This is our latest forecast for the December 12th 2019 General Election in the UK.
The forecast below is our standard forecast. It is based on a General Election occuring on the day of the forecast.
What does your forecast show? – We show the mid point of our forecast for votes. We also show the most likely range of possible seats for each party.
What do you use for your forecast? – We use all the latest polling data, where available. We also look at the betting markets and other information to help guide our forecast. We calculate the interaction between the support for the parties on as local a level as statistically possible and then use this to run a Monte Carlo simulation of the election.
What has changed since the last forecast? – New poll data from YouGov is included.
What do you predict will happen in Seat X? What is the probability of Party Y having more votes than Z? – As we approach the election we reduce uncertainity in our model and are able to answer questions like this. Whilst we do not automatically publish a prediction for each seat, we can indicate a most likely outcome if required and also probabilities of victory for each candidate.
I want to ask a question / get in touch – Write a comment below to get in touch.
Key Features
The overall summary of our forecast is “Strong Conservative Victory but lead starting to narrow”.
Our forecast shows a strong Conservative lead over Labour, leading to a strong working majority in the Commons. There is a significant possibility that the majority will be in three figures. Labour is slowly closing the gap on the Conservatives but at a rate that would still leave a Conservative majority in two weeks time.
The pattern over the past week is consistent with the “wobble” that occurs in most campaigns at this point where the governing party begins to lose support with around two weeks to go. The key observation to watch is whether, like in 2017, Labour continue to close the gap or whether the Conservatives can maintain the current level of lead. This will be clear by the weekend.
In England we continue to see a very strong performance for the Conservatives, especially in key target seats. Liberal Democrat support appears to have begun rising again and Labour support appears to be recovering slowly. Labour’s performance is the best in the past seven days, but still indicating a poor performance compared to 2017.
The Brexit Party continues to show extremely poor polling across the entire country. Now we have full confirmation of where the Brexit Party will be standing, we can adjust our final vote percentage on that basis. The overwhelming majority of Leave sentiment is now expressing a vote preference for the Conservatives and at this point we have high confidence that the Brexit Party will not be a significant force on December the 12th.
In Scotland we continue to see evidence that Remain and Leave support is coalescing around the SNP and the Conservatives repectively. Labour are falling back again and we believe there is a distinct chance they will move into a fourth place in terms of both seats and votes within the next week. The SNP continue to recover from their slump earlier in the week and now look to make gains, but at the moment we do not believe they will not achieve a similar result to 2015.
Survey data in Wales continues to be volatile with Labour retaking the lead. The latest YouGov large survey of Wales has confirmed the gap between the parties, but placed the actual level of vote share higher. We continue to see this as our most uncertain forecast, hence the large (relative) range in seats on the main parties.
In London we see evidence that the slump in recent days is being reversed. The Conservatives are still set to make gains, but will not end up with more than 30 seats as previous Nowcasts indicated. As before, the Liberal Democrats are performing poorly outside their target seats.
Our Northern Ireland forecast is based the latest poll from Lucid Talk.
UK Forecast
| Party | % Vote | Forecast | Change on 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservatives | 44.2% | 374 – 377 | +59 to +62 |
| Labour | 29.8% | 185 – 194 | -77 to -68 |
| SNP | 3.6% | 42 – 45 | +7 to +10 |
| Liberal Democrats | 15.0% | 12 – 24 | 0 to +12 |
| Brexit Party | 1.6% | 0 | |
| Plaid Cymru | 0.5% | 3 – 5 | -1 to +1 |
| Green | 2.5% | 0 – 2 | -1 to +1 |
| Independent | 0 – 1 | ||
| Speaker | 1 | – | |
| Northern Ireland | 18 |
Most likely result – Conservative Majority
Scotland
| Party | % Vote | Forecast | Change on 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SNP | 41.9% | 42 – 45 | +7 to +10 |
| Conservatives | 27.9% | 9 – 11 | -4 to -2 |
| Liberal Democrats | 14.3% | 3 – 6 | -1 to +2 |
| Labour | 15.2% | 0 – 2 | -7 to -5 |
| Greens | 0.5% | ||
| Brexit Party | 0.2% |
Most Likely Result – SNP Majority of Seats
Wales
| Party | % Vote | Forecast | Changes on 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | 40.0% | 21 – 27 | -7 to -1 |
| Conservatives | 35.4% | 10 – 13 | +2 to +5 |
| Plaid Cymru | 10.1% | 3 – 5 | -1 to +1 |
| Liberal Democrats | 7.9% | 0 – 2 | 0 to +2 |
| Brexit Party | 6.0% | ||
| Greens | 0.6% |
Most Likely Result – Labour Majority of Seats
London
| Party | % Vote | Forecast | Changes on 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | 38.3% | 38 – 44 | -8 to -2 |
| Conservatives | 34.5% | 25 – 28 | +4 to +7 |
| Liberal Democrats | 22.9% | 4 – 7 | +1 to +4 |
| Greens | 2.7% | ||
| Brexit Party | 1.6% |
We expect three Change UK / TIG seats in London to be lost
Most Likely Result – Labour Majority of Seats
Northern Ireland
| Party | % Vote | Forecast | Changes on 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DUP | 28.4% | 6 – 9 | -4 to -1 |
| Sinn Fein | 23.6% | 3 – 6 | -4 to -1 |
| Alliance | 23.2% | 2 – 4 | +2 to +4 |
| SDLP | 14.6% | 1 – 3 | +1 to +3 |
| UUP | 9.1% | 0 – 2 | 0 to +2 |
Most Likely Result – DUP Plurality