In the run up to the 1992 general election, various organisations carried out

opinion polling An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...

to gauge voting intention in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. Results of such polls are displayed in this article. The date range for these opinion polls are from the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...

to 8 April. Almost every poll leading up to polling day predicted either a

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...

with Labour the largest party, or a small Labour majority of around 19 to 23. Polls on the last few days before the country voted predicted a very slim Labour majority. After the polls closed, the BBC and ITV

exit poll An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll. Pollsters – usually private companies working for ...

s still predicted that there would be a hung parliament and "that the Conservatives would only just get more seats than Labour". With opinion polls at the end of the campaign showing Labour and the Conservatives neck and neck, the actual election result, a small Conservative majority, was a surprise to many in the media and in polling organisations. The apparent failure of the opinion polls to come close to predicting the actual result led to an inquiry by the ''Market Research Society''. Following the election, most opinion polling companies changed their methodology in the belief that a ' Shy Tory factor' affected the polling.

Graphical summary

Results

All data is from UK Polling Report.

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

References

{{Opinion polling for United Kingdom elections 1992 United Kingdom general election Opinion polling for United Kingdom general elections Opinion polling for United Kingdom votes in the 1990s