The first leaders’ debate of the general election campaign took place on ITV on 4 June. Afterwards, three opinion pollsters tested viewers’ reactions. The first to publish, from YouGov, reported that viewers were evenly divided over who had performed best, but the two later polls both found Starmer with a clear lead: Savanta gave it as 44:39, and JL Partners gave it as 53:33.
Setting the media narrative
When YouGov asked who had performed better, they found viewers evenly divided, and that was the story which the media picked up and amplified. However, that is not what the detail suggests. When they asked them to rate the two separately, a gap opened up. Sunak scored 55 ‘well’ and 44 ‘badly’, while Starmer scored 60 ‘well’ and 40 ‘badly’. And on specifics Starmer was systematically rated higher: on being ‘in touch with ordinary people’, ‘likeable’ and ‘trustworthy’. He was also rated higher on the NHS, climate change, education and the cost of living. Sunak only scored higher on tax (an issue which he repeatedly returned to and which has proved controversial since then), and they were evenly matched on immigration.
An alternative view
This more nuanced evidence is supported by other pollsters. JL Partners asked a different set of questions, including some which probed attitudes to the candidates as people, rather than politicians. Here they found much more positive support for Starmer. He was more than 15 points ahead of Sunak on ‘most persuasive’, and ‘strongest in debate’, but they also preferred him as someone ‘to spend the day with’, ‘go to the pub with’, and ‘ask to babysit’. He also had a clear lead on ‘competent’ and ‘Prime Ministerial’. By contrast Sunak scored very badly. His only high scores (15 points ahead of Starmer) were for ‘untrustworthy’, ‘annoying’, ‘patronising’, ‘smarmy’, ‘boring’ and ‘aggressive’.
Savanta also found Starmer leading, but more narrowly (by 44:39). They found him 38 points ahead on the NHS, and 16 points on the economy. He was still slightly ahead on defence and immigration. He also scored much higher on ‘understanding the issues facing Britain’, ‘honesty’ and ‘engagement with the audience’.
Did this change anything?
These polls suggests that responses to the debate reflect some strong underlying, and predetermined, patterns. It looks as if many respondents saw what they were already predisposed to see. In general opinion polls, Conservative support is strongest among people over 65 and those who voted Leave in the Brexit referendum, while Labour has overwhelming support from younger people and Remainers. This pattern is mirrored in these findings. Asked who performed best, 18-24 year olds chose Starmer by 64:26, while the ratio is reversed among 65+ viewers, who chose Sunak by 31:68. A similar pattern was evident among Leave and Remain voters. Interestingly, however, on one of the other common divides – education level – JL Partners found almost no difference on any questions between graduates and non graduates.
So perhaps all the debates really do is consolidate what people already believed. It was an unruly, bad tempered debate, and although it was watched by 5.5 million people, it looks as if not many will have changed their minds. But we have more debates, and four weeks to go.
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