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diffrentcolours) wrote2026-02-21 08:47 pm
Gorton and Denton By-Election
For the last couple of weeks I've been telling every canvasser that's come to my door the same thing - that I'd like to vote Green, but I'm going to vote to keep Reform out, and that there wasn't any clear evidence of the best way to do that. Labour have been relying on an opinion poll of 150 people taken weeks ago before the close of nominations, which shows them in second place to Reform. The Greens have been relying on betting shop odds (very easy to manipulate) and internal polling (very unreliable). Both have been telling me that their "internal data" points to them being the best option.
Yesterday, a new poll from Omnisis was published. The sample size is still small (450) but much larger than we've seen before, and the polling was carried out after the candidates were finalised and after the campaign started. I am pleased to say that it puts Greens in front of Reform in the constituency, within margin of error. Labour are trailing Reform, also within margin of error, but the Green-Labour lead is outside that margin. It also says that the Green supporters are more likely to actually turn out and vote than Labour ones, which suggests that the Green lead will be bigger on Thursday than this poll suggests.
I can nitpick some things about the poll such as the sample size, but this is the best indicator I'm likely to get before going to the polls on Thursday. And I'm glad that I have some reasonably solid evidence that convinces my head that I can vote with my heart, rather than just looking for something that reinforces what I want to be true. I know from previous experience that the Labour vote in Gorton is soft as anything, and it's nice to have evidence that the Green squeeze is actually working.
There are some interesting nuggets in the data which show how people either don't understand questions or give nonsense answers, like the Labour supporter who would vote Reform if they "knew" this was a Labour-Reform battle. There are a small minority of both Green and Labour supporters who would vote Reform to stop the other from winning. The Reform vote is largely unsqueezable - even if they think Reform can't win, most supporters would either vote for them, or not vote at all, than vote for either Greens or Labour. More would break Green though, which suggests the "vote to get Kier Starmer out" message is working.
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Yeah. If Reform get in I'm going to be mad at a lot of people, including everyone who voted against a preferential voting system in the 2011 referendum...
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Fingers crossed!