After a wait of several days, we at last have the first Scottish subsample from a GB-wide poll to have been entirely conducted after the Telegraph's smearing of Nicola Sturgeon (the previous two were only partly conducted after the crucial moment on Friday night). The new YouGov poll is bang up-to-date, with fieldwork conducted yesterday and the day before, and the Scottish subsample shows :
SNP 43%, Labour 33%, Conservatives 12%, UKIP 6%, Liberal Democrats 4%, Greens 2%
Labour's share is admittedly at the extreme upper end of their normal range, but there's no reason to suppose that they've taken any votes back from the SNP, who at 43% are polling normally and strongly. Unfortunately, though, it's much more difficult than before to interpret the meaning of 'normal', because YouGov have quietly revised their methodology for GB-wide polls, and the SNP are no longer being weighted down - which always used to happen as a matter of routine. (The political weighting is now based on voting intention from a few weeks ago, rather than on antiquated party ID target figures derived from 2010. Likelihood to vote is also being taken into account, which modestly boosts the SNP from 41% to 43%.)
So we're going to need a few more subsamples to get a clearer picture - but, as of yet, there's still no cause for alarm.
0 Comments