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Were respondees conditioned to put Ming number one?

With, thankfully, just a few hours to go before the Lib Dem ballot closes the acting leader, Ming Campbell, is now now firmly back in the favourite slot.

All the sentiment today has been in his favour and against Chris Huhne who has been odds-on since the only public YouGov members’ poll three weeks ago put him 4% ahead.

Part of the weakening of the Huhne position has been based on the argument that respondees were “conditioned” into putting the ex-MEP as first choice because of the questions that were put before they got to the voting intention section. These, it was argued, put those being surveyed into a pro-Huhne state of mind.

But did the same thing happened in the earlier poll – said to have been funded by a Campbell-backer which was not published. Information that purports to be from this survey has reached me this evening that, if true, shows that a similar approach was taken with this survey. The only difference is that the conditioning seems to be in favour of Ming.

Although I cannot confirm its authenticity I am publishing it because the person who has sent it has revealed her identity to me although she has asked to remain anonymous. She says that she took part in the survey and saved the pages.

Before the 432 people in YouGov1 filled in the voting intention question they are said to have been asked “How important are each of the following qualities for a leader of the Liberal Democrats?”. They were given five options ranging from “very” to “not” important.

1.Good name recognition amongst the general public
2. Seen as honest and consistent
3. Seen as a serious person
4. Seen as a potential Prime Minister
5. Seen as a potential statesman on the international stage
6. Has a large majority in their own seat
7. A track record of success outside Parliament
8. A track record of success inside Parliament
9. Backing and support of parliamentary colleagues
10. Backing and support of the wider Liberal Democrat party

The critical factor here is that even with these suggested pre-voting intention questions the poll’s finding were not favourable enough to Ming to make his team want to publish the results.

What’s important about both these surveys is that they took place just after the vast bulk of the Lib Dem membership had received their ballots. They give a snap-shot of what opinion was like at the critical time when many of them were casting their votes.

So who has won? I stick with my view that this is too close to call but I’m just inclined to Huhne. Thanks to getting on the MEP after a tip-off from a comment by Alex on the site when the price was 200/1 I make a lot of money whatever happens. I’m not going to risk my large certain profit by going all-in on either Campbell or Huhne.

Roll on Thursday and pay-day.

Mike Smithson

Why I’m sticking with YouGov?

With a sharp move back to Ming Campbell on the Lib Dem betting markets there’s a lot of focus on the one members’ poll that has been published during the campaign – the survey by YouGov commissioned by a rich Huhne supporter.

This showed on first preferences Huhne: 38%: Campbell 34%: Hughes 27%. The run-off figures based on second preferences, eliminating Hughes were Huhne 52%: Campbell 48%.

Much has been made of the fact that the survey was privately commissioned and that the voting intention issue was put last after a series of other questions which it is suggested might have conditioned the response.

When I raised the configuration issue Yougov’s Peter Kellner he responded by pointing to this poll in the Tory leadership contest taken just after the first TV debate.

This was configured in exactly the same way as the Lib Dem survey. After answering a series of questions some of which could be said to “condition” views on David Cameron the Tory members split 68:32 for the younger man. As it turned out Cameron got just under 67% of the votes so this poll, less than four weeks before the ballot closure, came out remarkably well.

It’s very difficult to argue with YouGov’s remarkable success in this niche polling area and only a fool would bet against them. Even though the Lib Dem poll was privately funded it’s the firm’s reputation that is on the line.

Kellner’s view on the February 9 survey was that the contest was “too close to call”. In the absence of any other hard evidence I share that assessment. It looks like Huhne but the gap is too close to regard it as a certainty.

If you want to make money betting on politics you have to detach yourself from your own desires and try to take an objective view of what is going on. As a Lib Dem member I voted Huhne-Hughes-Campbell in that order. But I have arranged my betting so that I win the same from both Huhne and Campbell victories.

The 0400 prices were Huhne 0.95/1 and Campbell 1.18/1. This seems about right.

Mike Smithson

Paul Maggs has devised and will manage the following competition. Simply predict:

1. Who the new leader will be?
2. The percentage of the first preference votes your predicted new leader wins
3. The percentage of the overall votes (after re-distribution of second preferences) your predicted new leader wins

You may make your predictions to one decimal place

Scoring

Your score will be the difference between your prediction and the actual result at both stages of the voting (regardless of whether your predictions are higher or lower than the actual results).

For example, your predictions are Hughes to be the new leader, with 42% of the first preference votes and 54% of the overall votes. The results give Hughes 44% of the first preferences and 48% of the overall votes. Your score on the first preferences is 44 – 42 = 2. Your score on the overall votes is 54 – 48 = 6, so your total score is 2 + 6 = 8.

The entry with the lowest combined score will win the competition.

Note that if your predicted new leader is eliminated after the first preferences, he will score zero in the overall votes. In the example above, if you had predicted Hughes to take 54% of the overall votes but he is eliminated, you would score 54 on the overall votes.

Please post entries in the thread below before 2000 GMT on Wednesday March 1st 2006. Any comments on the competition should be made on the previous thread.

Paul has also devised a prize competion. Details are available here.

Why did Ming’s lead on Hughes 2nd preferences drop 19% in three days?

At this stage in the Tory leadership contest there’d been seven Tory member polls and the only outstanding issue was whether or not the 39 year-old’s share would top the 66% mark.

Contrast that with the Lib Dem race where the only members’ poll in a newspaper was on January 7th – a few hours before Charles Kennedy’s announcement. This showed that Hughes was being beaten by Ming by 49-21. From then on Hughes looked out of it – a view that was reinforced by the statement he had to make about his private life.

The only real question since then was how the Hughes second preferences would split.

Two privately-funded polls by YouGov seemed to provide the answer. One where the fieldwork took place from February 2-6th and another during the period February 7-9th. Although there have been a lot of rumours we have never seen full details of the former. The latter, paid for by a Huhne supporter, was made public.

Although the first preference figures from the Feb 2-6 poll have remained private a poster on this site under the name of “Webpoll2″ did make some information available at comment 27 in this thread. At the time there was a lot of scepticism about its authenticity but the YouGov boss, Peter Kellner, confirmed that it was correct. So of the limited information available we know that:-

Thus the Campbell-Huhne 2nd preference gap from Hughes supporters dropped from 22% to 3% in little more than three days. Could this be plausible? Did the huge change reflect the momentum of the Huhne campaign or could there be specialist polling factors?

The first survey was said to have been commissioned by a Ming supporter and we have not seen how it was structured, what other questions were put and the order in which respondents answered them We do know that in second poll the voting intention questions were put last – and when that happens there is always a suggestion that people’s responses might have been conditioned by earlier answers.

All will become clear on Thursday. This is a close call although I’m just inclined to think that Huhne has it. The latest betting is here.

Mike Smithson