Nigel Farage versus YouGov
Welcome to the 204th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), examining Nigel Farage’s attacks on YouGov.
This is followed by a summary of the latest national voting intentions polls, seat projections from MRPs, and the most recent party leader ratings.
Subscribers who pay for the full edition can also read ten insights from the latest polling and analysis, including:
Why asking whether Labour should move left or right is the wrong question;
New polling on the government’s plans for digital ID; and
How uneven the appetite for tactical voting is.
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And with that, on with the show.
Nigel Farage attacks YouGov
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is not happy with opinion pollster YouGov:
It is true that YouGov tends to put Reform lower than other pollsters. In opinion polls so far with fieldwork in March, Reform has averaged 23% with YouGov and 27% with other pollsters. That four point spread was the same in February’s averages (25% with YouGov for Reform and 29% with other pollsters).
So far, so true.
But, note that those March averages are lower than the February averages. Other pollsters may put Reform higher, but the common picture across them all is of Reform slipping in the polls, something I went into further in TWIP #200.
In the lead, yes, but slipping. I’ll let you decide whether ‘strong’ is the right term for that.
But what about the further points that Nigel Farage made, going beyond simply pointing out that YouGov gives his party lower scores?
Of all the many and varied reasons politicians have given for dismissing polls they don’t like (including those I called out from Labour over the Gordon and Denton by-election), judging a polling company’s accuracy by its share price would be a remarkably weak reason. There is a whole host of business reasons why share prices might suffer, all unrelated to the accuracy of one niche product (political polling is a small part of any pollster’s business).
Nor is adjusting the figures from raw data before publishing voting intention figures unusual or suspicious. Indeed, it’s a central part of how accurate polling works.
As for whether or not their adjustments are justified, we have a long track record of YouGov polls and general election results to compare.
I’ve previously analysed their historic record (e.g. here). Short version: YouGov has a pretty good record. There’s also the more recent 2024 general election to judge the firm by. There are several ways of measuring this, but YouGov comes out something like fourth or fifth best out of something like seventeen or nineteen pollsters.
As for their seat projections based on MRPs, they come out something like the best out of thirteen.
So far, then, so unconvincing from Nigel Farage.
Reform has followed up with a letter, but the contents as reported contain no substantive details of complaint beyond YouGov giving Reform lower scores than other pollsters. Indeed the Daily Telegraph reported the complaint as being:
Reform argues that the discrepancy is caused by YouGov applying its own model to polling figures.
Well, yes, every pollster applies their own model. Indeed ‘their figures are different and they use their own model’ is equally true of the pollster that gives the highest scores to Reform.
YouGov has published a helpful explanation of their methodology and Peter Kellner (co-founder of YouGov) has previously written a great piece about how YouGov’s approach varies from other pollsters.
His key points are:
Two points stand out [about how YouGov’s methodology adapts the original raw figures]. First, in stage one – the standard voting intention question – YouGov’s results are fairly close to those of other pollsters. Secondly, asking people how they would vote in their own constituency hurts Reform and helps the Lib Dems. The final stage, applying their MRP, makes a further small difference – no more than one percentage point for any party.
That crucial second stage, focusing people’s attention on their local constituency contest, has sometimes worked out very well for pollsters and sometimes less so. The 2015 general election experience was a good example of how you cannot simply say one way is definitely right and the other definitely wrong.
YouGov’s own Patrick English put a slightly different emphasis on the reason for YouGov’s figures giving lower support to Reform than other pollsters:
[This is] most likely down to 2 things:
1) We use our own panel, the vast majority of other pollsters do not, and are often using the same panels, so the ‘industry average’ isn’t quite what it appears, and
2) turnout modelling - a lot of irregular voters are currently telling pollsters they will go out and vote Reform in an election tomorrow. There appear to be significant differences pollster to pollster regarding how likely we think it is that they would indeed turn out.
Where does this leave us?
Yes, YouGov’s figures tend to be a bit different.
No, the reason is not a special anti-Reform bias or indeed anything secret.
Perhaps YouGov’s different approach will be right, and perhaps it will be wrong. We can’t be sure, though the firm does have a very plausible track record.
But we do know that Reform’s support has been steadily slipping for several months - with YouGov and with other pollsters alike.
Which perhaps helps explain the complaints now. For as Labour MP and former Opinium pollster Chris Curtis quipped to Politico:
In my decade in polling, I could always tell when a party was on the ropes, because they start lashing out at pollsters rather than speaking to voters. Nigel Farage is just the latest to look at a bad poll and decide the fault lies with the tape measure, not the waistline.
Certainly, if a pollster shows a party in the lead, it is unusual for its leader to complain the pollster is wrong.
UPDATE: Since this was originally written, YouGov has agreed to start including in its published data tables the other voting intention question that is mentioned in the Peter Kellner quote above. This is the earlier question which helps feed into the published question and its headline results. This is a welcome piece of extra transparency, though as Nigel Farage is claiming this as a victory, it is worth also emphasising that publishing this extra information will make no change to YouGov’s headline figures. The adjustments that were the subject of Nigel Farage’s ire in the tweet above will continue. I’ll cover this more fully in next week’s edition.
Latest edition of Political Fictions
In the latest episode of my podcast about political TV and films, Cory and I watch Election, the 1999 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. We talk about whether any of the characters in this film are actually likable, the importance of tying string to your pens, and how although so many commentators have compared Reese Witherspoon's character to Hillary Clinton, maybe the best historical parallel in this film is with the Miliband brothers.
Elsewhere from me…
With the Crime and Policing Bill going through the House of Lords, I took the opportunity to push for a dedicated police focus on tackling crime by those in public office:
If you spot a factual error…
Borrowing an idea from Stuart Ritchie and others, if you spot a factual error in an edition of this newsletter, I will give you a free 12-month subscription to the paid-for version (or an extra 12 months on your existing one). Factual errors qualify rather than grammatical errors or disagreements over interpretation, with my decision being final. Messages about both of those are always very welcome, though.
Voting intentions and leadership ratings
Here are the latest voting intention polls from different pollsters, with the post-Gordon and Denton by-election rise in the polls for the Greens having plateaued, on average, in the most recent polls: up further in some, starting to go back down in others.
The table is also online here, along with explanations about what is included. It is updated regularly through the week with new polls.
Next, the latest seat projections from MRPs and similar models, also sorted by fieldwork dates. As these are infrequent, note how old some of the ‘latest’ data is.
Finally, a summary of the latest leadership ratings, sorted by pollster name. Keir Starmer’s bump following the start of the conflict with Iran looks to be sustained, and may even be growing. By contrast, there are early signs that Zack Polanski’s net ratings are declining, despite his party’s by-election win. But we’ll need some more data points to be sure on that.
The table is also online here with additional details, and is updated regularly through the week as new data comes out.
For the historic figures for both voting intention and leader approval, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase.
Catch up on the previous two editions
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Asking if Labour should move left or right is the wrong question, and 9 other polling insights you shouldn’t miss
The following 10 findings from the most recent polls and analysis are only for subscribers who pay for the full edition, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away.
YouGov’s Patrick English is critical of debates over whether Labour should move left or right. They miss the point, he argues. What really matters, he says, is that,
