Daily Research News Online no. 4044 - Eve of Poll Party Standings

Eve of Poll Party Standings

May 4 2005

Labour has a four point lead over the Conservatives, among those who are most likely to vote in the British General Election tomorrow, according to the latest from HI Europe. These figures suggest a closer race than those reported by MORI yesterday.

Harris will release a final poll tomorrow morning based on interviews conducted today. In today's HI Europe results, the lead for the Labour Party (or 'Labor Party' as Harris calls it) would be enough to re-elect Tony Blair with a clear, working majority, albeit substantially reduced from the current majority. Among all eligible voters, 'Labor' enjoys a six-point lead over the Tories with the Liberal Democrats getting the support of 23%.

Among the eligible voters who say they are absolutely certain to vote, Labour leads the Conservatives by 38% to 34%, a four-point lead, with the Liberal Democrats getting 22% of the vote. 64% of Conservatives say they are absolutely certain to vote compared to only 59% of Labour supporters and 60% of Liberal Democrats.

This poll also suggests that the Conservatives have lost fewest of their supporters from the 2001 election - just 10% - while nearly a third of those who voted Liberal Democrat in 2001 and a quarter of those who voted Labour plan to vote differently this time round.

The HI Europe Harris Poll was conducted online among 3,719 eligible voters (adults aged 18 and over) throughout Great Britain on May 1 and 2, 2005. Two kinds of weighting are used to eliminate the biases in raw, online data: demographic (by sex, age, education, income and location) and propensity score weights to eliminate other online sampling biases when projecting to the total population.

A MORI poll for the Financial Times, published on 3rd May gave Labour a much larger lead based on 651 adults 'absolutely certain to vote': Labour 39%, Conservative 29%, LibDems 22%, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists 3% (between them), UKIP 3%, Greens 2% and others 2%.

A release from Internet traffic specialist Hitwise meanwhile suggests that 'the Liberal Democrats are on track for their best ever success... Charles Kennedy's party is still surging ahead in the pre-election polls and online' - the latter based on the fact that the term 'Liberal Democrats' is getting searched for more often than either 'Labour Party' or 'Conservatives'. Hmm, not sure we'll be hanging our hats on that method for the overall result...

Tables from the Harris research:
Voting Intentions – All Eligible Voters and Likely Voters Q. In the general election to be held May 5th, for which party do you intend to vote?
If undecided Q. If you had to say, which party are you most inclined to support?
Base: All adults
	All Eligible Voters	Absolutely Certain To Vote	Absolutely Certain/ Certain to Vote
	%	%	%
Labour	38	38	37
Conservative	32	34	34
Liberal Democrat	23	22	23
Other Parties	7	6	6

Labour Lead	+6	+4	+3


Voting Intention Now - By How Voted in 2001 Q. In the general election to be held on May 5, which party do you intend to vote for? Q. In the last general election in 2001, for which party did you vote?
Base: All adults
Voting Intention Now	How Voted in 2001
	Conservative	Labour	Liberal Democrat
	%	%	%
Conservative	90	9	15
Labour	2	74	16
Liberal	6	15	65
Other Party	2	3	4
Note: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding