Topic: Mercenary voters' decided UK election, says pollster who predicted Tory victory (Read 277 times)

Australian Mark Textor says an understanding of modern voters was crucial to his prediction – and to business partner Lynton Crosby’s winning Tory strategy
The rise of the mercenary voter – prepared to put self-interest ahead of traditional allegiances, to “game” opinion polls and to vote tactically – is central to pollster Mark Textor’s analysis of the UK election result and the failure of others in his field to predict it.

The veteran Australian pollster says the same knowledge that enabled his internal polling to predict David Cameron’s victory – when published polls had the result on a knife-edge – also helped the success of his business partner Lynton Crosby’s Tory campaign strategy: an understanding of the modern voter.

“As people like you [political journalists] make voters more aware of the political process, they are adjusting to that knowledge by being more mercenary themselves and tactical in their own voting behaviour ... they know they can’t change the whole political system, but they understand the power of their vote,” Textor says.

“The big lesson from the UK poll was the rise of tactical voting – voters making choices not just on policy or personality ... but on understanding and gaming what might happen with a certain poll outcome,” he adds.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/05/mercenary-voters-decided-uk-election-says-pollster-who-predicted-tory-victory