Nigel Farage’s career is on the brink. Aside from his solid performance in the TV debate last week, the Ukip leader isn’t focusing on the party’s national standing. All that matters to Farage now is South Thanet and making sure he is elected as the constituency’s first Ukip MP. But the seat is not a sure win and fears have been spreading throughout the party about what would happen if he fails to be elected.
These fears will only be exacerbated by today’s Mail on Sunday splash, which reports that a ‘Ukip-commissioned poll…shows that Farage has fallen behind his Tory opponent in the Kent seat he is contesting. And he is in danger of finishing third, with Labour catching up fast.’ But the polling numbers to back up that statement are not entirely straight forward. I have seen the detailed breakdown of the poll, conducted by ComRes, and the headline figures show a rather different picture: in South Thanet, the Conservatives are on 31 per cent, Ukip on 30, Labour on 29 and the Lib Dems trailing on five. This means no one is ahead and all of the candidates are within the margin of error.
Out of those who are more likely than note to vote, Farage is significantly ahead on 28 per cent, compared to 23 per cent for Labour’s Will Scoble and the Tories’ Craig Macinlay. The only table I can see which shows Farage behind is when the voting intentions are weighted to the 2010 turnout and include those who ‘don’t know’ or refuse to reveal their preferences.. Under this criteria, Labour’s Scoble is first on 31 per cent, Farage is on 30 per cent and the Tories’ Macinlay is first on 31 per cent. Still very tight.
Ukip has seized on this as ‘wishful thinking and numerical trickery which only the establishment parties gain from’. A spokesman said in a statement:
‘The poll shows that amongst those likely to vote, Nigel Farage is five points ahead of both the Conservative and Labour in South Thanet. It’s only after ComRes’s questionable methodology is applied, including weighting back to 2010 vote share, and producing a question which includes a false incumbency factor by alluding to the previous MP that the numbers magically change. The figures even include people who say they aren’t voting this time.
Ukip sources also say they believe the metholodgy is flawed because the poll question begins with ‘thinking of your local MP’, which they believe creates a false incumbency factor for the popular retiring Tory MP Laura Sandys. Party insiders also deny it was ‘Ukip-commissioned poll’. According to the Mail on Sunday, donor Aaron Banks paid for it — so Ukip HQ flatly deny they or the Thanet branch had anything to do with it.
Regardless of who you believe about where the poll came from or the methodology behind the headlines, one thing is clear: Ukip and Farage are worried about South Thanet, and rightly so. Farage admitted that if he doesn’t win, he would have to stand down as party leader. The headline figures from ComRes show that it is still a tight three-way race and by no means an easy win for Farage. His success in the seat will depend chiefly what happens to the anti-Ukip vote. If the ‘anyone but Farage’ campaign rallies behind Labour or the Conservatives, he might be in trouble. But if the anti-Ukip vote splits between the other two parties, Farage will have a much better chance of making it home and dry.
UPDATE: ComRes has released a statement on the leaked poll – as well as the full tables – hitting out at Ukip for its comments on the methodology. The pollsters say that the ‘poll was conducted to the highest standards and ComRes stands firmly by its methodology’. They say that it’s ‘plainly wrong’ to assert that the South Thanet poll was unfairly weighted towards those not likely to vote or those who vote for the traditional parties. The saga continues over whether Ukip or the Mail on Sunday are right – but the main thing to remember is that the headline figures are undisputed and they show no one presently has a lead.
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