Thank God for that

"Who do you want to win?" is not the same as "Who are you going to vote for this week?". Lots of people are giving votes to Ed without wanting him to win the whole thing.

which would imply as the article predicts that Ed balls won't last that much longer.

Danny's falling away at a rate of knots. Long way to go but...

I hate to say it but I really do feel Danny will be this year's shock exit but praying I am wrong because he and Oti have made this years show. Hopefully on Saturday he will come out and delivers a wow dance and get more people voting for him.

It's interesting to see just how little support there is for the lower down contenders. The gap between Claudia (5th of those remaining) and Laura (last of those remaining) is only 3%. Even if people did vote exactly as they responded to this poll, that's a whacking difference in terms of marks to add from the public vote, but a very small one in terms of proportion of people actually voting. The gap between Ore (1st) and Louise (2nd) meanwhile is 21%.

I really don't think so. If he's ever in danger, his fans will save him, and if they don't, the judges will. I bet you real money he's in the final. Of the big three, Louise is on the dodgy ground IMO.

He really does need that big impact dance as Christopher D says to narrow the gap and to get more people wanting him to win.

I think Danny is still one of the favourites to win, and is still very popular and anyway, he would certainly be saved in a dance off against most of the remaining dancers.

At this stage the only way he'd go early is if he falls into the Dance Off with Ore or perhaps Claudia if she's on a high and he's on a low.

On the flip side others are right - he needs a stand out dance and fast. The problem is when you start strongly you don't have far to go and people tire of a lack of journey.


Does that mean that Claudia's vote isn't holding up at all and only her strong positioning in the leaderboard is keeping her going? One bad dance and...

I'm amazed at how popular Louise seems to be on that poll.

As with all statistics- they only answer a very specific question. For me, there's often a big difference between who I hope will win, who I think will win, and who I voted for that week.

So Ed being bottom of those polls may well be a reflection of people knowing damn fine he won't win, and that they really wouldn't want him to anyway, but they still bunged him a pity vote that week.

So you can't discount the poll's positioning of the top names solely on the disconnect between Ed being at the bottom but being saved. For that, Yougov would have had to ask "Who did you vote for this week?"

Perhaps she appeals to Mums with kids. I have no idea because her dancing has done nothing to me. She seems to be in a comfort zone. But she may have loads of support outside the forums.

I honestly wouldn't be shocked if Louise won the whole thing, she is consistently high on likes shares retweets and views on all SM even when her dance isn't that great.

I am shocked Ore's number 1 though (obviously I wasn't a few weeks ago after the Jive) as he's inconsistent on SM some week up the top some barely scraping half way up the table.

ETA: I didn't realise the poll was who you think will win. Probably not so odd to Ore top it as his dance is probably most remembered for people who take less interest.

I think both Ore and Danny are on a slight downward trajectory with the public st the moment, either could land in the dance off and my guess is if Ana wasn't there, one of them would have done on Saturday.

I agree that Yougov should be asking Strictly viewers 'Who did you vote for?' to give a more exact picture. But that is complicated by the fact that many people vote several times and give different numbers of votes to different people, for different motives, so I don't think it is so surprising that Ed Balls (sympathy vote/'entertainment value') still hasn't been in the dance off. He might actually get as far as Anne Widdecome, (which was quite far) before the public tire of him completely. He might have a month left yet
I think there is some value in the poll as I guess the celebrity named in response to 'Who do you want to win?' will also often be who the celebrity they voted for, (if they vote of course, which is yet another variable).

He's a shoo in for the final I think but who will win I'm really not sure.

No, the question was 'Who do you want to win?' not 'Who do you think will win?'
The latter would clearly be testing quite a different opinion.

After the last few elections I'd take anything Yougov say with a pinch of salt.

Maybe they are trying to predict something people really care about.

I can't be @rsed to do it, but a weekly comparison with the poll and the results might show that the pollsters are not using the same "sample" as the programme itself, which is what really matters.

Polls have been wrong before, like last years GE and this year's referendum. I expect Scotland will be in the bottom two and the judges will evict them. They will be delighted of course and when they look back on their journey on ITT, they will wonder, what did the English ever do for us.

Actually what's interesting is that if you look at the raw results, they split it into people who watched the whole show and people who only caught bits and pieces or didn't pay much attention. Ore and Danny do significantly better (in terms of who people want to win) with "propah" viewers than with casuals, whilst unsurprisingly the reverse is true for Ed.


I think it just means that (and I am taking these polls with a pinch of salt believe me) that generally people don't see her as winner material. Yet. (And of course these numbers are from before her dance at Halloween)

I still stick with my thought that it will be an Ore/ Danny final shoot out - The third spot is more interesting though.

What some people may have missed is how quickly things can change. After Anastacia's dance-off dramatics in week 2, she plummeted to 2nd last in the who-would-you-most-like-to-win poll. The only celeb ranked lower was.....Ore! Two weeks and two great dances later Ore has gone from last (1%) to first place (32%).

So while there's no sign of strong support for, say, Cloudier or Greg yet, that picture can change rapidly...particularly as the number of options reduces each week.

Against that possibility of change, people tend to retain feeling more than thought. Ore's climb up that graph comes from two dances (the sumptuous AS and then that jive with all the audience reaction and judge response). He might have (he has had) weeks of lesser impact since then but they're still two dances that were game-changing and that feeling stays current in the brain, though it'll fade of course if he never does another decent thing...

His up and down is by definition more impactful than for the contestants who have been consistently good or consistenly excellent or comedic, or whatever that consistent thing is.

I might be trying to persuade myself now tbh

But 'journey' really is a Thing

We're a week behind so we don't know the impact of Saturday's events yet...but one of the reasons for starting this thread was to monitor the week-by-week changes because forgetting where we started (see below) is easily done.

1. Will Young
2. Judge Rinder
3. Louise Redknapp
4. Naga Munchetty
5. Greg Rutherford
6. Claudia Fragapane
7. Lesley Joseph
8. Danny Mac
9. Ed Balls
10. Anastacia
11. Ore Oduba
12. Laura Whitmore
13. Daisy Lowe
14. Tameka Empson
15. Melvin Odoom

Of the 4 celebs apparently now enjoying the lion's share of the votes, Rinder and Redknapp seem to have had strong support from the start whereas Mac and especially Oduba have built theirs.

Can I just ask, why the hell are you gov, ie a government institution running this poll?
I must say there are hundreds if not millions of better things the government should be spending their money on😡

It may well be interesting but a government poll about a SCD winner, it's just really quite offensively trivial when you get people being fed by food banks and waiting extra weeks to for cancer referrals.

It may only cost a few pounds to run, but what other entirely worthless things is this government frittering money on?

I thought YouGove was a company.

I thought site that have you gov on them were always government run things .

I am happy to be proved wrong if I am wrong,