Welcome to PollBase, my database of national voting intention opinion polls, going back to 1943 and the largest such dataset. For more recent years, it includes party leader and government ratings.

It is updated quarterly, but you can find the latest voting intention polls in my scorecard here.

Download PollBase

Download latest edition of PollBase here (Excel).

Using PollBase

You are very welcome to use the data from my political opinion polls database, and indeed one of the reasons I maintain it are the regular stories which appear making use of it.

I only ask two things in return – that if you spot any errors or omissions you let me know and that you credit the source of the data (including, if you make use of it online, a link back to this page). Thank you.

I also blog on the subject of political opinion polling. You can read my opinion poll posts here.

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I update PollBase once a quarter, both adding in the new national voting intention polls from the last quarter and also improving the older data, such as filling in gaps and making some of the columns clearer.

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Background to PollBase

For years I have been accumulating data about national voting intention opinion polls in the UK and have records of various sorts stretching back to 1943. I had previously held off sharing them as the data is not in a perfect state. However, given that perfection never arrives, back in 2011 I decided to stop holding off and make the data available in case other people also find it useful.

Many people have helped over the years with this data answering all sorts of questions from me. Particular thanks for providing an exceptionally large number of answers go to William Jennings (who has generously shared the data he has been compiling), Roger Mortimore, Anthony Wells and the staff of Swiss Cottage public library.

PollBase version history

In addition to the usual addition of the latest three months of data and occasional minor additions or corrections, the following more notable changes have also been made in previous updates:

(Forthcoming)

Added seven Marplan polls from 1968-1970 previously missing from historic polling datasets.

Several small additions and corrections to information about polls close to general election polling day in Parliaments up to the 1970 general election.

1 April 2020

Added significant back catalogue of YouGov party leader rating polling carried out separately from voting intention polls.

Many thanks to Marios Richards for spotting various errors and inconsistencies with dates.

1 January 2020

Notes on whether past Survation polls were UK or Great Britain-wide. Most pollsters carry out their voting intention polls on the latter basis, i.e. excluding Northern Ireland. However, Survation usually polls on a UK basis. Thank you to Damian Lyons Lowe for helping me with these updates.

Previously missing Survation polls from May 2014 and June 2016.

Additional details and a correction regarding the final pre-general election polls from Survation in 2015 along with corrected fieldwork dates for a November 2017 and a June 2018 Survation poll.

1 January 2019

Fieldwork dates added for several February 1974 polls.

Fieldwork dates corrected for several September 1974 polls, and an additional NOP poll added.

Extra YouGov leader ratings from 2017 and 2018.

1 October 2018

Addition of Sky News polls from 2015 onwards which, although only carried out amongst Sky subscribers, are weighted to be nationally representative and are carried out in line with the British Polling Council’s rules. More details here.

Additional BMG leadership ratings and preferred Prime Minister scores for both the 2015 and 2017 Parliaments. In addition, the figures now consistently are reported without being recalculated to exclude don’t knows. This brings them into line with how similar figures from other firms report their figures, although The Independent’s media coverage often gives the recalculated figures only. Thank you to Michael Turner and BMG for providing the extra data.

1 July 2018

Corrected election results figures for 2017 (thank you Martyn Hill for spotting my UK/GB mix-up).

An additional four sets of BMG voting intention figures from 2017 and 2018, which were not released at the time but subsequently featured in a tracking graph on the firm’s website. Thank you to BMG’s Michael Turner for help with sourcing the details.

An additional Kantar poll from 2017.

The publication date for an April 1992 poll.

Additional information for the 1992 exit polls.

1 October 2017

Additional data, including an extra poll, from SurveyMonkey for the 2015-17 Parliament (with thanks to Mark Blumenthal).

1 January 2017

A change of name for ‘Mark’s spreadsheet’ to PollBase which, given the number of spreadsheets I have, should at least make me less confused in the future.

The addition of further Parliamentary by-election polls (the tab holding these comes after the tabs for each Parliament’s polls). It starts with the first ever by-election poll in the UK in 1938 and is (I hope!) comprehensive from 2008. But that leaves gaps in the Parliamentary by-election polls dataset, so if you have any historic data you would be happy to share – especially for 1970s and 1980s – please do get in touch.

Minor additions and corrections for polls carried out just before the 1970 general election.

2 October 2016

Addition of several BMG polls from earlier in 2016 which were not published until September.

An extra poll from 1992 – one which actually got the election result right.

Extra exit poll information for 1983, 1987 and 1992 – thank you to Amolak Mann for drawing this to my attention.

Some further small updates to opinion polls late in the general election campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s. Thank you once again to Nick Moon and Will Jennings for sharing information which has helped greatly with this.

4 July 2016

Addition of several BMG polls from earlier in 2016 which were not published until September.

An extra poll from 1992 – one which actually got the election result right.

Extra exit poll information for 1983, 1987 and 1992 – thank you to Amolak Mann for drawing this to my attention.

Some further small updates to opinion polls late in the general election campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s. Thank you once again to Nick Moon and Will Jennings for sharing information which has helped greatly with this.

2 April 2016

Extra fieldwork dates for late campaign polls in 1950, 1959, 1966, 1970 and 1974.

An extra Forensic Statistics poll from 1959, an extra NOP poll from 1987 and an extra ASL poll from 1992.

Several internal Conservative Party polls from 1983, conducted by Harris and Gallup.

Various extra details about the MORI polls in the 1979-83 Parliament and the addition of information about the 1983 exit polls.

The underlying national vote share projections from the 2015 exit poll as well as a missing SurveyMonkey poll from the same year.

Several of these updates are courtesy of the 2015 general election polling post-mortem and particular thanks to Will Jennings on that score.

31 December 2015

A correction to one of the final 1945 polls (thank you Will Jennings).

Minor updates to polls from the 1970-74 Parliament, such as the newspaper they were published in.

An extra ORC poll from October 1974 along with an exit poll from that election too.

An Opinium poll referred to by The Observer from the summer but not previously published by it (thank you, James Crouch).

1 October 2015

100 extra ORC polls, 41 extra Harris polls and 4 extra MORI polls from the 1960s and 1970s, for some of which only the Labour/Conservative lead is known.

Several extra polls in full from the 1974-79 Parliament along with other updates to the publisher, fieldwork dates etc.

4 July 2015

Includes additional polls and corrections for the 1950s especially, in large part courtesy of Stephen Fisher who has kindly shared his research with me.

2 May 2015

Special pre-election update. Includes some small additional data for the 2005-2010 Parliament too.

1 April 2015

Backfilled small number of missing one-off polls from earlier quarters. Also, standardised layout of different sheets in the spreadsheet, correct many small inconsistencies. (Thank you to James Reade for pointing out many of them.)

1 April 2014

Extra and corrected data for 1945.

31 March 2013

Added in previously missing ICM Wisdom Index polls. (Thank you to Lev Eakins for spotting the extra data.)

Started new tab for European election specific polls.

Backfilled various polls with UKIP ratings.

Added in extra NOP polls over several decades. (Thank you to Will Jennings and colleagues for sharing their data.)

30 December 2012

Added extra Gallup data for 1951-55 Parliament.

31 March 2012

Missing TNS-BMRB data for 2010 Parliament added. (Thank you to Nick Howat.)

Missing Opinium data for May 2010 – March 2012 added. (Thank you to Adam Drummond.)

31 December 2011