Yesterday I wrote how that even recent phone polls show Leave ahead in the Brexit debate.
A BMG poll that was supposed to be released on Friday was delayed until today. That poll strongly reverses other recent telephone polls.
The headline reads “Remain 53.3%, Leave 46.7%” but that representation is quite inaccurate.
The BMG/Herald Final EU Referendum shows Remain leads 46% to 43% with 11% undecided.
Don’t Knows and PNTS (prefer not to say) totaled 11%. From this set of numbers BMG issued the final result “Remain 53.3%, Leave 46.7%”. Remain lead by 7pts after imputed DK/PNTSs.”
Why impute voting intention for Undecideds and Refusals?
BMG states “It is our view that using predicted voting intentions to impute voting intentions for undecideds and refusals is preferable and more accurate than existing methods of excluding undecideds and refusals.”
Headline Numbers Believable?
In a word, No (at least without normalizing the results to other polls).
Let’s do that now.
Recent Phone Poll Analysis
The above tabulation is the best interpretation as to where we stand now.
The latest poll is actually Survation, but is it biased to Leave?
Leave Bias
BMG notes “Our latest poll took 6 days to complete for just over 1,000 responses. Some respondents are harder to reach than others, and some are more difficult to convince to take part in a survey. If there’s no response our interviewers will call the sample of respondents up to eight times and never at the same time of the day. It is for this reason that the majority of our survey responses are collected on the second or later attempt.”
Survation was the only pollster not to conduct its survey over multiple days. If one disregards Suration for that reason, the two latest polls are BMG and Ipos MORI.
BMG has a 3 point lead for Remain whereas IPOS Mori has a 6 point lead for Leave. ICM is the next most recent poll and it has a 5 point lead for Leave.
No Trend Change
One poll does not change the trend. It does suggest things are not as clear-cut for Leave as they were.
Moreover, we still do not know how the death of Jo Cox affects the overall results. To understand, we need to see new polls after the her senseless murder.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
After the MP murder I feel the chances of a Brexit have dropped significantly. I’d give it a 1 in 4 chance of happening now. Before the murder basically a coin toss but maybe leaning slightly “stay in”.
I had it 52-48 or 53-47 in favor of leave before the murder
Now I really do not know
Mish
Yep. I know.
It’s a real shame that country’s make huge decisions that are overly influenced by long tail random events like this murder.
Analogy is gun control policy being set /discussed seriously in the immed aftermath of tragedies like ORL and Sandy Hook. With hormones flaring and politicians ” never wasting a crisis” the public at large usually gets just another ineffective expensive regulation placed upon them.
It’s sad that in 2016 we in democracies still legislate reactively.
Other polls show Brexit increasing in strength, but as someone whose wife has specialized in this area, telephone polls in the era of cell phones and general unwillingness to cooperate with pollsters, are worthless….
ComRes sentiment 15/16 th
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-44-would-be-delighted-if-britain-voted-to-leave-only-28-would-feel-the-same-if-we-a7089036.html
Thanks for the link. Great synopsis.
“Ah, Roger that Center”
I don’t think the Cox’s tragedy will have much impact.
My feeling is Brexit will win by a solid margin.
The Guardian editor even came out in favor of the exit.
I stopped reading from there after so much of its sap against Brexit, I guess he was tied somehow, one of a long list who have had to make a clear say after being bagged as in by their associates, sometimes paying a heavy cost for simply airing their view afterwards.
Here:
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/jo-cox-dont-use-this-tragedy-to-tame-democracy/18470#.V2QbU5BHaK1
Is a review of how Jo’s death is being used to manipulate the vote. Nasty.
Press is swamped with this story and much of it used against Brexit , has damped the debate down and is oppressive to the enthusiasm that exists. I guess the idea is that the referendum is supposed to be some kind of hommage now. Vicious.
How long will the vote count take and is ther going to be sny exot polling?
I’m surprised that the media hasn’t indirectly blamed Trump yet for Jo’s murder.
Brexit will lose. The establishment (remains) will credit Jo for the victory and the EU will make a heroine out of her.
If she’s Catholic expect the Pope to put her on the list for Sainthood.
Her death will determine England’s future.
That’s how nutty the world has become.
Saw tweets by Gifford and Clinton implying Trump is responsible. Even though it is Trump rallies that are attacked and assassination attempts insinuated against.
BMG also did an online poll over the same time perios that had leave ahead, in addition to their phone poll. My position was that if the polls had Leave 5% ahead on average before the vote Leave will win. Looks like it will be closer and it will be down to turnout, which is so hard to forecast. Of course the Jo Cox murder could have an effect at the ballot box, or it just might make leavers more reluctant to declare their intentions.
We will be having the only poll that counts soon enough anyway.
I said this before the Jo Cox assassination and I’ll say it again.
Brexit will end at the wire in a photo finish and the ‘remains’ will be in the winner’s circle.
One way or the other Brexit was destined to fail.
Too much money and power at stake. Power settles everything.
(1) Most people have real lives and jobs — they don’t have time to participate in the long winded phone surveys conducted by media outlets.
(2) While the media decided who was going to be reported as the winner months ago, and are in a full court press to say the EU is unbreakable … I would counter that real life decisions matter a lot more.
For example, despite (or maybe because?) Angela Merkel acting as an EU advocate against the German people — Germany formally warned NATO not to engage in “warmongering” against Russia
https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-slams-nato-warmongering-russia-115515814.html
“NATO” obviously means the Obama regime in the US, since no other NATO member has the military capability to attack Bosnia or Libya even if they wanted to. But Germany, which is geographically the country on the front line of any warmongering, wants no part of Obama’s ego trip, not even if Brussels “orders” them to.
Greece is negotiating against the EU (supposedly spying on French IMF officials). Spanish election polls suggest Spain might leave instead / in addition to England. None of the EU countries is adhering to the Maastrict Treaty (nor is the ECB). Most member countries have now enacted programs against illegal immigration, not waiting for Brussels or caring what Brussels thinks.
Does that sound like EU members are all drinking the same Kool Aid? Even if the block is formally active, its members are speaking and acting independently.
The EU is already dead in reality, its just a question of which country will make it official first.
“The EU is already dead in reality, its just a question of which country will make it official first”
The thing is that this could drag on for DECADES, not just years. Cases in point : Japan Bonds, Communism twds it’s end, VZ, Greece still being in the EU, and US debt situation, oh…and ZIRP and NIRP.
Point is the nonsense , even when all players KNOW the End Game, can last a lifetime. …
I have long predicted that the outcome won’t matter- the vote could go 75/25 for Leave, and it still won’t be allowed to happen.
“Why impute voting intention for Undecideds and Refusals?”
For purposes of political fraud.
The Brits should just vote to Brexit. Mario’s endless bail out the banks printing mania, combined with an influx of mad bombers from the Mid East, are just not worth it. Enough with the bank bailouts. Enough with problems caused by printing, like the Mid East food wars started by bankers printing food inflation.
What’s the use of wondering what will happen when just sitting and waiting will provide the perfect answer in just a few days? There is too much noise in all those polls to discern any clear majority, and any ‘analysis’ of any of them amounts to a bet. Same about Trump vs. Clinton, of course.
Bc people bet. Loads of $ actually.
We humans like to forecast.
It’s a sign of higher than ape intelligence.
Come on.
But I guess everyone could ” sit back & wait” concerning everything. Wouldn’t be much of a futures market or actuarial market huh?
Your post is the strangest I think I’ve ever read.