Ramsay emerges as front-runner but undecideds hold the key
Adam Ramsay
Adam Ramsay, last year’s runner-up is the 2008 front-runner according to a joint poll conducted by Student and The Journal.
However, Mr Ramsay’s lead is small, at only 6.3 percentage points, and could be subject to a huge reversal, with more than half of respondents either undecided or not intending to vote for any of the three candidates.
Mr Ramsay leads with 16.5 per cent of respondents backing him, compared to 10.2 per cent backing Harry Cole and 9.4 per cent backing Nick Ward.
However, the race will be determined by the undecided voting block which comprises 38.9 per cent of all respondents. A further 26.4 per cent have said that they are not intending to vote for any of the three candidates.
The poll was conducted on 21 and 22 February around the University of Edinburgh’s central campuses.
In total 254 students were surveyed.
The poll took place days before Gabriel Arafa announced that he was joining the race and does not take into account the effect that his candidacy will have on the election.
Mr Arafa told The Journal: “Less than half of likely voters said they might support any of my opponents. That leaves an enormous number of votes left up for grabs. I believe that as a fresh face, an independent candidate and the only one with a truly achievable manifesto, I have the best chance of taking those votes.”
Despite beginning his campaign last out of the three candidates, Mr Ramsay—who officially launched his manifesto this weekend—scores highest in terms of name recognition with 60.6 per cent of positive responses compared with 57.5 per cent recognising Mr Ward and 44.5 percent for Mr Cole.
As a result of increased coverage of the student elections in 2008 compared with previous years, 75.6 per cent of respondents claimed to be able to recognise the name of at least one candidate.
On issues voting, Mr Ramsay comes out top among students who feel quality of teaching to be most important (38 per cent) and availability of university facilities (31 per cent). He also gains the most support for his campaign pledge to “cut the cost of student living” although only 17 per cent consider this to be the most important issue.
Mr Cole fares best amongst those concerned about student union facilities, coming out narrowly on top. However, only 22 per cent feel the running of the Students Association is most important election issue. Meanwhile, Mr Ward does not hold a lead on any issues.
Mr Cole has a strong following among those who align themselves politically with the Conservative Party, 42.4 per cent of whom say they would like to see Mr Cole win the election. Of Conservative supporters who have expressed an intention to vote, Mr Cole commands 93.3 per cent support.
However Mr Cole is picking up the least support among people of no party affiliation with only 5.6 percent. However, most non-party affiliated voters remain undecided (51.1 per cent)
Mr Ramsay’s political base is widest, enjoying the greatest support from Green (44.4 per cent) and Labour (21.6 per cent) supporters in addition to supporters of smaller political parties (17.6 per cent).
Surprisingly, for a staunch unionist, Mr Ward commands half of the SNP vote.
The majority of Lib Dem supporters and those who don’t support a political party are, as yet, undecided.
Initial polling results would appear to suggest that turn-out for this year’s election will surpass last year’s record high of over 20 per cent. 51.2 per cent of respondents signaled an intention to vote, and whilst a turnout of this number is unprecedented, an increase on the size of last year’s electorate is not impossible given the highly publicised political scrapping between the candidates.
Mr Cole, who is relying upon a huge influx of new voters to turn-out to vote if he is to stand a chance of victory, told The Journal: “If nobody’s getting anywhere near 25 per cent of the vote, it’s going to get very interesting.
“My priority is making sure that those who don’t normally vote to do so.”
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