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The polling company YouGov has a huge panel of of people who participate in its online polls and, because it knows which of them belong to political parties, it finds it relatively easy to carry out party membership polls. It polled Labour members during the leadership contest last summer and its findings were a reliable guide to the final result. (A poll in August had Jeremy Corbyn on 53% of first preference votes, more than 30 points ahead of his nearest rival, Andy Burnham; a month later Corbyn won with 59% of first preference votes, 40 points ahead of Burnham.) And so, on the basis of today’s Times spash, Corbyn would be entitled to conclude that he is home and dry.
The Times reports the findings of YouGov’s latest Labour membership poll. And they suggest Corbyn is on course to win by an even bigger margin than he did last year.
Wednesday’s Times front page:
Corbyn on course to win bigger mandate#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://pic.twitter.com/mqGQEmpEv7
New YouGov/Times Labour leadership poll of the party selectorate: Corbyn 62%, Smith 38% https://t.co/KVojr7PZfQ http://pic.twitter.com/2mtNFgW8gA
Labour leadership poll: Corbyn leads among each part of the selectorate https://t.co/FQjhIqw49Y http://pic.twitter.com/TSp6xDXZgy
Among those who joined before May last year, support for Mr Smith is at 68 per cent compared with 32 per cent for Mr Corbyn, according to the YouGov poll. It drops to 28 per cent for Mr Smith among those who joined between May and September, and to 14 per cent for those who signed up after September, underlining Mr Corbyn’s popularity among newer members.
A further 129,000 paid a one-off £25 fee to become registered supporters and eligible to vote in the leadership election. The challenger’s hopes of unseating Mr Corbyn rest on winning over this group. However, Mr Smith is attracting only one in four, with 70 per cent opting for Mr Corbyn and the rest undecided.
Politics blog | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2bR6OPI
Sig Nordal 