Let's have a sken at the Friday morning numbers, then.
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Pretty much where everyone knows things are. The election has seen both parties drop a fair whack in terms of support, but roughly evenly, so the lead now is the same as the lead at the end of May. The Lit Dems have risen a touch, and overcome the Post Office dip they suffered, and are back where they were last November. If Reform are suffering a dip, it's only a couple of points tops. The most recent polls still show them at 16-17% support.
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In terms of comparison to 1992/97, polling for Labour is in 1992 levels. The question is about average polling error. Both elections show an overestimation of the Labour vote, but is that true today? Meanwhile, the Tories are in new and horrible territory. At this point relative to the 1997 election - the one where they suffered one of their largest defeats - they were 10 points higher in the polls. Ten. Maybe eleven. In 1992 they were 20 points higher. Polling error isn't going to save them this time.
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The strength of the Conservative lack of support is high now. They're at their lowest average in this parliament - lower than Truss. This week the proportion of sub-20% polls (icy blue on the chart) reached half of the polling numbers for them, which is the highest proportion. This isn't just a blip.
In terms of voting support and seat numbers, I'm tracking all the polls in this last week of the election campaign in terms of what they would mean for seat numbers if exactly correct. We have the following:
Lord Ashcroft: CON 19%, LAB 40%, LIB 10%, GRN 9%, REF 17%
YouGov: CON 18%, LAB 36%, LIB 15%, GRN 8%, REF 17%
BMG: CON 20%, LAB 42%, LIB 12%, GRN 7%, REF 16%
Redfield & Wilton: CON 19%, LAB 42%, LIB 11%, GRN 5%, REF 18%
Techne: CON 19%, LAB 41%, LIB 12%, GRN 5%, REF 17%
Electoral Calculus seat numbers for these polls are (in order of majority, national parties only):
Ashcroft: LAB 455, LIB 69, CON 57, REF 19, GRN 4 - majority 260
YouGov: LAB 440, LIB 682, CON 56, REF 22, GRN 4 - majority 230
BMG: LAB 461, LIB 73, CON 49, REF 17, GRN 4 - majority 272
R&W: LAB 464, LIB 74, CON 44, REF 19, GRN 3 - majority 278
Techne: LAB 481, LIB 76, CON 39, REF 7, GRN 3 - majority 312
(You can perhaps see why I was looking for some alternative projections - those Reform numbers seem high. Also, the Lib Dems are the opposition in all five outcomes). Tactical voting numbers are largely the same and make little difference so I won't post them. I also note that Electoral Calculus got some online grief for the high Reform numbers, which are lower today with the Techne forecast, so I wonder if they've tweaked their model a touch.
FT seat projections on those numbers:
Ashcroft: LAB 471, CON 75, LIB 60, REF 5, GRN 1 - majority 292
YouGov: LAB 438, LIB 98, CON 55, REF 7, GRN 1 - majority 226
BMG: LAB 466, CON 87, LIB 67, REF 2, GRN 1 - majority 282
R&W: LAB 473, CON 71, LIB 61, REF 5, GRN 1 - majority 296
Techne: LAB 469, LIB 74, CON 61, REF 3, GRN 1 - majority 288
So, yeah. Get your dinosaur-meteor gifs ready now.
