Monday, May 28, 2007

New research more bad news for Labour

Labour has good reason to be worried about the latest opinion poll results showing a sharp shift towards National, and should not be writing them off to John Key's honeymoon period, says Massey University political marketing specialist Dr Claire Robinson.

In new research she has found a correlation between the time of a voting decision and a party vote for National.

"The earlier people make up their minds about who they are going to vote for, the better news it is for National.”

These polls are not an absolute predictor that people have made their voting decision already. However, they do show that a significant number of people have thought about changing their vote recently.

This is significant because voters don't tend to change their minds much between campaigns, says Dr Robinson.

“Once they have put the effort into the change, they are unlikely to think too much about the decision again until the election campaign.”

So we are likely to see a continuation of these poll results all the way through to next year.

The latest poll results are also bad news for the minor parties. Dr Robinson has also found that the more people make their voting decision before the election campaign the less likely they are to vote for a minor party.

ENDS

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