is corbyn really in contention?

i should begin by pointing out that it wouldn't be so crazy if he were. i pointed out a while back that the tories are going to eventually lose power, and theresa may is so awful that you almost wonder if she wants to get out of the way in order to avoid dealing with brexit. she's just about the worst candidate you could possibly imagine. what i was thinking at the time was that the election has the potential for a strong third party showing given the continuing broad cynicism over new labour, but i guess the cynicism around the lib dems is even worse, and paul nuttall seems more bnp than ukip. for all the talk of corbyn being unelectable, the situation seems to have been reversed; it is may that is clearly unelectable, and corbyn that seems to actually be benefiting from being the only sane choice - he's just in the right place at the right time to capitalize off of a clearly incompetent prime minister bumbling her way into an unnecessary election.

maybe you have to be outside of the country, sometimes, to see the obvious. and, despite what the pundits are saying, the fact that may is losing support was obvious from the start - if corbyn's associated rise wasn't, necessarily. and, i do believe that a strong third party could have performed very well in this election, so long as they didn't lack credibility (lib dems) or sanity (ukip). again: corbyn is lucky that he's become the clear default.

but, are the polls really suggesting a tight race?

well, these yougov polls are interesting things. they have gigantic sample sizes, which is a good thing in principle. but, there's no meaningful way to understand whether or not the respondents are representative. there's going to come a time in the near future where you can no longer argue that online polls exclude certain demographics, like pensioners and the very poor. but, it's still the truth of it, right now. and, it's not hard to understand why you should be skeptical when an online poll produces better results for corbyn than anybody else.

the telephone polls are suggesting that he's about 5 points behind, perhaps a bit more.

that said, you have to realize that labour doesn't need to win the popular vote in order to win the most seats, largely due to the regional dominance of the snp in scotland. you would need a good seat projection model to figure this complexities of this out.

my own understanding is that if he can get close to 5 points, he could reasonably expect to keep the conservatives to a minority, and if he can get it under 5 points he has a reasonable chance of winning a minority, himself. but, this is tricky math, and i don't have the intricate insights into it that i did for the canadian election in 2015.

so, is he really in contention? probably not. but, he could hold her to a minority, and set up another election relatively soon.