Survation poll for The Daily Mirror / ITV Daybreak on Friday 5 July. Topic: Public attitudes towards the NHS. Fieldwork: 3rd July. 1,085 UK respondents.

Headline Voting Intention Details (changes since June 2nd)

Conservative: 23% (-2%)

Labour: 36% (nc)

Liberal Democrats: 10% (nc)

UKIP: 22% (+2%)

Others: 10% (nc)

 Analysis and comparative methodology

Despite recent talk of a possible improvement in Conservative Party fortunes, the latest Survation poll continues to show the party at record lows of support. At 23% this is the lowest Conservative voting intention figure published by a BPC member so far this Parliament. The apparent reason, evident from the figures, is the continued record-high polling for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), here scoring at 22%. This is within margin of error of the Conservative Party, suggesting it is possible that UKIP is actually ahead of the Conservatives (though conversely it is possible that the gap between them is a few points higher than the 1% shown).

Voters Need A Reminder Of Who Might Be On Their Ballot Paper

Since their high-profile performance at the local elections back in May, which gave the party a major publicity boost, UKIP has been polling steadily around the 20% mark in Survation polls. Whilst some other polling companies have shown a more recent fall-off in UKIP vote, this is likely a result of methodological differences, where failing to prompt (initially mention the party in the voting question) for UKIP causes people to forget about them as a valid option when considering a voting intention question.

News coverage of the party has abated somewhat over the last month as media interest from the local elections has faded. This would account for a “fall in support” when the party are not prompted for, compared with Survation polls (which include UKIP in the voting question prompt) that have shown their support holding up.

Simply put, not mentioning UKIP in the voting question lowers their apparent support, particularly in periods such as this, when the party has not featured as heavily in the news media.

Why is YouGov The Online Outlier?

YouGov in particular publishes significantly lower UKIP figures in it’s daily polls (today’s 12% making it an outlier among online pollsters), largely as a result of methodological differences such as its use of Party ID weighting to a 3 year old target, which after all usual weighting has taken place, reduces UKIP’s figure significantly. Other online companies such as Opinium and TNS show UKIP at 19% in their most recent polls, more comparable with the Survation figures, though still with a slight difference perhaps accounted for by prompting (as discussed) or by other minor differences in weighting.

YouGov’s President, Peter Kellner has perfomed an analysis of the effect of prompting, showing that if YouGov used Survation’s methodology, their results would look similar in a detailed piece for those interested here:

— By Patrick Briône, Director of Research