Reuters
British rock band Status Quo perform during the television show "Wetten, dass..?" (Let's Make a Bet) at the "Coliseo Balear" bull fighting arena in Palma de Mallorca on the Balearic Island of Mallorca June 18, 2011.
This is especially true in a referendum, where fear of change takes hold in the voting booth and the status quo gets a boost.
This is one of the reasons why, despite past polls showing the
Polling agencies reported swings between the Leave and Remain camps in the past few days. For instance, one TNS poll conducted online between 16 - 22 June, and released on Wednesday, puts Remain at 41% (+1), Leave: 43% (-4).
Meanwhile bookmaker Ladbrokes currently gives the Leave vote just a 24% chance of winning, while William Hill is similarly unconvinced, pegging a Brexit likelihood at only 25%. This is down from last week, when the likelihood of a Leave vote hovered around the 40% mark.
The swing to the status quo happened in other referendums on independence in Scotland and Quebec in Canada.
Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid said in a note on sent to clients on Thursday: "As we highlighted last week, there seemed to be either a late swing or error in polling that underestimated the support for the 'remain' movement in the Quebec/Scottish referendums."
This led to a stronger remain vote than had been forecast.
Here's the chart from Deutsche Bank:
Deutsche Bank