Category: Data
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Labour stands to gain in the metro mayor elections
As May 21st’s ‘Super Thursday’ elections come into view, all eyes are on whether Nicola Sturgeon will secure her majority for independence, and whether Labour will cling on in Hartlepool. But Super Tuesday also features 8 of England’s biggest electoral tests, in the form of combined authority mayoral elections. These elections will give individual politicians…
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If the Alba Party gets more than 5%, it could be catastrophic for unionist parties (but it probably won’t)
When it comes to political news, there is little more sensational than a prominent politician setting up a new party. Today, Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland, announced he would be starting a new pro-Independence party – The Alba Party – to contest the Scottish Parliament election in May. Will it make any difference?…
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Which states should have the first four primaries? The case for picking the weirdest ones
This week, Democratic National Convention chair Tom Perez declared his support for changing the order of presidential primaries and caucuses so that Iowa and New Hampshire are toppled from their respective ‘first in the nation’ positions. Perez argues that more diverse states should be prioritised in selecting the Democrats’ future presidential candidates, presumably driven partly…
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What’s up with the Sunday Times MRP projection?
All over Twitter today has been discussion of a Sunday Times MRP model which reportedly showed that if an election were held today, Boris Johnson would lose his majority and his seat. It’s a striking result but not totally inconsistent with recent national polls which have shown Labour making gains. It caught my attention, though,…
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What can mapping a Hungarian by-election tell us about authoritarianism?
In October, voters in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén’s 6th district voted in an interim election to replace Fidesz MP Ferenc Koncz, who had died in a motorcycle accident in July. With Fidesz’s two-thirds majority at stake, the by-election became an important test for the opposition’s ability to turn out voters. In 2018, Fidesz did not win a majority…
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Uniform swing outperformed state polls for the first time in US polling history in 2020
The 2020 election had a huge focus on state polls – far more so than in 2016, when more national polls were commissioned and discussed. This makes sense given the distorting effect of the electoral college. The renewed focus was supposed to ensure another upset would not happen again, with higher quality polls in swing…
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Classifying Parliamentary Constituencies by Petition Signatures
Parliament’s official petition website (petition.parliament.uk) has gained considerable traction in recent years, bringing attention to wide-ranging issues. From 2010 to 2015, the most popular petition on the website received 328,000 signatures, with 39 more receiving over 100,000 signatures. In the 2017-2019 parliament, by contrast, the most popular petition received over 6 million signatures while 75…
Owen Winter 