Can an opinion poll change an election result? | thearticle

“A politician, with his ear to the ground, must inevitably have his bottom in the air,” declared Winston Churchill. “This is a vulnerable and undignified position and should be avoided.” But

subsequent politicians have been fascinated by opinion polls – whether they like to admit or not. If they were sincere when they claim to “take no notice of them” then why do political

parties spend money on their own private polling? This concern by politicians with the polls is not just to get a clue of their impending fate – though curiosity runs deep in the human

psyche. The polls can also give the chance to alter course. An obvious example is taking place at the moment with the arguments over an election date, albeit that MPs are trying to think of

more high minded reasons for their preferences than whether they could expect to win or lose seats. But it’s not just the politicians who are influenced by the polls. The rest of us are too.

Thus we have the paradox that an opinion poll can disprove itself. By alerting people to a “snapshot” of voting intention it causes something different to happen when the votes are actually

cast a week or a month later. It might do so in unpredictable ways. It could mean a collapse in morale for a political party, causing its vote to be driven lower amid infighting and

ridicule from the media. On the other hand, canvassing at the last General Election I found that complete confidence that it was “impossible” for Labour to win actually encouraged people to

vote for the Party. Those who agreed that Jeremy Corbyn would be a disaster as Prime Minister discounted such a risk. Thus they felt safe to vote Labour – perhaps as a protest against

Brexit, or in gratitude for the constituency work of their local Labour MP, or because they didn’t feel that Theresa May deserved a landslide victory. Some of them will have got a bit of a

fright that Corbyn came as close to power as he did. Polling was also influential in the previous election, in 2015. In that contest, the Conservatives beat expectations by winning an

overall majority. What worried many was not that the alternative was a majority Labour Government – though Labour’s then Leader Ed Miliband was not held in high esteem. It was Labour

governing while beholden to the Scottish Nationalists. At the start of 2015, there was extensive polling in individual Scottish constituencies, commissioned by Lord Ashcroft, which pointed

to the SNP making extraordinary gains (which duly transpired). If Labour were going to make these big losses in Scotland it became hard to envisage that they would make enough progress

elsewhere to win an overall majority. A Conservative poster warned: “You could end up with a Labour government led by Ed Miliband, propped up by Alex Salmond and the Scottish National

party.” It showed Miliband in Salmond’s pocket. That message had “traction” with the electorate as the polling had established it as plausible. That is before we even get started on tactical

voting. In the next election this is likely to be a bigger factor than ever before. That is because of the diminishing “tribalism” of Party voting. It used to be that the bulk of the

population would stick to their chosen Party for many years – often the whole family would vote the same way. That loyalty would not be broken down by opinion polls, or anything else. The

“floating voters” were much sought after because they were a minority. But now we all seem to be floating about. Party allegiance was already gradually eroding. Brexit has caused it to all

but collapse. Many identify themselves foremost as Brexiteers or Remainers rather than as Conservatives or Labour supporters. This means the opinion pollsters are more powerful than ever.

The Lib Dems have long suffered from being “squeezed” in seats where the contest is really between Labour and the Conservatives. Sometimes they have fought the narrative with leaflets

displaying bar charts showing that “only the Lib Dems” can beat Labour or the Conservatives. Often these messages rather, ahem, stretched the truth. They tended not to work as they relied on

voters being stupid. It is even harder to fool people now when anyone interested can use the internet to carry out their own fact checking, in a matter of seconds, into previous election

results. But with Brexit, there is a wild card. If a sitting Labour or Conservative MP is pro Brexit – or merely equivocal on the matter – the Lib Dems will seek to hoover up the support of

staunch Remainers. Labour MPs wil be on the doorsteps pleading with Remainers that voting Lib Dem “would just let in Boris Johnson’s Tories and allow Brexit to go ahead.” On the other side

of the divide, the Brexiteers will be scratching their chins considering the respective merits of the Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. Some suggest that the Brexit Party will

be boosted by the failure of us to leave the EU on October 31st. Usually, those putting forward the hypothesis are Remainers engaging in wishful thinking. Overwhelmingly it is Parliament,

rather than Boris, who will be blamed for the deadline being missed. That means the Conservative Party will be generally seen as the only viable vehicle to deliver Brexit. That will be

grudgingly accepted even by those Brexiteers who would prefer “no deal” clean break to the compromise offered by Boris. So the Brexit Party coming up with a poll rating showing them in

fourth place will have the impact of driving down their support further. They might still be in with a chance of snatching a few “safe” Labour seats – the Barnsleys, the Doncasters, the

Hartlepools. If they put up a strong campaign in such places they could make a tactical pitch for Conservative votes. Some constituency polling in some of those seats could make interesting

reading. Tactical voting is a game we can all join in. More are being tempted to do so. It does have it risks though. In this volatile age making an extrapolation from previous results is

unreliable. We have also seen abundant examples – at home and abroad – of how the pollsters can get it wrong. Yet we can resist looking to them for guidance. You have been warned.