The good, the bad and the unknown of Zack Polanski's poll ratings
Welcome to the 206th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), which looks at the changing nature of the opinion poll ratings for Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party in England and Wales.
This is followed by a summary of the latest national voting intention 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:
How the mystery surrounding the Bible Society’s polling figures was resolved;
A revival in views about the NHS; and
What the data tells us about support for curbing jury trials.
If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can read all ten by starting a free trial now:
For more polling news as it comes in before next week’s edition, you can also follow The Week in Polls on Bluesky.
But before we get to this week’s new stories, a look ahead to the local elections. I’ve started the 2026 version of my annual table listing predictions for seat changes at the May local elections.
As I note in my commentary on the table, two things stand out from the predictions so far:
It’s looking possible that the Liberal Democrats will replace the Conservatives as the second party of local government, and the Conservatives may even fall to a historic low on this measure.
Bombe, whose predictions have received a lot of press coverage taking them at face value, are looking very much an outlier. Either that means they have made a stunning debut in the local election prediction business, or the media’s coverage assuming they are accurate will age very badly.
Do let me know of any predictions I’ve missed, or updates to existing predictions that need to be made.
One other preliminary note: I have switched to using the online Keeper password manager, which makes it easy to create secure, unique passwords for all your logins, while also making them easy to use. You can get a free trial and then 30% off your first year with this affiliate link.
And with that, on with the show.
Zack Polanski’s poll ratings
Each pollster asks how the public thinks party leaders are doing in slightly different ways (and some pollsters use two different ways themselves).1 Even apparently slight differences in question wording between satisfaction, approval or favourability produce consistently different results, and so it is even more important than usual to compare like with like.
Hence the complexity of the graphs that follow, but understanding complex data is what you’re here for, isn’t it?
The good
When it comes to positive ratings for Zack Polanski, it’s a subtle picture. There has been a definite rise since he became leader of the Green Party in England and Wales. But for six of the seven pollsters, those positive ratings have flatlined or even dropped.
The bad
As for Polanski’s negative ratings, it is a more straightforward picture of them rising, albeit with some fluctuations along the way:
(The don’t knows for him have been falling, which is normal when a new leader comes on the scene.)
The unknown
Where does that leave his net ratings, especially as rising negative ratings might not be fatal if the positive ratings are rising more quickly?
It’s a little bit messy: five pollsters have Polanski’s net ratings falling (one, Opinium, with a blip in the most recent figures, but the trend is still clear in its case) and two have them rising in the last few months.
However, with a 5-2 split among pollsters, the picture is clearer than I expected before drawing the graph, as readers who remember my comments last week will spot:
Where does this leave us?
Zack Polanski’s net ratings are decent compared with other party leaders overall, and much better than Keir Starmer’s.
But overall those trends look rather worrying for him and the Greens. It looks as though as he’s become more prominent, the net effect has been a worsening of his ratings. If that continues, he may start appearing to be a drag on his party rather than a boost for it.
Of course, as with Reform’s own polling problems, these problematic pieces of polling news may be swept away by good news from the May local elections. But the above graphs already factor in the Gorton and Denton by-election and the overall picture of falling net ratings with most pollsters remains despite the Green Party win there.
Which is why I think, while it is fair to say we shouldn’t simply project past trends into the future, it is also fair to point out that the polling picture for him is rather less positive than you would guess from his media coverage.
Reform’s own problems in the polls took several months for the media to start to catch up with. Whether or not the media catches up with the questions about Zack Polanski’s popularity, we’ll see.
Elsewhere from me…
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 intention and leadership ratings
Here are the latest voting intention polls from different pollsters, and the most notable addition in the last week has been a rare, high-quality Verian poll. Verian has an impressive pedigree that is often overlooked, partly due to frequent company name changes, and partly due to not playing the media publicity game much. Verian also has a methodology that emphasises panel quality.
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’ figures are.
Finally, a summary of the latest leadership ratings, sorted by pollster name. Overall, Keir Starmer’s ratings still seem to have improved a little since the start of the conflict with Iran though not enough to change the overall picture of his ratings being consistently the worst in this table:
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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Mystery of Bible Society polling solved, 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.
For nearly a year the YouGov data underpinning the Bible Society’s The Quiet Revival report has been puzzling, even examined by Radio 4’s More or Less. The data had a reputable source but was at odds with other evidence in showing a sharp revival in church attendance among Gen Z in England and Wales. How to explain it? Now we know the answer.
