• Italy polling update, 19-03-08

    March 19, 2008

    Six new polls from six different companies – including one new entrant, Quaeris – mean that the gap now changes marginally to 7.6%. The UDC’s bid to overtake the Sinistra Arcobaleno seems to have come to an end, and the overall picture is one of stability. Note that the latest fieldwork is from three to [...]

  • Italy polling update, 17-03-08: gap 7.4%

    March 17, 2008

    New polls from Demopolis, Lorien and Quaeris mean the gap… stays roughly where it was, at 7.4%. Two points to note: first, Quaeris is the nth new polling company we’ve heard from. Other polling aggregators are including polls from gipieffe, another new company, but as they’ve yet to realise any voting intention figures to sondaggipoliticoelettorali.it, [...]

  • Prodi, 1984 edition

    March 14, 2008

    Romano Prodi has recently announced his retiral from Italian politics. Today, I chanced upon a reference to his work at IRI from almost twenty-five years ago, in Musella, Luigi, Craxi, Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2007 “Prodi, president of IRI, asked for a meeting with Craxi. Prodi had the right, by law, to choose six of the [...]

  • Grillo gets it right

    March 14, 2008

    I don’t normally agree with comic-turned-political-agent-provocateur Beppe Grillo, but I have to say that the three referendum proposals he’s announced under the banner “Libera informazione in libero stato” (Free information in a free country) are spot on. The proposals are to: abolish the Ordine dei Giornalisti, a Fascist-era institution which journalists must be enrolled in; [...]

  • Italy polling update, 14-03-08: gap 7.4%

    March 14, 2008

    No sooner than two polls push the gap up than two competing polls come along to push it down again. Since Wednesday’s update, new polls from SWG, IPSOS and Demos bring the gap down to 7.4%. The changes (such as they are) are driven entirely by a decline in the PdL’s vote share thanks to [...]

  • Italy polling update, 12-03-08: gap 8.3%

    March 12, 2008

    Two new polls from Crespi and Demoskopea take the gap up again to 8.3%. What’s interesting is that, despite the calls to the ‘voto utile’, both coalitions seem to be losing ground to the fringes – on the right, to the Destra, and on the left, to the Sinistra Arcobaleno, which has shot up in [...]

  • Italy polling update, 11-03-08: gap 7.9%

    March 11, 2008

    Today’s gap shrinks to 7.9% due to yesterday’s poll from IPR, which has an oversized sample of 2,000 and is weighted accordingly. The most interesting figures, however, don’t concern the headline gap, but rather the differences between the Camera and the Senate. The composition of the electorate for the two chambers is different: one must [...]

  • Italy polling update, 10-03-08: gap 8.2%

    March 10, 2008

    Another slight shift in the gap is the result of one new poll from Digis. The gap now stands at 8.2%. More general views on the campaign can be found at this Sunday Business post article, where I’m quoted: A researcher at the Florence-based European University Institute, Chris Hanretty, said the current rash of surveys [...]

  • Italy, polling accuracy

    March 8, 2008

    Given the large number of companies providing polling information, and concerns over their instrumentalisation expressed two days ago by Nando Pagnoncelli, head of the association of Italian market research companies, we should be cautious about interpreting polling data. We should also have been more cautious in 2006, when polls showed the centre-left with a solid [...]

  • Italy polling update, 07-03-08

    March 7, 2008

    New polls from SWG and Euromedia reduce the gap slightly to 8.1%. The SWG poll has a larger than normal sample and is weighted accordingly. Whether this gives more weight to a polling company which is, ahem, schierato, is a good question. Over the weekend I shall try to look at how different polling companies’ [...]

 
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