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Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties | 2008

Getting It Right: YouGov and Online Survey Research in Britain

Joe Twyman

Abstract The past two decades have witnessed significant changes in how survey research is conducted in Britain. One of the most important innovations is the use of national internet surveys. Internet surveys are now used by the national media and the British Election Study to provide information on party support and the dynamics of public opinion on a wide variety of topics. The survey house YouGov has played a pioneering role in these developments. YouGov’s track record of “getting it right”, i.e., of providing accurate forecasts of the results of several major elections, has convinced many – not all – observers that online surveys will have a major role to play in future studies of voting and elections. This paper describes the historical development and current status of internet polling in Britain, focusing on the survey methods employed by YouGov. The paper concludes by discussing future innovations in online survey research.


Journal of Political Marketing | 2004

The 2001 British Election Study Internet Poll

David Sanders; Harold D. Clarke; Marianne C. Stewart; Paul Whiteley; Joe Twyman

ABSTRACT This paper reports on the findings of the Internet component of the 2001 BES and compares them with those of the other BES pre-election surveys. Part 1 outlines the rationale that underpins the introduction of Internet polling as a supplement to more traditional methods of assessing mass public opinion. Part 2 describes the marginal distributions on the key dependent variable-the projected vote shares of the main political parties-of the three pre-election polls that were conducted using BES questionnaires. Intriguingly, the (unweighted) Internet-based poll provided a better guess of the actual vote shares in the subsequent election than either of the two conventional polls. Part 3 provides a more detailed comparison of the profiles of the face-to-face and Internet-based polls. It shows how the Internet poll, compared with the face-to-face poll, was skewed demographically towards the professional classes and politically towards the Conservative Party. Part 4 explores the extent to which the use of the Internet poll might result in spurious causal inferences being drawn about the sources of voting preferences in the 2001 UK election. A simple, direct-effects causal model is estimated using both the face-to-face probability sample data and the Internet survey data. The results suggest that, although the raw probability and Internet samples differ significantly, the relationships among the key variables do not differ significantly across the two samples. We conclude that Internet polling has an important part to play in gauging and analysing public opinion in future UK elections.


Archive | 2016

Austerity and political choice in Britain

Harold D. Clarke; Peter Kellner; Marianne C. Stewart; Joe Twyman; Paul Whiteley

1. Setting the Scene for 2015 2. The Political Economy of Austerity 3. Policy Performance and Political Payoffs 4. The 2015 Campaign 5. Choosing to Vote and Choosing a Party 6. Explaining the Outcome 7. Discontent and Change in Multi-Party Britain


PS Political Science & Politics | 2006

Flawless campaign, fragile victory: Voting in Canada's 2006 federal election

Harold D. Clarke; Allan Kornberg; Thomas J. Scotto; Joe Twyman

Canadas 23rd general election was held on January 23, 2006. Only 20 months earlier, on June 28, 2004, the governing Liberals—in power continuously since 1993—had been reduced to a minority in Parliament, winning 135 of 308 seats and 37% of the popular vote. Minority governments in Canada typically have quite short half-lives, and the Liberal government formed in 2004 was no exception. After narrowly avoiding defeat on its budget bill in May 2005, the government lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on November 28, and Canadians faced the prospect of a winter trek to the polls. And, since the holiday season was fast approaching, Election Day was deferred until late January, making the campaign an atypically long one by Canadian standards. It also proved to be a very exciting one.


Archive | 2011

Polling Voting Intentions

Peter Kellner; Joe Twyman; Anthony Wells

Polling companies have tracked public opinion in every general election since 1945. This paper reviews their performance and discusses some of the issues facing polling organisations today. In particular it examines the recent performance of YouGov and other online polling companies, the challenge of achieving politically representative samples and the advantages and disadvantages of different research modes.


Political Studies Review | 2014

Speaking at Cross Purposes? The Rhetorical Problems of ‘Progressive’ Politics

Emily Robinson; Joe Twyman

On 22 January 2009 David Cameron launched the ‘Progressive Conservatism Project’ at Demos, a think tank previously associated with the centre-left. He made clear that he considered this a new departure both for the Conservative Party and for the country. His words were widely interpreted as an attempt to distance the party from Thatcherism and to move towards values more usually associated with the Lib–Lab ‘progressive tradition’ in British politics. This paper questions the efficacy of this rhetorical strategy in reorienting voters’ impressions of the Conservative Party. It uses a 2012 YouGov/University of Nottingham survey to show that the word ‘progressive’ is not well understood by the British public. A plurality of survey respondents felt unable to define the word, and those who did tended to use politically neutral terms such as forward movement, improvement and change. Very few defined it in terms of liberalism, left politics or social justice. Moreover, while many respondents did view Conservative politicians as ‘progressive’, they included Margaret Thatcher within this. The idea of ‘progressive conservatism’ might have seemed attractive to voters in that it signified optimism and change. However, for the majority, it is unlikely to have indicated a shift to the left.


Archive | 2016

The 2015 Campaign

Harold D. Clarke; Peter Kellner; Marianne C. Stewart; Joe Twyman; Paul Whiteley

This chapter describes the official election campaign from its kick off to polling day. The focus is on widely publicized campaign events such as the debate among the seven party leaders, the launch of party manifestos and on-going efforts by the parties to focus public attention on ‘their’ issues. Public relations gambits, such as Ed Miliband’s unveiling of a huge stone monolith — derisively dubbed the ‘Ed Stone’ — also are discussed. Polling evidence indicates public opinion was largely unaffected by the campaign, with parties’ vote shares remaining largely static from beginning to end. Equally noteworthy, the election result showed that the pollsters got it wrong, underestimating the Conservative vote and overestimating Labour’s.


Archive | 2016

The Politics of Discontent: Britain’s Emerging Multi-Party Politics

Harold D. Clarke; Peter Kellner; Marianne C. Stewart; Joe Twyman; Paul Whiteley

Chapter 7 discusses prospects for British party politics in light of the 2015 election result. A striking aspect of the outcome was the strong performance of various minor parties, coupled with the long-term decline in support for the two major parties. Public unhappiness with political parties is persistent and widespread. Perceived performance failures and feelings that parties represent socio-economic elites rather than ordinary people are important sources of this discontent — discontent expressed via the election of veteran left-wing activist Jeremy Corbyn as new Labour leader. The chapter concludes by discussing how Corbyn’s leadership and Prime Minister Cameron’s promised referendum on continuing EU membership may affect Labour, the Conservatives and the British party system more generally.


Archive | 2016

Explaining the Election Outcome

Harold D. Clarke; Peter Kellner; Marianne C. Stewart; Joe Twyman; Paul Whiteley

Chapter 6 analyses constituency-level competition among the parties across the country. Direct competition between Labour and the Conservatives was limited in 2015, making contests involving one of the two major parties and various minor parties very important. The SNP sweep in Scotland and the success of the Conservatives in capturing Liberal Democrat seats across southern England largely explain the election outcome, with the Lib-Dem collapse being crucial for the Conservative victory. Official election returns combined with census data and the results of Ashcroft polls’ indicate that leader images and economic evaluations had significant effects on constituency-level election outcomes.


Archive | 2016

Choosing to Vote and Choosing a Party

Harold D. Clarke; Peter Kellner; Marianne C. Stewart; Joe Twyman; Paul Whiteley

Chapter 5 uses data from the Essex CMS pre- and post-election surveys to investigate turnout and party choice in 2015. The turnout analyses study the effects of several predictor variables including political interest, political efficacy, sense of civic duty and social trust as well as differences in voting participation among major sociodemographic groups. Relationships between party choice and key ‘valence politics’ variables such as partisanship, party performance on important issues and party leader images are highlighted. Judgments about leader and party performance had powerful effects on party choice in 2015, with renewed economic optimism doing much to explain electoral support for Prime Minister Cameron and the Conservatives.

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Harold D. Clarke

University of Texas at Dallas

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Marianne C. Stewart

University of Texas at Dallas

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David Hudson

University College London

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Gerry Stoker

University of Southampton

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