Positively the last poll before the elections? maybe…

Following hot on the heals of yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph poll from Lucid Talk, the Irish News has one today from Liverpool University.

And there are some striking differences which you can see in the individual party charts.

Sinn Feín 29.8%

DUP 23%

Alliance 14.5%

UUP 12.8%

SDLP 8.3%

TUV 5%

As with all polling the normal caveats apply:

• Margin of error. Liverpool University normally have a smaller sample than Lucid Talk, and therefore a larger margin of error of 3%
• The time lag between polling and voting during which some people can change their mind
• The possibility that ‘Don’t Knows’ ultimately decide more in one direction than another
• Some people vote differently in Council elections than in Assembly elections.

In addition, there is an important reservation about the Liverpool University poll. The market research company that Liverpool uses appears to have a systemic sampling problem which their weighting methods do not adequately correct for. The result is that their polls tend to under-represent the TUV and/or the DUP wing of unionism, and to overcall support for the smaller Green, PBPA and Conservative parties. This is no guarantee that they have done so on this occasion. But it is a reason to interpret their figures for those parties with caution.

To view trends it is best to compare the results from the same polling company across time – not between companies.

Whichever poll you use Sinn Feín are still comfortably set for the biggest gains.

The DUP vote is only slightly lower in Liverpool polls. But look at the TUV poll and then the two combined.

And this trend can be traced back before the Assembly election. When the votes were counted the combined DUP+TUV vote was 29%. In their last poll before the election Lucid Talk correctly called 29%, whereas Liverpool had 24%

Given that there are a lot of places without a TUV candidate, and the importance of TUV transfers for the DUP, if Liverpool are right on this occasion the DUP could be in for a disappointing election.

Liverpool has tended to march in lockstep with Lucid Talk on Alliance, apart from their last poll before the Assembly election when they overcalled the party. On either poll the party makes gains.

Another discouraging poll number for the SDLP.

Has Liverpool captured a shift by some unionist voters towards the UUP which wants a return of the Stormont institutions? Or is this margin of error stuff? Time will tell.