A NEW poll issued tonight appears to confirm that both Reading East and Wokingham are tight contests in the 2019 General Election.
YouGov, in conjunction with The Times, conducted a polling exercise across the country on a seat-by-seat basis.
Although it implies a Government majority for the Conservatives, there could be some surprises in store on December 12.
In Reading East, the Conservatives have been mounting a challenge to Labour’s Matt Rodda in a bid to win the seat.
YouGov suggests that Matt Rodda will hold on to the seat, but it is a ‘lean Labour’, which means it is close.
It places Labour’s support between 36% and 51%, with an estimate of 43% – enough to see Matt Rodda win.
Craig Morley, the Conservative candidate, is estimated to be between 32% and 46%, with an estimate of 39%.
The Lib Dem candidate, Imogen ShepherdDuBey is between 6% and 16%, with an estimate of 11%. The Green Party is polling between 1% and 7% with an estimate of 4%. The Brexit Party is between 0% and 6% with an estimate of 2%. The Christian Parties Alliance candidate is estimated at 1%, with fluctuations between 0% and 3%.
Wokingham is one of the surprise seats in this general election. Normally it is a safe seat for the Conservatives – Sir John Redwood has been the incumbent since 1987 – but the Lib Dems have installed Dr Phillip Lee as its candidate.
Although Labour came second in the 2017 general election, YouGov’s polling confirms the poll from earlier in the month that the Lib Dems are within spitting distance of Sir John.
The Conservative vote is estimated between 37% and 55%, with an estimated vote of 46%.
The Lib Dem vote is estimated between 28% and 45%, with an estimated vote of 36%. This places Wokingham as a ‘likely Conservative’ seat.
Labour’s vote has a low of 7% and a high of 19% with an estimated share of 12%. The party’s candidate is Dr Annette Medhurst.
The Green Party is between 1% and 8%, with an estimated share of 4%.
And the fifth party in the contest is Advance Together, which is expected to poll between o% and 4%, with an estimation share of 1%.
Bracknell is said by YouGov to be safe Conservative seat, with the party polling between 48% and 62% of the vote and an estimate of 55% – more than any other party. Labour is coming second, with Lib Dems a close third.
And it’s a similar story in Maidenhead, where Theresa May is standing again. She is expected to poll 59% of the vote, with a low of 52% And a high of 66%. The Lib Dems are in second.
YouGov said that it has collected 10,000 interviews per day throughout the General Election campaign and the MRP analysis allows the polling company to make more accurate voting predictions in constituencies.
In a blog post for the company, Professor Ben Lauderdale said: ” we use the poll data from the preceding seven days to estimate a model that relates interview date, constituency, voter demographics, past voting behaviour, and other respondent profile variables to their current voting intentions.
“In 2017, when we applied this strategy to the UK general election, we correctly predicted 93% of individual seats as well as the overall hung parliament result.”
