There is no clear Conservative lead in the polls, but Party members have been following the trend – and clearly believe that “things can only get better”.
I noted in a summary of the 2014 survey results that expectation of Cameron returning to Downing Street had risen among them since the start of the year, reached a peak of 70 per cent in July, then declined, and moved back up to 69 per cent in December.
That figure is now just short of three in four Party members at 74 per cent. In particular, the proportion expecting a Conservative minority government has steadily increased. It now stands at 42 per cent, over two in five of these respondents.
Eleven per cent expect a second Tory-Liberal Democrat Coalition, and 21 per cent an outright Conservative majority. That last figure is a fraction below the quarter or so who expected this outcome last June and July.
The confidence of our non-Party member readers in a Cameron-led government is less, but the contours of it are similar. 42 per cent think that the Prime Minister will lead a minority government after May 7, 16 per cent a Conservative majority government and 9 per cent a second blue-yellow coalition.
The belief among both sets of readers presumably is that the Conservative vote share will move up, that the party will perform especially well in the target seats – and that Ed Miliband is weak. Almost 750 Party member readers responded to the survey overall.
This is about 50 down on last month, and I suspect reflects a view among a minority that with the election looming the survey should be suspended. This clearly isn’t the view of the majority, but we will have a look at it again to see if some questions are now past their sell-by date.
The survey is tested against a control panel that was originally supplied by YouGov. Almost 1500 readers replied to the survey overall.