EDINBURGH, Scotland — Three polls on voting intentions for this week’s referendum on Scottish independence all showed the “no” campaign leading the “yes” side by 52 percent to 48 percent when excluding undecided voters.
The results of the surveys, by ICM for today’s edition of the Edinburgh-based Scotsman newspaper, Opinium for the Daily Telegraph of London, and Survation for the Daily Mail, underscore how close the result could be in Thursday’s ballot. Today is the final day of campaigning before residents decide on the future of the 307-year-old U.K.
“It is very tight,” John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, was cited as saying in The Scotsman. “It looks as if the ‘yes’ campaign is going to fall agonisingly short from their perspective. But I have always said this is the ‘no’ campaign’s to lose and it certainly looks as if they have got pretty close to that.”
The ICM poll represents an increase of three percentage points for the pro-independence camp from a similar poll in August and a drop of the same margin for those who reject breaking up the U.K., The Scotsman said on its website.
When including the 14 percent of respondents who said they had yet to make up their minds how to vote, the lead for the “no” campaign was 45 percent compared with 41 percent for the “yes” campaign.
The four percentage-point gap found in the Opinium poll narrowed from six points in the company’s last poll published two days ago. Survation’s results showed the “yes” campaign had increased by two points as a smaller proportion of people were undecided, leaving the gap at 48 percent to 44 percent in favor of the U.K. when all respondents were included.
Opponents of independence are preparing to campaign through the night, visiting late shift workers in hospitals and at a print works. Both sides will hold rallies in Glasgow today before Salmond makes a final appeal to voters at a Perth rally.
Both “yes” and “no” sides hailed the surveys as evidence that the momentum was with them going into the final day of campaigning.
“We are in touching distance of success on Thursday,” Blair Jenkins, chief executive of Yes Scotland, said in a statement. “We are working flat out to ensure that we achieve a ‘yes’ vote, because it’s the biggest opportunity we will ever have to build a fairer society and more prosperous economy.”
Better Together campaign director Blair McDougall told The Scotsman the vote “will go right down to the wire.”
