How did pollsters do in predicting the British election?
The biggest miss since 1992
THERE WAS no shortage of predictions about how Britain’s general election would pan out on July 4th. A huge amount of data gathered over the six weeks of the campaign—144 national polls in all, surveying a total of 622,000 people—pointed to one outcome: a Labour landslide. That outcome duly materialised: Labour’s haul of 411 seats gives it a working majority of 181 in the new Parliament, which began on July 9th. Even so, the polling firms did not cover themselves in glory.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Poll post-mortem”
Britain July 13th 2024
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From the July 13th 2024 edition
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