Professor Roger Scully is no stranger to polls. The statistic analytical wizard professor of Cardiff University has sounded the death knell for at least two political parties in Wales with his final look at the polls for Wales.
In his article he says: “The final Welsh opinion poll of the 2017 general election shows Labour on course to maintain their long-standing dominance of electoral politics in Wales. It also shows the Conservatives on the brink of their highest vote share here for more than a century. Both Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats, however, appear to be facing their worst general election result for many years.
“The final Welsh Political Barometer poll of the general election campaign was conducted between Monday and today. Our pollsters, YouGov, have sought to provide our final measure of voting intentions as close as possible to election day itself.
“After a campaign that has seen wild fluctuations in the opinion polls, and particularly so here in Wales, this is what our final poll has found in terms of voting intentions for the general election (with changes on the last Barometer poll, conducted just over a week ago, in brackets):
Labour: 46% (no change)
Conservatives: 34% (-1)
Plaid Cymru: 9% (+1)
Liberal Democrats: 5% (no change)
UKIP: 5% (no change)
Others: 1% (+1)
“There are no big changes since our previous poll; all movements are well within the ‘margin of error’.
“Using the normal method of projecting these polling numbers – computing uniform national swings since the 2015 general election for all forty constituencies in Wales – then our latest poll implies the following overall result (with projected seat changes from the 2015 result shown in brackets):”
Labour: 27 seats (+2)
Conservatives: 9 seats (-2)
Plaid Cymru: 3 seats (no change)
Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (no change)
