Poll List: First full post-debate poll points to hung parliament

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

The first major poll following last night’s leaders’ debates points to a hung parliament, but media reports of a 14% surge for the Lib Dems is very misleading.

The new ComRes poll, extrapolated across the population, shows the Tories unchanged from the previous ComRes poll before the debate on Wednesday at 35%, with Labour down one point to 28% and the Lib Dems up three points to 23%. So it seems any Lib Dem bounce overall, in this first poll at least, has been gained predominantly from the “others”, and is nothing like the earlier reports.

Translated to a general election, these numbers would deliver a hung parliament, with the Tories 48 seats short of a working majority on 278 seats, Labour 12 seats behind on 266, and the Lib Dems on 75.

But amongst those who watched the debate, some 9.4 million people in total – and here is where there was previous confusion – voting intentions were 36% for the Tories (nc), 24% for Labour (-3) and 35% (+14) for the Lib Dems. All respondents knew they would be polled following the debate, so were bearing that in mind as they watched. The 14% bounce for the Lib Dems is therefore less representative of the electorate as a whole than the topline numbers at the top of this post.