Revised seat projection approach from Martin Baxter points to UKIP starting to win Commons seats on a 16% share not 23%

Revised seat projection approach from Martin Baxter points to UKIP starting to win Commons seats on a 16% share not 23%

Time to look at UKIP seat betting?

As has been highlighted a fair bit recently UKIP have a real challenge converting the substantial poll shares now being reported into seats because of the way the first past the post system operates with the smaller parties.

Now Martin Baxter of Electoral Calculus has published a revised approach to calculating how many MPs UKIP will win at different GB vote share levels reducing the projected threshold from 23%+ to just 16%.

The Electoral Calculus model seeks to calculate how many seats each party will get on given vote shares and has been around since the 1990s. The broad assumption is of a uniform national swing (UNS) with some tweaks. In the article explaining his change Baxter writes:

” The methodology for this calculation has been revised since its initial publication. It now adds an additional factor to allow for the fact that seats do not all behave identically at a general election, but instead there is natural variation between them. These projections now allow for that natural variation, which increases the chances of UKIP winning some seats, even at low support levels..

The full Baxter article looks in detail on the reasons why the system is so challenging for Farage’s party.

Two months ago I got a three figure bet on at 8/1 William Hill that UKIP would win more than one seat at GE2015. That price is no longer available but you can now get 2/1 that they’ll win 1-5 seats and 5/1 that it’ll be 5+.

Baxter could be influential and my guess is that we’ll see the prices tighten.

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