Liberals.