22 June 2016

The Guardian: Should you trust the pollsters or the bookies on the EU referendum?

According to the opinion polls, Thursday night’s referendum will be tight: surveys generally showed the Leave camp ahead until late last week, when the Remain camp clawed back some ground.

But bookmakers, who have already taken in record volumes of bets on this vote, see things very differently. Across the leading purveyors of political betting, average odds currently hover at around 1/4 implying an 80% probability that remain will win. So who should you trust? [...]

In a report last week, a London School of Economics professor of political science says that between 20% and 30% of voters do not make up their minds until the final week of an election campaign. Long-term polling data in fact shows a steady decline in voters’ certainty, or a steady increase in their openness to persuasion. Since 1983, Ipsos Mori has been asking respondents who declare their voting intention whether that intention is certain or if they might change their mind.

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