Regression Poll August 2023

This page first posted 9 August 2023

Pollster Find Out Now and election experts Electoral Calculus have run a MRP poll for Channel 4 News on voting intention for Westminster. This was a large-scale poll, involving over 11,000 respondents, carried out from 31 July – 4 August.

The poll asked GB residents whether and how they intend to vote if there were an imminent general election.

• Labour lead of 22% over Conservatives
• Labour landslide victory with around 460 seats
• Conservatives reduced to ninety seats
• Liberal Democrats and SNP in tight battle for third place in Westminster

Footnote: the predicted vote share percentages differ from the basic voting intention from the poll, as the regression techniques and models operate differently from classic polling analysis. This modifies the parties' vote shares slightly. See below for analysis of don't knows and refuseds.

This gives an estimated Labour lead over the Conservatives of 22pc. That is very significant lead, which would lead to a Labour landslide in a general election.

The regression techniques of MRP polling allow predictions to be made for each individual seat in GB. The number of seats predicted to be won by each party is shown in the next table.

The prediction is that the Conservatives would lose about three-quarters of the existing seats and be reduced to fewer than one hundred MPs. The SNP and the Liberal Democrats would be in a tight battle for third place in Westminster.

Conservative losses worse in stronger seats

One reason that the Conservatives are doing so badly, is that the poll shows that Conservative losses are worse in stronger seats.

To show this, we looked at voting intention of those voters who lived in either very strong or quite strong Conservative seats (see Technical Details below for these definitions). There were around 1,800 respondents in each of these smaller groups.

Across the whole country, the Conservatives are predicted to lose 21% support, as they decline from 45% at the last general election to 24% today. But in quite strong seats, they lose 27% which is more than the national average. And it's the same figure for very strong seats. The Conservative losses are worse in their stronger seats, which helps explain why they are predicted to lose so many seats.

Another way of seeing this is to look at the multiplicative change, which is the fraction of former Conservative voters who are deserting the party. (For example, nationally that fraction is 22%/45% which is 47%). That's the same figure for the quite strong seats, but a bit lower for the very strong seats.

That could be even worse for the Conservatives than 1997. Even in Tony Blair's Labour landslide, Conservative support held up better in their stronger seats.

Predicted seat changes by MP

Some notable MPs are in danger of losing their seats, including the Prime Minister and seventeen other cabinet ministers:

• Rishi Sunak (Richmond), Prime Minister
• Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere), Deputy Prime Minister
• Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North), Defence Secretary
• Michelle Donelan (Chippenham), Science and Innovation
• Therese Coffey (Suffolk Coastal), Environment
• Grant Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield), Energy
• Mark Harper (Forest of Dean), Transport
• Mel Stride (Devon Central), Work and Pensions
• Lucy Frazer (Cambridgeshire South East), Culture
• Alex Chalk (Cheltenham), Justice
• Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham), Cabinet Office
• Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry), Northern Ireland
• Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway), Scotland
• David Davies (Monmouth), Wales
• Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North), Leader of the House
• Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and Pembrokeshire South), Chief Whip
• John Glen (Salisbury), Chief Secretary
• Victoria Prentis (Banbury), Attorney General

Quotes

Chris Holbrook, CEO of Find Out Now: "Our poll of 11,142 GB adults demonstrates the scale of the swing from Conservative to Labour, showing the likelihood of a Labour landslide. This swing should not overshadow the apparent re-establishment of the Liberal Democrats as a credible third party after nearly a decade in the political wilderness."

Martin Baxter, CEO of Electoral Calculus: "With every month that goes by, Labour are edging towards a grudging landslide victory at the next general election. Without overmuch enthusiasm, the public look likely to reject the Conservatives and are mostly embracing Labour."

Technical Details

Find Out Now polled 11,142 GB adults online between 31 July – 4 August 2023. Of those 10,599 answered all the demographic questions, and 8,783 had a definite voting intention. The sample was weighted to be representative by gender, age, social grade, other demographics and past voting patterns. Regression techniques were used to infer projected seat results.

The "Very strong" Conservative seats were defined as the top 120 seats by Conservative vote share at the last general election. The sample size of this sub-group was 1,891. The "Quite strong" Conservative seats were defined as the next 120 seats ranked by Conservative vote share at the last general election. The sample size of this sub-group was 1,879. Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus are both members of the British Polling Council and abide by its rules.

Full Data Tables are available for download as an Excel spreadsheet.

Treatment of Don't Knows and Refuseds

We continue to use the "late quota" method for analysing the poll using classic polling weights. See May 2023 poll for details. Currently this effect is smaller than it was, and the lead between the two parties is the same over the two methods.

Electoral Calculus

Electoral Calculus is a political consultancy specialising in quantitative analysis and modelling for electoral and other market research projects. Its pre-poll prediction for the 2019 general election was the most accurate published forecast. It was founded by Martin Baxter, its CEO.

Electoral Calculus is a member of the British Polling Council.

Find Out Now

Find Out Now gathers poll responses from Pick My Postcode, a daily panel from 2.8 million members. Highly profiled respondents can be targeted instantly, and at scale to deliver reliable results fast.

More than 124 million responses have been received to Find Out Now's polls since it launched in November 2018. Find Out Now are Market Research Society Company Partners and a member of the British Polling Council.

Regression Polling

Modern polling analysis often uses statistical regression techniques to get more accurate and geographically detailed results. Also called MRP (multi-level regression and post stratification) they have been used successfully by Electoral Calculus and other pollsters to predict general elections, local elections and the 2019 European elections.

These techniques work by spotting patterns between people's demographic characteristics and their likelihood to vote for various parties.

Appendix : List of vulnerable seats

The following seats are predicted to change hands according to our poll.