Will the polls get it right on Britain’s EU referendum?
I’ve blogged several times on the growing difficulties for accurate political polling [for one example, see here]. Indeed. for all sorts of methodological and behavioural reasons, I think finding out what consumers and citizens really think is becoming harder.
So I was interested in this article in the “Washington Post” by three academics which takes a careful and critical look at all the polling data so far in relation to the referendum on 23 June on UK membership of the European Union.
Their conclusion?
“What to make of these wildly different but highly informed and often methodologically sophisticated predictions is anyone’s guess. All the predictions agree on the favorite — Remain — but not on much else. A victory for Leave would thus upend the consensus expectations of pollsters, punters, pundits and political scientists. Just like the Conservatives’ victory did last year.”