Here’s a table to show how we compared with the major polling firms. The final column shows the absolute difference on the percentage forecasts – the smaller, the better the forecast.
| Forecast | Conservatives | UKIP | Labour | Abs Diff |
| Actual Result | 34.81 | 42.1 | 16.76 | |
| Survation | 33 | 48 | 16 | 8.47 |
| Forecast UK | 31.9 | 47.2 | 15.9 | 8.87 |
| Ashcroft Polling | 31 | 47 | 16 | 9.47 |
| ComRes | 30 | 43 | 21 | 9.95 |
We beat Ashcroft Polling and ComRes, but were pipped to the post by Survation. Interestingly, Survation were the best at predicting the Scottish Referendum.
As a contrast, see how we did at forecasting the Euros in the spring of this year (on our author’s own site). For that election (with far more polls) we did a much better job at cutting through all the data and seeing what was happening. The lesson is clear – the more regular polling that happens, the easier it is to see what is happening.
We will be amending our UK 2015 methodology to improve the Welsh forecasting and issuing a new forecast next week.