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April 26th, 2010

State of the Race for 26 April

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Blog Admin

April 26th, 2010

State of the Race for 26 April

2 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Posted by Chris Gilson and Patrick Dunleavy.

Latest Poll Information for 26 April

PartySky News Poll TrackingLSE Poll Tracking
Per centPer cent
Last Change26 April26 April
Labour2827
Conservatives3434
Liberal Democrats2930
Other Parties99
Tory Lead over Labour+6+7

In our measure both Labour and the Conservatives have risen one point each over the weekend. Nick Clegg’s party are still strong on 30 per cent (down one point from Friday), and the Other Parties have dropped by one percentage point, continuing their very gradual decline from earlier last week (they were at 12 per cent two weeks ago). Sky’s measure also has the Conservatives up one point to 34 per cent and the Liberal Democrats losing a point to 29 per cent.

The Conservatives seem to have consolidated back some support, but they are still adrift from their upper 30s level before the Liberal Democrat surge last week. Some recent polls have revived Tory optimism – an Ipsos/MORI poll on Friday put them on 36 per cent and the Liberal Democrats down to 23 per cent, but this seems an anomaly. Yet the Conservatives can also stress that no polls have put them below the 34 per cent mark since the second debate. The Tory claim to be targeting 20 Labour seats previously rated ’safe’ but now judged winnable after the Liberal Democrat surge seems improbable still, with most seats projections still placing them 60 or more seats short of an overall majority.

With the one MORI poll exception, the Liberal Democrats have maintained their poll ratings after the second debate, where Clegg performed convincingly in a tighter three-way finish. If we had compiled our measure earlier in the weekend they would have been rated on 28-29 per cent, but more recent polls edged them up and an ICM poll over the weekend had them on 31 per cent still.

The poll news for Labour is much more mixed, with several polls rating their support as low as 26 per cent and Nick Clegg in weekend interviews treating them as if they were now clearly destined to run third. Yet such moments of hubris can often prove expensive in British election campaigns. Labour obviously needs to rally its support sharply, and Clegg’s apparent alignment behind Cameron may help this effort.

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This work by British Politics and Policy at LSE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.