General Election 2019: Liberal Democrats say 'there's all to play for' after YouGov poll predicts Labour's Stephen Morgan will win Portsmouth South

YouGov released its multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) on Wednesday night which projects results ahead of the nation poll on December 12.

In it the polling company predicted that Stephen Morgan would be re-elected in Portsmouth South with 42 per cent of the vote, with Donna Jones in second for the Conservatives with 36 per cent, the Liberal Democrats in third with 16 per cent and Brexit Party in fourth with six per cent.

At the start of the campaign a Survation poll put the Lib Dems in front.

Gerald Vernon-Jackson said: 'YouGov talked to 150 people in Portsmouth, whereas the Survation one spoke to 406. So that survey spoke to many more people and it's a concern that the YouGov one is not as accurate.

'I have had very positive feedback while canvassing both on the phone and going door to door.

'Portsmouth South is a three-way marginal, it's a very unusual seat, so there's all to play for.'

Stephen Morgan also referenced a recent Best for Britain MRP poll. He said: 'I welcome not one, but two independent and recent polls putting me as the clear frontrunner in Portsmouth South. This only reaffirms what my team is hearing on the doorstep each day, that I am the only candidate able to beat the Tories here again.

'These two separate polls were not commissioned or paid for by any party. They are based on scientific sampling by experts and are the same polls that predicted the result in the 2017 general election and the same polls that predicted recent by-election results.

'As someone born and bred in Portsmouth, I am heartened to see the community is behind me when it comes to beating the Tories again.

'Portsmouth people want someone who is standing up against school cuts, campaigning to get more bobbies on the beat, securing funding for QA hospital and taking action over reductions to the services we all rely on. The polling confirms that I am the only candidate that fits the bill.

'I’m standing on a record of delivery, and a promise or more, always putting Portsmouth first. I hope to carry on my vital work after Thursday 12 December to ensure that Portsmouth people have a local born and bred MP standing up for our city in parliament.'

Donna Jones said: 'Polls are not exact they are an estimate. YouGov MRP underestimated the number of seats the Conservatives won in 2017.

'The clear message to be taken away from this poll for people who are undecided between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, is I can win in Portsmouth South and stop Jeremy Corbyn from entering No 10.

'Labour will destroy people savings, increasing taxes to their highest levels and taking away the nest-egg people wish to leave to their families. This is a serious risk, a Labour/SNP coalition would ruin our armed forces.

'The SNP would hold the key to power. I urge people undecided across Portsmouth to lend me their vote, to protect the financial security, the economy and democracy in the UK.'

The MRP has projected that the Conservatives will win a 68-seat majority on December 12 winning 359 seats – 42 more than they took in 2017 – with 43 per cent of the national vote share.

While the YouGov model is predicting that Labour are set to lose 51 seats – falling from 262 seats in 2017 to 211 now – and taking 32 per cent of the vote which would be a nine percentage point decrease.

For the MRP YouGov polled approximately 100,000 people about their voting intentions in the 2019 general election over the last seven days.

The idea behind model is that they use the poll data from the preceding week to estimate a model that relates interview date, constituency, voter demographics, past voting behaviour, and other respondent profile variables to their current voting intentions.