The BBC Projected National Share of the vote just announced is Con 29, Lab 31, LD 13, UKIP 17, Others 10.
The PNS is an attempt to estimate what the share of the vote would be if the whole of GB had local elections and if the three main Westminster parties had fielded candidates in all wards, as they do in general elections. For more details see here and here. Continue reading BBC Projected National Share of Vote 2014
Last year I published details of a basic model for forecasting the number of local council seats won from national opinion polls here. The basic idea is to estimate change in seats since the last time they were fought (four years ago) as a function of change in the polls over that time. Continue reading Locals seats forecast from national polls 2014
The Economist magazine have published a great article on the difficulties of predicting the next election. It makes lots of good points well and kindly covers my 2015 general election forecasting model. But I was bemused by the line that reads, “Within months he had published a revised model: polls had not adhered to the original one.” Continue reading Reasons for changing the forecasting model: a response to The Economist
The graph below shows how my 2015 general election forecast probabilities have changed since October last year.* The blue line shows the probability that the Conservatives will have the largest number of seats. The corresponding red line for Labour is just the mirror image. Also included in the graph is the probability of a hung parliament. Continue reading How the 2015 general election forecast probabilities have changed thus far and why
Previous posts at this blog introduce my long-range general election forecasting model, which is updated on Fridays here.
Thus far I haven’t published a forecast of the UKIP share of vote because the party hasn’t been competing in general elections for long enough to build a proper statistical regression model of the relationship between their support in the polls and their votes at elections, as for the three main parties. Continue reading A long range forecast for the UKIP share of the vote at the 2015 general election
I have revised my 2015 forecasting methodology. There is a new working paper here. The old one from October 2013 is still here, and there are past blog posts here and here that provide more background. The current forecast is below and will be updated weekly here. Continue reading Revised long-range forecasting method for a 2015 British General Election
Thanks for all the various comments on my initial post about long-range forecasting from historical polls and votes relationship.
Here are some initial responses to comments and questions that have been made on Twitter and on the blog. Continue reading Initial responses to comments so far on the long-range election forecasting post
I’ve just started publishing a forecast from a polls based method for forecasting the next general election here. I’m hoping to update the forecast weekly. Continue reading A long-range forecast for a 2015 British General Election based on current polls and historical polls and votes
Since the local elections last week discussion in the media has focused mainly on the impact of UKIP success on the Conservatives and how they will react. But compared with last year’s local elections Labour suffered at least as much. Continue reading Local Elections 2013: UKIP hurt Labour at least as much as the Tories compared with last year
Elections Etc 