Striking that Starmer's Best PM lead is so big given his own poor satisfaction figures.

Frankly Starmer's ratings are all over the place generally. Even comparing questions with the same wording (e.g. 'well or badly') you have polls that have him both at +5 and -20 ish.

Further reflection on Andy Street, clear win or lose he will significantly out perform the Tory vote. Given he’s governed as a moderate/big tent Conservative might it give some pause to those at NatCon this week who argue tacking populist right is the sole path to Tory success

If I had to guess a Conservative General Election % score now, I think I might pick 26%? (Convert half of Con2019 undecided voters, for +5)

The range might be anything 18% to 32%

I think we could be pretty sure Labour ends up somewhere in a 38% to 45% range

Not surprised by this.

A few people replied to our swing model doubting the 97.5% interval for Reform being 18 seats. That really doesn't seem many when some polls have Reform this close to 2nd place. Median estimate still 0, of course

Critical point about US elections at the moment.

Even if you are of the view that Dem overperformance in lower turnout elections won't translate at all to a Presidential election, it's pretty significant that Dems have essentially eliminated 'midterm blues' electorally.

Relative to public opinion, Liz Truss's small-state quasi-libertarianism is one of the most overrepresented views within the Westminster bubble, including being one of the dominant viewpoints in the governing party. The idea it is newfound or silenced is laughable.

There is functionally zero difference between Trump +0.2 & Biden +0.2. At that point a lead is merely symbolic

It’s just yet another example of RCP not even attempting to hide their partisan bias, which was on full display in 2022 (and by their continued inclusion of Rasmussen)

RCP appears to be refusing to add the latest national polls from Politico/Morning Consult (Biden +2) and Echelon Insights (Biden +3) to their average just so Trump can cling to a nominal lead.

Many major media outlets still regularly cite them and their averages.

Truss accuses Chris Whitty of pushing smoking ban out of belief that 'government knows best'

Interesting choice to take on CMO directly

Latest favourability ratings
Whitty +48
Truss -50

According to YouGov, the government's new policy on smoking is not only popular, with 71% support (49% strongly) and 17% opposed...

...and it's also voters' preferred approach:
33% wanted a phase out from 2009 onwards
29% preferred an outright ban for all.

There really is no precedent for polls of young voters being broken to this scale. It wasn't happening in 2022 polls, or even in notoriously inaccurate 2020 polls!

It's not necessarily Biden-specific or even a post-Oct 7 effect! Something broke in 2023.
twitter.com/schlagteslinks…

Great piece illustrating how US pollsters are facing unprecedented challenges in getting representative samples of youths. Just look at the gap in Trump's favorability by methodology!

The online nonprob poll was weighted to recalled vote whereas the live text one used party ID