WELSH POLL SURGE BOOSTS LABOUR HOPES:
LABOUR has stormed back into the lead in Wales, reversing two recent poll findings that showed the Conservatives significantly ahead.
The new YouGov poll for Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre and ITV Cymru Wales shows Labour have surged forward 10 points ahead of the Conservatives.
Plaid and the Lib Dems have seen small hits to their support while Ukip and the smaller parties are both marginally up.
The first two polls of this general election campaign showed clear Conservative leads in Wales, and indicated the Tories were on course for a historic electoral breakthrough.
Professor Roger Scully, of the Wales Governance Centre, said: “The most important change from the previous poll is clearly the resurgence in Labour support. This is broadly in line with the Britain-wide polls, which have generally been showing a narrowing of the gap between the Conservatives and Labour in recent days. But the extent of the Labour rise, and Conservative fall, are rather greater in Wales, and are sufficient to put Labour back into a significant lead in Wales.”
A projection of the new figures using a uniform national swing would see Labour winning back Gower from the Conservatives. No other seats would change hands, leaving Labour with 26 seats (up one from 2015), the Conservatives 10 seats (down one), Plaid Cymru three (no change) and Liberal Democrat one (no change).
Prof Scully said: “Our two previous polls had suggested the Conservatives to be on course to win a whole slew of seats from Labour. Things now look very different on these latest figures.”
He added: “While Labour have been making some progress in the Britainwide polls, it is not on the scale of what we see here in Wales, where the party are fully 14 points higher than they were in the first poll of the campaign.
“We must always allow for the possibility that some polls produce ‘outlier’ estimates of the support for particular parties. But assuming that the findings in our new Welsh poll are correct, they may have been at least partially influenced by the timing of the poll – the fieldwork for which was conducted in the immediate aftermath of the death of Rhodri Morgan. It is possible that there may have been some short-term ‘sympathy’ boost for Labour.
“Our new poll was also conducted in the aftermath of the ITV Welsh leaders’ debate, while much of the fieldwork also occurred in the period after Thursday’s Britain-wide five-party televised debate.
“Leanne Wood represented Plaid Cymru in these two events, while the Liberal Democrats and Ukip were also present in both. That the smaller parties continue to make no ground in the campaign will be very disappointing for them, and particularly in the aftermath of the television debates.”
Prof Scully said while short-term factors may account for some of the outcomes in the latest poll, it does appear that after the extraordinary success of the Conservative Party at the beginning of the election campaign, they are losing some ground to Labour.
He said: “At least for the moment, Labour seem to be winning the campaign, if not the election as a whole.
“That is particularly true in Wales. The recent local elections showed the resilience of the Welsh Labour party.
“A party does not dominate the politics of a nation for nearly a century, as Labour have done in Wales, simply by accident. Challenged strongly by the Conservatives in this election, Labour seem to be fighting back strongly.”
A Welsh Labour spokesman said: “Welsh Labour weren’t throwing in the towel when the pollsters put us 10 points behind, focussing instead on campaigning seat by seat on our record and vision for the future.
“We remain similarly focused after today’s poll and will not let up the pace one iota. This huge volatility shows just how much there is to fight for in the last two weeks of this campaign. And unlike the Tories, we are not taking people for granted.”
The poll, for ITV-Cymru Wales and Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre, had a sample of 1,025 Welsh adults and was carried out by YouGov from May 18-21.