Referendum Watch – Today’s the day
Finally, we have reached Referendum Day and the campaigning is over. All that is left are crosses in boxes and counts in sports halls up and down the country in the small hours of tomorrow morning.
There is little we can say, or are allowed to say, now that the polls are open, so it’s probably best to focus on the timeline of what we expect to happen tonight and what to look out for as an early hint that the vote may be going one way or the other.
Firstly, the last round of opinion polling through last night showed a continued pull to the Remain camp with the final Com Res poll, the most accurate at last year’s General Election and the only poll to show a swing to the Tories at the death, showed a 54% to 46% win for the Remain camp.
Sterling rallied hard on the number, pushing GBP/USD above 1.48 briefly before dipping back through the Asian session. 1.48 was our initial expectation of where GBP/USD would likely trade on a Remain win, and so the Bremain Bounce is increasingly looking like a Bremain Blip. On the other hand, the collapse could be truly something if the bookies are wrong.
For now, the bookies’ odds show there is now an 80% chance of a Remain win.
Exit poll or opinion poll?
While there are no broadcaster opinion polls scheduled tonight, Yougov will be issuing a quasi-exit poll at 10pm as polls close. It is not an exit poll per se, but a poll conducted on the day, so will catch at least some people who have actually voted. Yougov did something similar for the Scottish ref that was only 1 point out from the actual result – but it’s got neither the size nor the reliability of a proper exit.
Normally a sample size of one is not an indicator worth the paper it’s written on, but a lot of credence will be put into this number when Sky News announce it at 10pm. First votes and then counts.
Sunderland is expected to be the first count to announce at 00.30 BST, with a Leave result the likely outcome. Versus the national averages, different regions lean predominantly one way or the other.
According to Yougov, London and Scotland are 9 and 12 points more heavily Remain compared to the average, whilst the North of England, South of England and Wales/Midlands are all leaning to Leave by an average of 3 points.
Regardless of the weighting, I think that we will have a pretty good picture of how the result has gone by 4am when Birmingham – the largest singular count – comes through.
Turnout
According to Yougov’s latest readings, for every 10% increase in turnout there is a 0.6% increase in the Remain vote. The rain in London and the South East has made getting into the office a bit of a nightmare, and could easily depress turnout should it persist and should voting apparatus or venues become inaccessible or damaged. We are looking for a turnout number over 70%.
For now we must wait. I’ll see you on the other side.