General Election 2019: Fight for Norfolk’s most marginal seat gets closer

Clive Lewis is standing for the Labour Party in Norwich South. Photo: Archant (Image: Archant)

The poll, conducted by YouGov, suggests the Conservatives will turn almost all of Norfolk blue, with the exception of Labour's Clive Lewis in Norwich South.

In a previous poll, published at the end of November, YouGov predicted nationally Boris Johnson's party would end up with a 68-seat majority.

However, this time around the survey is suggesting the Tories will get a majority of 28 seats

The poll predicts the Tories will retain Norwich North, and pick up North Norfolk.

North West Norfolk Conservatives have chosen James Wild as candidate. Picture: Ally McGilvray (Image: Archant)

The predictions:

Norwich North

In 2017, the Norwich North seat was held by Conservative Chloe Smith, by a slim majority of 507. According to YouGov, she will retain her seat with a 46pc share of the vote compared to Karen Davis' 43pc. The gap appears to have closed as the previous YouGov estimate at the end of November had Ms Smith on 47.2pc of the votes and Ms Davis on 39.87pc.

UK Parliment Offical Richard Bacon (Image: Archant)

Norwich South

Labour's Clive Lewis has held Norwich South since 2015. The YouGov poll is suggesting Mr Lewis will hold his seat again with a 55pc share of the vote, compared to Conservative Dr Mike Spencer's 28pc.

Waveney Suffolk Conservative candidate Peter Aldous Photo: UK Parliament (Image: UK Parliament)

North Norfolk

Long held by the Liberal Democrats' Norman Lamb, the latest poll suggests North Norfolk could turn blue, with Tory candidate Duncan Baker taking 51pc of the vote - up from a 45pc share predicted at the end of November - compared to Lib Dem Karen Ward's 36pc.

South Norfolk

Jerome Mayhew has been selected as Conservative candidate in Broadland. Photo: Contributed (Image: Archant)

The poll suggests Richard Bacon will win with a 55pc share of the vote.

Great Yarmouth

The poll indicates Conservative candidate Brandon Lewis will hold his seat with 61pc of the vote compared to Labour's Mike Smith-Clare 30pc share.

Karen Davis the Norwich North Labour candidate. Picture: Ella Wilkinson (Image: Archant)

South West Norfolk

Conservative candidate Elizabeth Truss is predicted to hold her seat and get the greatest share of the vote of any Tory candidate in their respective constituency across the county with 62pc.

Duncan Baker, the Conservative candidate for North Norfolk. Picture: Victoria Pertusa (Image: Archant)

North West Norfolk

In November polls suggested James Wild would take North West Norfolk for the Tories and the latest survey repeats this prediction with Mr Wild taking a 60pc share of the vote.

Mid Norfolk

Great Yarmouth Norfolk Conservative candidate Brandon Lewis Photo: UK Parliament (Image: UK Parliament)

The poll predicts another victory for Conservative George Freeman, with a 58pc share.

Broadland

Voters in Broadland are predicted to follow the county trend, with Conservative candidate Jerome Mayhew winning with a 57pc share. Labour's Jess Barnard is predicted to come second with 24pc of the vote.

Waveney

Conservative Peter Aldous is predicted to hold his seat with 56pc of the vote.

The YouGov research saw approximately 100,000 panellists interviewed about their voting intentions in the 2019 General Election.

However, because, on average, that is only 150 voters per constituency, to come up with estimates for each constituency YouGov used a technique called Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP). The idea behind MRP is that poll data from the preceding seven days is used to estimate a model that relates interview date, constituency, voter demographics, past voting behaviour, and other respondent profile variables to their current voting intentions. This model is then used to estimate the probability that a voter with specified characteristics will vote Conservative, Labour, or some other party.

Using data from the UK Office of National Statistics, the British Election Study, and past election results, YouGov has estimated the number of each type of voter in each constituency.

Combining the model probabilities and estimated census counts allows YouGov to produce estimates of the number of voters in each constituency intending to vote for a party.

In 2017, when it was applied to the UK general election, YouGov correctly predicted 93pc of individual seats as well as the overall hung parliament result.