The victory of Cameron’s Conservatives in Britain was surprising and a challenge to opinion pollsters. One recent analysis of the post-election British Election Survey has these findings on the Conservative victory:
Polls had almost without exception shown that 2010 Lib Dems voters that had switched to one of the two larger parties had overwhelmingly opted for Labour. However, the analysis suggests a different picture – Lib Dem to Labour switchers did outnumber Lib Dem to Conservative switchers, but only narrowly
Polls had also suggested that the direct flows between Labour and the Conservatives were very small and essentially cancelled each other out. There was in fact a very small net flow of 2010 Labour voters to the Tories.
These errors were reflected elsewhere in polls besides voting intention. 2015 Tory voters appear to be much more socially liberal – with more progressive views on gender and racial equality – than was previously thought.
The new BES data also suggests that the Tories had both a larger vote share and a larger lead among women than among men.
These numbers support the theory that Conservative modernisation helped – not hurt – the Tory performance in 2015 Continue reading