Another royal emotional-support poll has dropped, and somehow Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, those supposedly irrelevant “private citizens” Britain has been instructed to “move on” from, are still being measured alongside the working royals.

YouGov surveyed 2,116 adults in Great Britain on October 22 and 23. Prince William received a 74% positive rating, Kate Middleton 72%, Princess Anne 68% and King Charles 58%. Harry was at 29%, Meghan at 20%, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor managed 4%. YouGov commissioned the poll itself.

So once again we get the familiar headline: William and Kate are popular, Meghan is unpopular, monarchy secure. Everybody can go home. Except the actual tables are considerably more interesting.

What Does This Poll Actually Tell Us About Royal Favorability?

Among over-65s, William and Kate score an extraordinary 87% and 88% positive, respectively. Among 18-to-24-year-olds, those numbers fall to 55% and 51%. Only 46% of that younger group wants to retain the monarchy, compared with 81% of people over 65. Charles is actually underwater with the youngest group, with 38% positive and 39% negative. (YouGov)

That generational divide deserves at least as much attention as another triumphant “William is the most popular royal” headline. And then there is Meghan. Lewis Goodall summed up the absurdity perfectly when he noted that it is “genuinely grotesque” that Meghan polls only 16 points higher than Andrew. Think about what that says about the environment in which these opinions are formed.

Andrew’s documented history includes his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, a multimillion-pound civil settlement with Virginia Giuffre without admission of liability, and an ongoing police investigation. Meghan, a mixed-race Black American, married a prince, left Britain, gave interviews the press disliked and sells jam.

Yet this YouGov poll, conducted after years of relentless tabloid coverage, puts just 16 points between them. But the question is how accurately this reflects the wider British public’s opinion of Meghan.

YouGov’s published tables break respondents down by age, gender, voting history, social class and geography. They do not publish an ethnicity breakdown for this poll. So no, I cannot tell you whether its respondents were disproportionately white. But given that Meghan is a biracial woman whose treatment by sections of the British press has repeatedly involved racialised and gendered narratives, why is ethnicity not a breakdown worth seeing?

Why Are Harry and Meghan Still on the Scoreboard?

And why are Harry and Meghan still necessary to these trackers at all? We are constantly told they are no longer working royals, that they are private citizens and that Britain has moved on. Yet their favourability remains useful whenever the press needs somebody below William and Kate on a chart.

Meanwhile, the supposedly beloved William is facing a very real controversy over Duchy of Cornwall tenants in Devon who say they face losing homes their families have occupied for generations. The Observer reports that nine farming tenants and a similar number of residential tenants are affected by the Bradninch sale.

That is tangible. A favourability score is not. There is no monarchy referendum scheduled. William does not receive additional constitutional power because 74% of an online panel likes him.

A sample of 2,116 can be enough to estimate opinion within Great Britain when it is properly weighted. But that is not the same thing as measuring attitudes toward the monarchy across the wider Commonwealth, where Charles is Head of State in multiple countries and Head of the Commonwealth itself.

If YouGov wants these royal trackers to be treated as a meaningful measure of the monarchy’s broader standing, then why not survey people across the Commonwealth too? And if the focus is only Britain, why not publish these trackers more frequently so readers can distinguish a genuine trend from one quarterly snapshot?

Are these polls meant to soothe the working royals, reassure the public that the institution is still popular, or simply keep selling the monarchy as fashionable and relevant? Who knows.

And after years of using Meghan as the royal family’s designated negative comparison, perhaps the more interesting question is not why she polls badly. It is why British royal coverage appears to need her to.

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