Scenario wins: cassi (15) lewinke-thinking-bot* (8) pgodzinbot (8) SynapseSeer (5) smingers-bot (4) preseen (1)
| Figure/Metric | Value | Source | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farage 2024 Clacton Vote Share | 46.2% | Wikipedia | Baseline strength in the constituency |
| National Preference for Binface Win | 33% | Ipsos | Indicator of national protest sentiment |
| Probability of Farage Margin >60% | 52% | Polymarket | Market-implied landslide likelihood |
| Probability of Farage Margin 40-60% | 36% | Polymarket | Secondary likely margin bracket |
| Proportion viewing Farage as “sleazy” | 73% | Ipsos | Potential for voter erosion due to scandal |
My prediction is based on a synthesis of historical performance, current constituency-level market data, and the unique tactical landscape of the 2026 Clacton by-election. Nigel Farage won the seat in 2024 with 46.2% of the vote and an 18.3% majority in a field that included all major UK parties. In the 2026 by-election, the boycott by Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens radically simplifies the contest. Historically, when major parties withdraw, their voters either stay home or consolidate behind a ‘protest’ alternative. While Count Binface has emerged as that alternative, his base is largely satirical and national.
Constituency-specific market data from Polymarket provides the strongest quantitative signal. As of July 18, 2026, there is a 52% probability of Farage winning by over 60 percentage points and a 36% probability of a 40-60 point margin. This combines to an 88% market expectation that the gap will be greater than 40 points. Because the resolution criteria for this question subtracts Farage’s percentage from Binface’s, these massive Farage leads translate into highly negative values.
I have heavily discounted the national Ipsos poll showing a 12-point preference for Binface. That poll measured the “British public” rather than Clacton voters. Clacton is one of the most pro-Reform areas in the UK; national sentiment is often an inverse indicator of local intent there. However, I have maintained a small tail in the distribution (roughly 3-5%) for a Binface lead to account for the possibility of a “shame poll” where respondents hide their Farage support or a specific pollster over-weighting the 73% national ‘sleaze’ rating currently dogging Farage.
The most likely outcome centers around -51.24, reflecting a scenario where Farage polls near 65-70% and Binface polls near 15-20%. This aligns with the market’s expectation of a 40-60 point victory margin. The 50% HDI of -66.49 to -45.19 covers the most probable range of Farage’s dominance in a polarized, two-candidate race.
Question: what is the percentage-point difference (Count Binface minus Nigel Farage) in the latest-fieldwork constituency poll listed on Wikipedia for the Clacton by-election as of 12:00 UTC on Aug 12, 2026? No qualifying constituency poll has been published yet (if none appears by the cutoff the question annuls), so the immediate monitoring priority is whether any local poll is listed at all. Forecasters agree the key drivers are (a) an unusual 34-candidate ballot with major parties absent, which raises Binface’s salience but also fragments protest votes, (b) strong local baseline support for Farage/Reform (Farage won 46.2% with an 18.3-pt majority in 2024; PollCheck and betting markets favor Reform heavily), and (c) the critical impact of pollster candidate-listing—if Binface is grouped as “Other” he is scored as 0% under the rules. National polls showing pro-Binface sentiment are noted but treated as weak direct evidence for a Clacton vote share; historical novelty-candidate results are usually sub-1% but are less informative here because major parties are not standing. All teams place most probability on Farage leading—often by more than ~20 points via the local baseline and the omission/aggregation channel—while allowing a smaller but non-negligible chance that a named, high-salience Binface polls in the teens and narrows or reverses the margin. The primary disagreement is only about how much mass to give the tail where Binface is explicitly named and becomes the focal protest candidate, but the consensus is that a Binface win is unlikely.
Forecast: Probability distribution:
We are forecasting (Binface % − Farage %) in the final Clacton constituency poll that ends latest (per the Wikipedia table tie-break rules). As of 2026-07-18, there are no constituency polls listed yet; the only cited poll signal is national (Ipsos forced-choice “who would you prefer to win”), which is a weak proxy for Clacton vote intention.
Key drivers:
Synthesizing the analyst forecasts: Forecasters 2 and 4 look too concentrated in the extreme negative tail (implicitly assuming Binface remains very small even in a boycott/tactical environment), while Forecasters 1 and 3 allow too much probability for a near-tie/Binface lead by leaning on national-preference framing and not fully pricing Farage’s local advantage. I place the median slightly past the lower bound (i.e., more likely than not that Farage leads Binface by >20 points), but keep a meaningful upper tail toward a closer race given the unusual two-horse dynamic.
An amateur forecast is likely to anchor on the national Ipsos “prefer to win” result (Binface +12) and project a positive Binface lead into Clacton. This forecast instead (a) re-anchors on constituency-specific fundamentals and the strong favorite status for Farage, (b) explicitly accounts for the boycott increasing Binface’s vote share relative to normal novelty-candidate baserates, and (c) incorporates the resolution quirk that omission/grouping implies a 0% reading, fattening the negative tail. I’m moderately confident this is better-calibrated than a national-poll anchor, but uncertainty remains high because the actual resolving poll (if any) and its questionnaire/candidate list are unknown today.
Forecast rationale (numeric):
— Iteration 1 — Across the forecasts, the main expectation is that Nigel Farage will lead Count Binface in the Clacton by-election polling, but not by an enormous margin. The most common central view is a Farage lead of roughly 10–25 percentage points, with a clustered midpoint in the mid-teens to low-20s.
Farage’s local strength is the anchor
Binface benefits from protest dynamics
Polling design could materially affect the result
The combined reasoning points to Farage leading Binface in the polling, probably by a low-to-mid double-digit margin, with substantial uncertainty because this is an unusual by-election and the polling setup could strongly shape the headline result.
— Iteration 2 — Across the forecasts, the main consensus is that Nigel Farage is still favored to lead Count Binface in the relevant polling, but the margin is unusually uncertain because this contest is shaped by protest voting rather than normal party competition.
The overall forecast approach is: Farage likely leads, but the gap is highly sensitive to polling methodology and protest-vote dynamics, leaving Binface with a non-trivial chance of surprising on the upside.
— Iteration 3 — Overall, the forecasts converge on one main point: Count Binface is very unlikely to lead Nigel Farage in a Clacton poll by Aug. 12, 2026; Farage is expected to be clearly ahead. The main disagreement is how large Farage’s advantage will be.
The collective view is that Binface may do much better than a typical minor candidate, but Farage remains the dominant favorite. The most plausible polling outcome is Farage ahead by a large double-digit margin, with the central expectation ranging roughly from about 17 to 35 points in Farage’s favor, depending on how strongly the protest vote consolidates around Binface.
The rationales universally agree that Nigel Farage will hold a commanding polling advantage over Count Binface in the Clacton by-election, resulting in a deeply negative “lead” for Binface. This consensus is driven by several shared arguments regarding local electoral dynamics and standard polling methodologies:
Question: What will be Count Binface’s lead over Nigel Farage in the opinion polling for the Clacton by-election on August 12, 2026? Final Prediction: Probability distribution:
Total Cost: extra_metadata_in_explanation is disabled Time Spent: extra_metadata_in_explanation is disabled LLMs: extra_metadata_in_explanation is disabled Bot Name: extra_metadata_in_explanation is disabled
Forecaster 1: Probability distribution:
Forecaster 2: Probability distribution:
The research summarizes the Clacton by-election context and indicators relevant to forecasting Count Binface’s lead over Nigel Farage. It notes the by-election was triggered by Farage’s July 7 resignation amid scrutiny over donations and gifts, that major parties (Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens) are boycotting the contest, and that satirical candidate Count Binface has emerged as the primary media challenger among a record 34-candidate field. National polling cited (Ipsos July 8–9: Count Binface 33% vs Farage 21%, YouGov July: broad negative views of Farage) shows strong national preference for Binface, but the research stresses those are national measures, not Clacton voting intention.
The research then presents markets, base rates, and anchors arguing a constituency poll will likely favour Farage: bookmakers make Farage overwhelming favorite to win outright (William Hill 1/7 implied ~87.5%), while Binface has seen increased backing but remains unlikely to win; historical performance of satirical candidates typically sits around ~1% so the boycott may inflate but not to typical winning levels; Clacton’s local profile (Farage 46.2% in 2024; 71.8% Leave in 2016) and a loyal Reform UK base imply Farage’s floor might be in the 30–40% range; the protest vote is expected to be fragmented across many minor candidates; and there is a significant chance no constituency poll is published before August 12. The research’s explicit takeaways: expect a Farage lead in a constituency poll despite national Ipsos results favouring Binface, Binface will poll above his historical base but winning is highly improbable, and final differences will be rounded to the nearest whole integer.
Sources cited in the research (homepages/organizations named): https://www.ipsos.com https://yougov.co.uk https://www.williamhill.com https://www.oddschecker.com https://survation.org
Hello! Here is a detailed rundown of the most relevant news, market indicators, and base rates to help you forecast Count Binface’s lead over Nigel Farage in the final Clacton by-election constituency poll.
The August 13, 2026, Clacton by-election was triggered by Nigel Farage’s resignation on July 7 following intense parliamentary scrutiny over a £5 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and gifts from convicted criminal George Cottrell [11][13][24]. Farage opted to re-contest the seat to frame the election as “the people versus the establishment” [13][22].
In a highly unusual move, major political parties—including Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party—have chosen to boycott the election, calling it a “fake” election and a “desperate political stunt” [11][24]. Consequently, satirical space-warrior candidate Count Binface (comedian Jon Harvey) has emerged as the media’s primary challenger [13][15]. The race features a record-breaking 34 candidates, including representatives from the Reclaim Party and the SDP, as well as numerous independents [13].
National polling paints a dire picture of Farage’s broader UK reputation:
Crucial distinction for your forecast: These polls measure national preference, not Clacton constituency voting intention. Clacton is a heavily pro-Leave, right-wing demographic where Farage enjoys a much stronger base.
While there are no highly liquid prediction markets specifically for the polling difference between the two candidates, traditional bookmakers offer a clear view of the race’s expected outcome:
The fact that Farage remains the heavy betting favorite to win the actual election suggests that an accurate constituency poll will likely show him leading Count Binface, despite the national preference polls leaning toward the satirical candidate.
To anchor your forecast, consider the following quantitative benchmarks:
1. The Historical Performance of Satirical Candidates Novelty candidates traditionally capture a negligible fraction of the vote. Count Binface’s historical electoral performances are:
2. Clacton’s Historical Demographics and Farage’s Floor Clacton is structurally highly favorable to Farage.
3. Fracturing of the Protest Vote While Binface is the most prominent alternative, there are 34 candidates on the ballot [13]. Even if the ~54% of Clacton voters who did not vote for Farage in 2024 turn out to vote against him, that protest vote will be fractured across dozens of independents and minor right-wing parties (like Reclaim), depressing Binface’s maximum possible polling ceiling.
4. The “No Poll Published” Annulment Risk Because major parties are boycotting the election and the outcome seems structurally skewed toward Farage, major polling firms (like Survation or YouGov) may decide not to commission a highly expensive constituency-level poll (which requires calling/surveying a specific local population rather than a national sample). You should strongly factor in the probability that no constituency poll is published before August 12, which would result in the question being annulled.
All percentiles below are conditional on at least one qualifying constituency poll appearing. I estimate approximately 35% annulment probability. The Clacton page still has no opinion-polling section, but nominations closed only on July 17, 2026. Consequently, the absence of a full-ballot poll on July 18 is weaker evidence for annulment than the critic suggests: pollsters have had only one day with the finalized 34-candidate ballot. (en.wikipedia.org)
The Makerfield formatting precedent is directly relevant. Every pre-election poll reported only six named parties plus “Others,” despite Binface being an actual candidate; he subsequently received 0.2%. Under this question’s rules, those polls would have assigned him zero. I therefore increase Clacton omission or aggregation risk from approximately 3%–5% to 6%–8%. (en.wikipedia.org)
The conventional-poll branch was also still somewhat favorable to Binface. Farage began with 46.2% in 2024, while the now-absent Conservatives had 27.9%. Between partial Conservative transfers, differential turnout and likely-voter weighting, a conventional poll can plausibly put Farage around 58%–65%. The 2014 Clacton poll showing Carswell ahead 56%–24% reinforces the existence of a large consolidation branch, although Carswell’s stronger local reputation prevents treating it as a direct forecast. (en.wikipedia.org)
Finally, the critic is right to emphasize that the resolution selects the poll with the latest fieldwork endpoint, not a representative poll. Richmond Park demonstrates that late internal polls can supersede an earlier mainstream poll: after nominations closed, the only publicly released polls were Liberal Democrat internals, with the final one showing their candidate narrowly ahead. (en.wikipedia.org)
Clacton’s omission risk should remain below a simple Makerfield extrapolation. In Makerfield, Binface was a peripheral candidate who eventually received 0.2%. In Clacton, the page and campaign coverage explicitly identify him as Farage’s main challenger, and he has a funded tactical-voting campaign. A poll that names only the salient candidates is therefore more likely to include Binface here. (en.wikipedia.org)
The Ipsos result remains poor evidence about actual Clacton voting intention: it surveyed British adults nationally and asked whom they preferred, obtaining Binface 33%, Farage 21%, neither 32%. Nevertheless, it is useful methodological evidence that prominent two-candidate framing can generate a close or Binface-favorable poll. (ipsos.com)
However, the resolution specifies the main constituency polling table. A purely hypothetical head-to-head may not qualify for that table. This limits—but does not eliminate—the probability that advocacy wording produces a large positive Binface margin.
My conditional mixture is approximately:
I now assign approximately:
Thus I accept the critic’s modest leftward correction. The median moves from approximately −24 to −26, and the lower tail thickens. I do not move farther left because endogenous late-poll selection creates a substantial chance that a motivated tactical campaign commissions the resolving poll.
Updated prediction:
Percentile 0.1: -74.51
Percentile 1: -63.51
Percentile 5: -52.51
Percentile 10: -45.51
Percentile 20: -38.51
Percentile 30: -33.51
Percentile 40: -29.51
Percentile 50: -25.51
Percentile 60: -21.51
Percentile 70: -15.51
Percentile 80: -8.51
Percentile 90: -1.51
Percentile 95: 3.49
Percentile 99: 14.49
Percentile 99.9: 28.49
Conditioning: I estimate a roughly 23% annulment probability. As of July 18, 2026, no Clacton constituency voting-intention poll has been published, although nominations only closed on July 17 and the contest’s prominence makes publication before August 12 more likely than not. The numerical forecast below is entirely conditional on at least one qualifying poll appearing. (pollcheck.co.uk)
The critic’s proposed negative adjustment is persuasive.
First, the market evidence makes a low-thirties election margin look too optimistic for Binface. Two Metaculus forecasts currently place Farage’s election vote share at approximately 62% and 68%, while the Binface vote-share market puts roughly three-fifths of its probability in the under-20% bands. These markets forecast the election rather than the resolving poll and should be discounted, but together they imply an underlying election margin more naturally around 40–50 points than 30. (metaculus.com)
Second, my previous treatment of the 2014 dual-topline precedent was indeed too Binface-friendly. The direct 2026 analogue of a standard general-election question could list Reform and the mainstream parties while aggregating Binface into “Others.” Moreover, standard voting intention is more likely to be displayed above a tactical follow-up, making row-order mechanics modestly bearish rather than bullish.
Third, my own conventional-poll scenario—roughly Farage in the mid-to-high 50s and Binface around 18–22—centers close to a 35–40-point Farage lead. Retaining a −31 median required more weight on unusual shortlist or tactical formats than I could justify.
The resolving poll should still be expected to compress the election margin. In Makerfield, the poll that would probably have won analogous latest-fieldwork tie-breakers showed a 12-point Labour lead, versus the eventual 20.3-point result; two other late polls showed only five-point leads. Thus an approximately 8–15-point poll-to-result compression has a direct recent precedent. (electionpolling.co.uk)
Questionnaire and publication selection also remain important. A poll commissioned around the “Farage versus Binface” narrative is unusually likely to name Binface, use a shortened candidate list, or elicit expressive anti-Farage responses. The prediction market currently gives Binface about a 71% chance of finishing second, further supporting the view that he is salient enough to be named in most by-election-specific polls. I therefore retain only about 4–6% omission/aggregation probability, rather than treating omission as a major mode. (robinhood.com)
I also retain approximately 5% probability that Binface leads. This covers an early-enough scandal shock, tactical-squeeze wording, unusual likely-voter construction, sampling error, or Wikipedia selecting an exceptionally favorable topline. The national Ipsos result demonstrates that explicit Farage-versus-Binface framing can produce a very large Binface response, even though it provides weak evidence about actual Clacton voters. (ipsos.com)
My approximate polling-regime mixture is now:
The 2014 Clacton poll showing UKIP ahead by 32 points, the current PollCheck general-election projection of Reform at 60.2%, and the election-share markets all support a center in the mid-thirties rather than the low thirties. (lordashcroftpolls.com)
I therefore move the conditional median to approximately −35% and assign about 81% probability below −20%, while preserving roughly 5% above zero. This is only a modest revision from the contrarian assistant, but it better aligns the numerical center with the conventional-poll scenario and treats standard-row precedence correctly.
Updated prediction:
Percentile 0.1: -79.49
Percentile 1: -69.49
Percentile 5: -59.49
Percentile 10: -52.49
Percentile 20: -45.49
Percentile 30: -41.49
Percentile 40: -38.49
Percentile 50: -35.49
Percentile 60: -32.49
Percentile 70: -28.49
Percentile 80: -22.49
Percentile 90: -11.49
Percentile 95: 0.49
Percentile 99: 9.49
Percentile 99.9: 20.49
Modal: Below -20 (41.7%) • frontier aggregate • 4m13s
Edge cases:
frontier_1 - Modal: Below -20 (68.0%)
frontier_2 - Modal: Below -20 (33.0%)
frontier_3 - Modal: Below -20 (85.0%)
frontier_4 - Modal: 5-10 (40.0%)
frontier_5 (revised) - Modal: Above 20 (31.0%)
Material notes
Guidance
Revision
| Bin | Probability |
|---|---|
| Below -20 | 41.7% |
| -20–15 | 7.3% |
| -15–10 | 5.2% |
| -10–5 | 3.8% |
| -5-0 | 2.7% |
| 0-5 | 3.8% |
| 5-10 | 10.1% |
| 10-15 | 13.4% |
| 15-20 | 4.1% |
| Above 20 | 8.0% |
wooley_rhino • run 36a1b0f9 • $2.21 • 4m13s
Extracted Percentile Values: {0.1: -65, 1.0: -55, 5.0: -45, 10.0: -38, 15.0: -33, 20.0: -30, 25.0: -28, 30.0: -26, 35.0: -24, 40.0: -22, 45.0: -19, 46.0: -18, 47.0: -17, 48.0: -16, 49.0: -15, 50.0: -13, 51.0: -11, 52.0: -9, 53.0: -7, 54.0: -4, 55.0: -2, 60.0: 5, 65.0: 9, 70.0: 11, 75.0: 12, 80.0: 13, 85.0: 14, 90.0: 15, 95.0: 18, 99.0: 25, 99.9: 40}
Model’s Answer:
Step one: Understanding the resolution metric
The question resolves on the constituency poll listed in Wikipedia’s main polling table, not the national preference poll. This distinction is critical. The only poll currently available (Ipsos, July 8-9) is an explicit national preference poll asking who Britons want to win, not who Clacton residents intend to vote for.
Step two: Assessing the current polling landscape
As of July 18, 2026, no Clacton constituency-specific poll exists. The resolution requires a poll appearing in the Wikipedia constituency polling table by August 12 at 12:00 UTC. This introduces a substantial annulment risk (~20-25%).
Step three: Modeling what constituency polls would likely show
Prediction markets (Polymarket) give Farage ~95% probability of winning. Clacton is Farage’s base — he won the seat in 2024 in a high-profile contest. Despite Farage’s national unpopularity (-38 net favorability), local Reform UK support in Clacton is structurally strong. A real constituency poll of Clacton voting intentions would plausibly show Farage leading by 20-50 percentage points over Binface.
Step four: Considering the national poll contaminating resolution
There’s some probability (~10-15%) that the national Ipsos poll ends up in Wikipedia’s polling table (possibly mislabeled or categorized loosely), which would give approximately +12 (Binface leads). However, resolution criteria specifically reference “constituency polling,” so this is unlikely.
Step five: Identifying key assumptions and their failure risks
Assumption one: No constituency poll gets conducted and published (annulment). Failure probability: ~75% (polling firms likely will conduct at least one due to the high-profile nature). If wrong, the question resolves numerically.
Assumption two: Constituency polls show Farage leading heavily. Failure probability: ~10%. If wrong (e.g., Farage collapses in Clacton), value shifts toward zero or positive.
Assumption three: The Wikipedia table reflects only genuine constituency polls. Failure probability: ~15% (national preference polls could be included). If wrong, value shifts to ~+12.
Step six: Constructing the distribution
Given the strong structural advantage Farage holds in his own seat, constituency polling (if conducted) would likely show him leading significantly. Combined with the annulment scenario (which would make the question resolve null, effectively removing it from scoring), the distribution skews negative with very wide uncertainty. The center of the distribution sits around -25 (Farage leads Binface by ~25 points in Clacton), but with substantial tails due to the high scenario uncertainty.
Why a high (positive) outcome could result: If the Ipsos national poll gets placed in the Wikipedia table (~15%), or if Farage’s reputation collapses so dramatically that even Clacton turns (~5%), the resolution could be +5 to +15.
Why a very low (negative) outcome could result: If constituency polls show Farage commanding 50-60% of the Clacton vote versus Binface’s 10-15%, the lead for Binface would be -35 to -50.
Percentile .1: -65 Percentile 1: -55 Percentile 5: -45 Percentile 10: -38 Percentile 15: -33 Percentile 20: -30 Percentile 25: -28 Percentile 30: -26 Percentile 35: -24 Percentile 40: -22 Percentile 45: -19 Percentile 46: -18 Percentile 47: -17 Percentile 48: -16 Percentile 49: -15 Percentile 50: -13 Percentile 51: -11 Percentile 52: -9 Percentile 53: -7 Percentile 54: -4 Percentile 55: -2 Percentile 60: 5 Percentile 65: 9 Percentile 70: 11 Percentile 75: 12 Percentile 80: 13 Percentile 85: 14 Percentile 90: 15 Percentile 95: 18 Percentile 99: 25 Percentile 99.9: 40
Clacton’s demographic and electoral structure — older, pro-Leave, and Reform-leaning — biases baseline expectations toward Farage.
A 34-candidate ballot and the major-party boycott remove normal party machines and amplify ballot-design and turnout effects.
National attitudinal snapshots show elevated anti-Farage sentiment and strong Binface name recognition outside the constituency.
Local voting history and the 2024 Reform base in Clacton, however, give Farage a substantial starting vote share absent tactical coordination.
A constituency poll that lists full ballots and applies a realistic likely-voter screen will compress Binface’s headline advantage toward Farage.
A forced-choice or headline-preference poll that centers Binface as the sole anti-Farage option will produce much smaller margins or a Binface lead.
Whether a qualifying constituency poll appears and how it frames options is the largest single uncertainty and can annul the conditional forecast.
Late scandals, targeted tactical campaigns, or poll inclusion rules can shift the lead by more than typical sampling error and determine the resolution.
Forecast: median lead = -15.694 (Binface minus Farage)
I interpret this forecast as conditional on at least one qualifying Clacton constituency poll being listed on Wikipedia by 12:00 UTC on 12 August 2026, because otherwise the contract annuls rather than resolving to a number. As of 18 July 2026, the by-election is scheduled for Thursday 13 August 2026; nominations closed on 17 July; 34 candidates are officially standing; and PollCheck says no Clacton by-election constituency poll has yet been published. That means the resolving poll is likely to be a late one-off, so house effects and sampling noise matter more than in a well-polled race. (tendringdc.gov.uk)
The local fundamentals still favour Farage. He won Clacton with 46.2% in the 2024 general election. PollCheck’s current general-election projection for the seat — explicitly not a by-election forecast — puts Reform UK on 60.2% versus 17.6% for the Conservatives. Reform also ran very strongly in the Essex county council divisions overlapping the seat in May 2026, winning 47-61% in the listed divisions. Clacton is also an unusually old, heavily Leave constituency: PollCheck reports 73.0% Leave, a median age of 52.9, 37.4% aged 65+, and only 18.1% with degree-level education. Those are exactly the sorts of seat characteristics that have recently correlated with strong Reform performance. (pollcheck.co.uk)
There are clear reasons not to dismiss a Binface surge. National polling shows Farage’s reputation has taken real damage: Ipsos found British adults would prefer Count Binface over Farage by 33% to 21% in a forced-choice question; Opinium found 52% say Clacton should not re-elect Farage; YouGov found 73% describe Farage as sleazy, including 40% of 2024 Reform voters; and a separate YouGov snap poll found 60% think he has not been honest about his finances. But these are Britain-wide attitude polls, not Clacton vote-intention polls, and Ipsos explicitly noted that the people of Clacton — not the national public — will decide the by-election. (ipsos.com)
The biggest adjustment I make against the client description is on vote consolidation. The major Westminster parties are boycotting, but this is not a clean two-candidate ballot. The official list has 34 candidates, including Reclaim, the SDP, Rejoin EU, UK Voice, Freedom Alliance, three Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidates, and many independents. That should stop Binface from automatically inheriting the whole anti-Farage vote. Reuters’ local reporting also said Clacton voters mostly defended Farage and said he was the politician they trusted on immigration, which is a reminder that the local electorate is much more favourable terrain for him than the national mood is. (tendringdc.gov.uk)
Historical base rates also lean against a Binface polling lead. Self-triggered parliamentary by-elections have often ended with the resigning incumbent re-elected comfortably: Douglas Carswell won the 2014 Clacton by-election with 59.7%, and David Davis won the 2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election with 71.6% after major parties stood aside. Farage’s scandal makes this a less comfortable case than those precedents, but they still argue for caution before forecasting a local anti-Farage collapse. (en.wikipedia.org)
Putting this together, I think the most likely final constituency poll available by noon UTC on 12 August 2026 still shows Farage ahead by roughly twenty points, not Binface ahead. My central estimate for Count Binface minus Nigel Farage is -21. I make the less-than-minus-20 bucket the single largest one because there is a serious path to Farage polling in the high 40s or low 50s while Binface lands somewhere in the mid-teens to 20s. I keep substantial mass in the -15 to -5 range because a late small-sample constituency poll could show a sharper tactical-protest squeeze than I expect, and I leave a small but real positive-lead tail for Binface because the anti-Farage national mood and the boycott do create a focal-point protest candidacy. Overall, though, the seat’s recent electoral behaviour, demographics, and local reporting still point more to a Farage lead than a Binface lead. (pollcheck.co.uk)
As of July 18, 2026, no Clacton constituency poll has been published yet: PollCheck says no opinion poll of the by-election has been published, and the current Wikipedia page does not yet have an ‘Opinion polling’ section. Because the question annuls if no poll is listed by August 12, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC, my numeric distribution below should be read as conditional on at least one constituency poll being published and listed on the page by then. (pollcheck.co.uk)
My base rate starts from Clacton’s underlying politics. Farage won the seat in 2024 with 46.2% of the vote. Clacton has also been unusually friendly territory for insurgent right-populist candidacies: in the 2014 Clacton by-election, Douglas Carswell won for UKIP with 59.7% on 51.1% turnout. Current general-election-style seat models still put Reform clearly ahead locally, though they disagree on the exact scale: PollCheck’s current seat model puts Reform near 60.2% in Clacton, Election Maps UK’s nowcast has Reform at 48.5%, and ElectoralCalculus/PLMR has Reform at 45% in its July 2026 projection. I read that spread as strong evidence that Farage remains locally favoured, but with material uncertainty about just how dominant he is. (election2029.uk)
The scandal has clearly hurt Farage nationally. YouGov found that 43% of Britons opposed his decision to trigger the by-election and 60% thought he had not been honest about his finances. Ipsos found Britons preferred Count Binface over Farage by 33% to 21% in a national forced-choice question, and Ipsos explicitly noted that Clacton voters, not Britain overall, would decide the seat. Opinium likewise found that 52% said Clacton should not re-elect Farage. These numbers matter, but they are national mood indicators, not constituency vote intention. (yougov.com)
The structure of the race cuts both ways for Binface. The main Westminster parties are boycotting, which creates obvious room for tactical anti-Farage voting behind the best-known alternative. But there are also 34 candidates on the ballot, a record for a UK parliamentary by-election, so some protest vote is likely to leak to other minor, novelty, or independent candidates instead of consolidating perfectly behind Count Binface. That is the main reason I do not convert the national anti-Farage sentiment directly into a local Binface lead. (en.wikipedia.org)
Market and forecasting signals for the actual election still lean strongly toward Farage. A larger Metaculus question with 139 forecasters currently puts Farage’s eventual vote share around 61.8%, with a 50.8% to 71.8% interval. Robinhood/Coinbase-style event markets imply roughly 65% that Binface reaches 15% and roughly 44% to 45% that he reaches 20%. Bookmakers also still have Reform/Farage as overwhelming favourites, in roughly the high-80s to low-90s implied-probability range. Read literally, that points to an actual-election centre of Farage in the low 60s and Binface in the high teens or low 20s, implying a very large underlying gap. (metaculus.com)
I then adjust from actual-election expectations to final-published-poll expectations. The best recent analogue is Makerfield in June 2026: several constituency polls were published, with the final ones showing Labour leads of 5 to 12 points, but the actual result was Labour +20.3. That does not prove Clacton will behave the same way, but it is evidence that by-election polls can understate the eventual leader in unusual, high-salience races. It also matters that at least one late Makerfield poll was commissioned by Forward Democracy and StopReformUK.Vote, illustrating that commissioned by-election polling can come from interested actors and may tilt toward a more competitive narrative. My inference is that, if Clacton gets a late published constituency poll at all, it is likelier to look materially tighter than current actual-election markets imply. (electionpolling.co.uk)
Putting that together, my central estimate for the selected final constituency poll is Count Binface trailing Nigel Farage by about 24 points. I therefore centre the distribution in the mid-20s deficit range for Binface, not in the much larger deficit range suggested by many actual-election signals. I still leave most of the probability mass below -20 because Clacton’s local fundamentals remain good for Farage, seat models still favour Reform strongly, and there are many other candidates who can siphon away anti-Farage votes. But I also leave a meaningful secondary hump in the roughly -20 to -5 zone to capture tactical anti-Farage coordination and the possibility that any published late poll is more narrative-driven and closer than the underlying race. I assign only a low-single-digit chance that Binface actually leads the final constituency poll. This entire distribution is conditional on the question not annulling for lack of a listed constituency poll. (pollcheck.co.uk)
My central view is that, conditional on there being a qualifying constituency poll at all, the final listed poll is more likely to show Nigel Farage ahead of Count Binface by roughly twenty points than to show a genuinely close race. That means the resolved quantity, Count Binface minus Nigel Farage, is most likely negative and centered around about -21. (pollcheck.co.uk)
A key complication is annulment risk. As of July 18, 2026, PollCheck said that no by-election poll had yet been confirmed, and when I checked the live Wikipedia article I did not find an opinion-polling section/table already populated. That makes it very plausible that no qualifying constituency poll ever appears by the August 12, 2026 resolution time. I infer the annulment risk is material, roughly one-third. Because your required output schema has no annulment bucket, the probability distribution below is conditional on at least one qualifying poll being listed on the Wikipedia page in time. (pollcheck.co.uk)
Why I still expect Farage to lead in any actual Clacton poll: the seat fundamentals are excellent for Reform. Farage won Clacton in July 2024 with 46.2% against 27.9% for the Conservatives, and PollCheck’s current general-election-style projection for the constituency is 60.2% Reform to 17.6% Conservative. PollCheck also describes Clacton as a very old, strongly Leave constituency: 73.0% Leave, median age 52.9, and 37.4% aged 65+. Those are not by-election numbers, but they are strong evidence that Clacton is unusually favorable ground for Farage relative to Britain as a whole. (pollcheck.co.uk)
Recent local results point the same way. In the May 7, 2026 Essex County Council elections, Reform won Clacton South with 55.41%, Clacton West and St Osyth with 60.78%, and Frinton and Walton with 46.75%. PollCheck’s seat-overlap summary likewise shows Reform leading strongly across the county divisions covering the constituency. Local elections are not Westminster by-elections, but they are still a useful check that Reform’s local machine and vote base remain real in the area. (cmis.essex.gov.uk)
The strongest argument for Binface is not local base strength but protest dynamics. Nationally, anti-Farage sentiment is obvious: Ipsos found 33% of British adults would prefer Count Binface to win versus 21% for Farage, while 32% preferred neither; YouGov found 73% of Britons describe Farage as sleazy; and Opinium found 52% said Clacton should not re-elect him. But all of those are Britain-wide attitudes, not Clacton vote intention, and Ipsos explicitly noted that it is Clacton rather than Britain that will vote. I therefore treat these polls as evidence that Binface can attract protest support in a poll, but not as evidence that he should be favored in the constituency itself. (ipsos.com)
I also discount the idea that this is a clean two-man tactical race. The by-election has a record 34 candidates. Besides Farage and Binface, the field includes Laurence Fox, John Stevens of Rejoin EU, William Clouston of the SDP, British Democrats’ Kai Stephens, and three Official Monster Raving Loony candidates, plus many independents. That should fragment at least some anti-Farage, novelty, and attention-seeking vote that might otherwise all pool behind Binface. John Curtice’s contemporaneous analysis, as summarized on the Wikipedia page, was that Farage should win comfortably in Clacton because of the constituency’s strong Brexit profile. (pollcheck.co.uk)
Betting markets strongly reinforce that conclusion. A July 15 analysis from Gambling.com quoted Farage/Reform at 1/10 and Count Binface at 12/1, and explicitly argued that Binface under 22.5% vote share looked like value. I do not translate that one-for-one into a poll forecast, because polls can overstate expressive protest support relative to actual turnout. But it is still powerful evidence that a Binface lead is not the modal case. (gambling.com)
There is also a useful historical Clacton precedent. In the 2014 Clacton by-election, which was another self-triggered recontest by a right-populist incumbent, published constituency polls showed UKIP leads of 32 and 44 points, and the eventual result was a 35.1-point UKIP lead. The analogy is imperfect because Count Binface is not Douglas Carswell and the current scandal environment is much worse for Farage, but the precedent does remind me that Clacton can produce very large local leads for a populist incumbent even when the national media environment is noisy. (electionpolling.co.uk)
Putting this together, my conditional scenario mix is roughly: 55% Farage-cruises scenario, where the final poll is something like Farage high-40s and Binface around 20, implying a lead near -28; 30% protest-consolidation scenario, where Binface becomes the main anti-Farage vessel and the poll lands closer to Farage low-40s, Binface low-20s, implying a lead near -18; and 15% tight-race scenario, where a fresh revelation or a pollster house effect produces something much closer, around Farage low-30s and Binface high-20s, implying a lead near -4. That mixture gives a conditional mean around -20.5, a conditional median around -22, about a 61% chance that the resolved value is below -20, and only a low-single-digit chance that Binface is actually ahead in the final constituency poll. This is an inference from the seat fundamentals, local election results, national anti-Farage mood, and betting evidence above. (pollcheck.co.uk)
As of Saturday, July 18, 2026, the Clacton parliamentary by-election is scheduled for Thursday, August 13, 2026. Tendring District Council’s official materials say 34 candidates are standing, including Nigel Farage for Reform UK and Count Binface for the Count Binface Party, which the council described as a record-sized field for a UK parliamentary election. PollCheck’s Clacton by-election tracker also says that no constituency-specific Clacton opinion poll has yet been published. That makes annulment risk material under your rules; because your required output schema has no annulment bucket, the numeric distribution below is conditional on at least one constituency poll being listed on the Wikipedia page by 12:00 PM UTC on August 12, 2026. (tendringdc.gov.uk)
The local baseline is still very strong for Farage. He won Clacton in the July 4, 2024 general election with 46.2% of the vote against 27.9% for the Conservatives. PollCheck’s current general-election-style nowcast for Clacton puts Reform UK on 60.2% and the Conservatives on 17.6%, while explicitly warning that this is not a by-election forecast. The same Clacton profile shows a 73.0% Leave seat, a median age of 52.9, 37.4% aged 65+, and only 18.1% with a degree; in the May 7, 2026 Essex County Council divisions overlapping the constituency, Reform won all five listed divisions with 47%-61%. Those are exactly the kinds of local fundamentals that make Clacton much more Farage-friendly than Britain as a whole. (members.parliament.uk)
The national anti-Farage mood is real, but I discount it heavily for this specific question. Ipsos found that among British adults overall, 33% would prefer Count Binface to win the by-election versus 21% for Farage, and Ipsos explicitly noted that Clacton voters, not Britain overall, will decide. YouGov found Farage nationally unpopular by 65% unfavourable to 25% favourable. PollCheck’s summary of an Opinium poll says 52% of UK adults think Clacton should not re-elect him, but among current Reform voters 74% say Clacton should re-elect Farage. So the national meme/public-rejection story is informative about ceiling effects and scandal risk, but not enough to override the seat’s strongly pro-Reform composition. (ipsos.com)
The ballot structure also matters. The boycott by Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens creates a theoretical opening for a protest candidate, but the official field is not a clean two-way race: it includes Laurence Fox, three Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidates, British Democrats, Rejoin EU and many independents. That makes anti-Farage coordination harder, not easier. Binface is easily the most famous anti-Farage alternative, so I expect him to outperform his normal novelty-candidate baseline by a lot; but his prior electoral numbers are still tiny — 24,260 votes, or 0.98%, in the 2024 London mayoral election, and 308 votes, or 0.6%, in Richmond and Northallerton at the 2024 general election. A move from about 1% to the mid-teens or low-20s is already a huge protest-vote uplift. (itv.com)
Betting markets point the same way. On July 15, Gambling.com quoted Reform/Farage at 1/10 and Count Binface at 12/1 for the by-election, and the same piece discussed a 22.5% Binface vote-share line with under presented as the value side. I do not treat bookmaker commentary as decisive, but it is consistent with the harder local data: Farage remains the clear favorite, while Binface’s plausible upside is probably something like the high teens or low 20s rather than the 30s. (gambling.com)
My quantitative forecast therefore uses a four-scenario mixture for the final constituency poll lead, defined exactly as Count Binface share minus Nigel Farage share, before the resolution’s final integer rounding: (1) a 25% Farage-dominant scenario centered at -42, capturing either very weak anti-Farage coordination or a poll format especially unkind to Binface; (2) a 40% baseline scenario centered at -30, reflecting Farage around the high 40s/low 50s and Binface around the high teens/low 20s; (3) a 25% stronger anti-Farage consolidation scenario centered at -17; and (4) a 10% meme-wave / near-tie scenario centered at -2. After adding poll noise and discretizing to the market’s bins, this produces a distribution centered around roughly -27, i.e. a Farage lead of about 27 points in the final constituency poll. In words: if a constituency poll exists at all, I think it is more likely than not to show Farage ahead by well over 20 points, with only a low-single-digit chance that Binface is actually ahead.
As of July 18, 2026, there does not appear to be any published constituency poll of the Clacton by-election yet: PollCheck says no opinion poll of the by-election has been published, and the current Wikipedia page still has no constituency polling table. That means there is a real annulment risk if no poll is listed by August 12 at 12:00 PM UTC. Because the required output schema has no annulment bucket, I am treating the numeric distribution below as conditional on the market resolving to a poll value rather than annulling. (pollcheck.co.uk)
The local starting point still favors Farage. He won Clacton in the 2024 general election with 46.2% to the Conservatives’ 27.9%, and current structural constituency projections still show Reform ahead under normal multi-party conditions: PollCheck’s current general-election seat model has Reform on 60.2% in Clacton, while election2029 lists July 2026 Electoral Calculus/PLMR at 45% Reform and More in Common’s April 2026 projection at 50% Reform. Those are not by-election forecasts, but they imply that Clacton remains a locally strong seat for Farage/Reform even after the scandal. (election2029.uk)
The national mood cuts the other way. Ipsos found British adults preferred Count Binface to win 33% to 21%, while 74% said the standards commissioner should be investigating Farage and 73% said the investigation should continue even if he wins. Opinium likewise found 52% of UK adults said Clacton should not re-elect him. Those are clearly national attitudes rather than Clacton vote intention, but they do support a meaningful protest-vote scenario and explain why Binface should be taken seriously as a second-place contender rather than dismissed as pure comic relief. (ipsos.com)
I do not think those national anti-Farage numbers translate directly into a Binface local lead. Recent May 2026 county-division results overlapping parts of the constituency still showed sizeable non-Reform right-of-centre vote pools, with Conservatives winning Clacton North and Frinton & Walton. In a by-election where Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens are boycotting, that missing vote is unlikely to unify cleanly behind Binface; some will abstain, some will back Farage, and some will scatter to other right-wing or protest candidates. The field is also now extremely crowded at 34 candidates, including Laurence Fox, the SDP’s William Clouston, John Stevens for Rejoin EU, three Official Monster Raving Loony candidates and many independents, which should fragment both novelty and anti-Farage votes. (tendringdc.gov.uk)
The best historical analogies pull in opposite directions. In 2008 David Davis forced a self-triggered by-election after Labour and the Liberal Democrats declined to stand and then won 71.6%, showing how these personal-mandate contests can become blowouts when the opposition is fragmented. But 1997 Tatton shows that a scandal-hit incumbent can lose when voters coordinate behind a single anti-sleaze alternative. Clacton looks much closer to the first pattern than the second, because Binface is a comic protest candidate rather than a Martin Bell-style anti-corruption standard bearer, and betting markets still make Farage an overwhelming favorite: Oddschecker had Reform around 1/8, Ladbrokes had Reform 1/25 with Binface 9/1, and Gambling.com reported Farage around 1/10 and Binface around 12/1 by July 15. (en.wikipedia.org)
So my central estimate is that the final constituency poll, if one appears and is the one used for resolution, will show Farage ahead of Binface by roughly the mid-20s — something in the neighborhood of Farage in the high 40s to low 50s and Binface in the mid-teens to low 20s. I modeled that with a four-scenario mixture: a Farage-dominant outcome, a still-comfortable Farage win, a tactical-Binface squeeze, and a low-probability Binface shock. That puts the distribution center near Count Binface minus Nigel Farage = about -25, with most of the mass below -20, a secondary shoulder in the low-to-mid negative teens, and only a small chance that Binface actually leads. (election2029.uk)