Pollster Find Out Now and election experts Electoral Calculus have run a VI poll on voting intention for Westminster on behalf of the Sunday Telegraph. This poll, involving over 1,400 respondents, carried out from 1 – 3 March.
The poll asked GB residents whether and how they intend to vote if there were an imminent general election.
| Party | Vote share at GE 2019 | Previous poll Feb 2023 | Current Estimated Vote Share (pc) | Estimated Change (pc) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CON | 45 | 23 | 25 | −20 |
| LAB | 33 | 48 | 48 | +15 |
| LIB | 11 | 11 | 9 | −2 |
| Reform | 2 | 5 | 5 | +3 |
| Green | 3 | 5 | 6 | +4 |
This gives an estimated Labour lead over the Conservatives of 23pc. That is very significant lead, which would lead to a Labour landslide in a general election. If there were a general election now, and these figures were right, Labour would win a massive landslide with 499 seats in the Commons, and the Conservatives would be reduced to just 69 seats.
The treatment of respondents who didn't clear answer the voting intention question is getting more important, as many respondents now do this. This particularly effects Conservative voters, so the correct treatment can influence the headline voting intention figures.
Note that this does not affect those respondents who have indicated that they probably will note vote. The focus of this analysis is on those who do not know or prefer not to say how they will vote or not.
Traditional polling for voting intention works in two stages, given a set of respondents with valid demographic data.
We call this method "early quota", because the quota weights are calculated early in the process, before non-definite respondents are removed.
But we could run this process in the other order:
The difference between these two methods could be important if there are a large number of don't knows or refuseds. At the moment we have 26% of all voters, and 29% of Conservative voters, who don't have a clear VI.
The "early quota" method effectively assumes that DKs/refuseds will not vote. The "late quota" method effectively assumes that these voters will vote in the same way as people with similar characteristics who did express an opinion
We are now using the "late quota" method for our headline voting intention. For information, alternative tables have been produced for this poll showing the effect of the "early quota" method. The late quota method produces less extreme leads for the Labour party, showing a 23% lead rather than a 26% lead. It is also more consistent with the MRP method, which has similar assumptions about non-respondents.
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 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.
Find Out Now polled 1,487 GB adults who had a clear voting intention online between 1 – 3 March 2023. 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.
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.