BC Election - Final Poll Average

I have averaged the final polls from BC including all those released as of the morning of election day.

The results are:

	BC Liberal	NDP	BC Cons.	Green	Other	Sample	Margin of Error
Closing average	35.7	43.2	7.1	10.9	3.0	5,928	1.3

In seats this yields 50 NDP, 34 BC Liberals and one other.  However, although my estimate model doesn't show it, I would not be surprised if the Greens picked up one or two.  The ridings they would be most likely to win would come from the BC Liberals.

My seat projection also shows six very close races including Premier Clark's seat of Vancouver-Point Grey.

BC Election - Efficiency of the Vote

I heard on the radio this morning yet another reference to efficiency of the vote in the B.C. election.  The generally accepted assumption is that the NDP has the more efficient vote.

This is something that I can use my projection model to measure.  Using a projection based on the 2009 election, TC calculates that the BC Liberal vote is very slightly more efficient but the difference is negligible.  It is too small to be worth thinking about.

British Columbia's Election

B.C.'s election is drawing to a close and in TC's view it will be a comfortable majority for the NDP and Adrian Dix. Despite all the excitement about a Liberal comeback, the shift in the polls from big NDP leads in the early going to an apparently closer race now looks like a reversion to the mean: in other words we are seeing a return to something closer to the longer run average of political support for the two major parties in BC politics. Most polls except for a Forum Poll conducted on May 8 can be found here on the Tyee's Election Hook website.

There is little doubt the early polls captured something.  However, most of the movement appears to have been disaffected BC Liberal voters returning home, voters who were anti-NDP to begin with but undecided due to antipathy to the Clark government. The Liberal party's attacks on the NDP paid dividends here.  However, almost every poll has had the NDP above 40 per cent and the BC Liberals below (the two exceptions to this are both Forum polls).  The average of the polls conducted this week is:

BC Liberal - 37.2%
NDP - 43%
Green - 10.2%
BC Conservatives - 6.6%

TC expects to see about 50 New Democrats and about 35 BC Liberals win, possibly one Green although that is probably getting less likely.  Perceptions of a close race will drive some voters, who view both the Greens and the NDP favourably, towards the NDP in order to avoid re-electing the BC Liberals to a fourth term.

One or two points about the polling.  Forum research commits a sin that I think needs to be noted: they conduct their polls on a single day.  Their polling is conducted using Interactive Voice Response, a valid methodology where respondents answer a short phone survey where the questions are played back from a computer and the responses digitally recorded by punching phone keys. However, it means they can turn on their computers and just let them run until they have the sample they need (all firms weight their samples so that they resemble the population at large). In TC's view they should spread out the survey over a few days the way other firms do.

Consider Forum's description of its methodology of its April 30th poll:

The Forum Poll™ was conducted by Forum Research with the results based on an interactive voice response telephone survey of 1,055 randomly selected residents of British Columbia 18 years of age and older. The poll was conducted on April 30th, 2013.

Now compare that to an American IVR polling company with a good reputation, Survey USA, as they describe a poll they conducted recently on the Los Angeles Mayoralty race:

Cell-phone and home-phone respondents included in this research: SurveyUSA interviewed 1,000 city of Los Angeles adults 04/08/13 through 04/10/13. Of the adults, 840 were registered to vote. Of the registered, 478 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the 05/21/13 runoff. This research was conducted using blended sample, mixed mode. Respondents reachable on a home telephone (82% of likely voters) were interviewed on their home telephone in the recorded voice of a professional announcer. Respondents not reachable on a home telephone (18% of likely voters) were shown a questionnaire on their smartphone, tablet or other electronic device.

One approach is clearly more sophisticated than the other. In the 2011 federal election the polls did not cover themselves with glory in terms of accuracy.  However, according to my calculations, Forum was eighth out of nine in total error on its national poll numbers.

Most of the other polls used online panels to conduct their surveys, a methodology that keeps getting better and allows better targeting. For example, the last Angus Reid survey was able to ask respondents only about parties actually running candidates in their constituency. Online polls, however, still can't guarantee their sample is fully representative of the population.

Like father, like son…?

On a listserv that I read a political scientist returned from a few months abroad and watched Justin Trudeau’s speech to last weekend’s Liberal Showcase. Here in part is what he said:

I have been out of the country during the Liberal leadership campaign, and all I heard was that Justin Trudeau, about whom I knew only the basic facts, was a shoo-in. So being back in time for the Liberal showcase, I decided to find out more by watching his speech. It was quite an experience. While I realize that such speeches are primarily meant to charge up the crowd rather than offer policy solutions, this one, I think, was remarkable in its vacuity. Once one strips away the digs at the other parties…, one is left with essentially nothing but patriotic platitudes....

This jaded response to the speech was shared, remarkably enough, by some young Liberal supporters of Mr. Trudeau.  On the blog Calgary Grit, in the comments section after his post providing appraisal of the Liberal Showcase, appears this series of comments:

Luke APRIL 7, 2013

Cast my ballot today. There was certainly the feeling of it being a little futile, given the apparently decided nature of the contest already.

Next step: Upgrade from supporter to proper member? Probably.

REPLY

jared APRIL 7, 2013

good analysis.

the best speech was Bob Rae’s though, by far. somehow he’s the guy who’s ended up articulating perfectly what liberalism and liberalism in Canada is all about, without all the artificial tones and gestures or sounding like a big sappy cliche.

i’ve come around to Justin being the next leader, and if the polls are any indication i’m glad liberals have a leader who inspires Canadians and just might be the lightning rod that anti-Harper sentiments have been feeling around for, but personally i still can’t stand listening to him. it hasn’t gotten better. i’ll be a loyal soldier as long as i never listen to his speeches.

the faux-profundity thing he does is just grating, imo. he should talk more like an ordinary person, not like he’s Martin Luther King Jr. or something.

REPLY

Luke APRIL 7, 2013

I rather agree with the ‘can’t stand listening to him’ sentiment, although I can just stand it. To me sounds like someone over-acting, and it comes across as wanker-ish. But I guess it’s working for a lot of people.

Other than his speaking style, I’ve also come around to the Justin Trudeau-as-leader concept. I think he’s probably the best choice.

Damned with faint praise. The Justin Trudeau phenomenon has produced favourable headlines but one should not forget that all candidates who win a convention enjoy a honeymoon in both press and polls.  Four years ago the person in a similar position was Michael Ignatieff.  Here was what blogger Éric Grenier of threehundredeight.com said on April 10, 2009 of the Liberal Party (the formal convention was later but the leadership was uncontested):

Since the October 2008 election, no political party has rebounded so strongly in the public opinion polls. The party had had one of their worst results in Canadian history, and now they are on the brink of re-forming government. A lot of this gain can be attributed to Ignatieff, who as a new leader is rewarded with new enthusiasm almost by default. But Ignatieff is also such a different style of leader than Stéphane Dion that the enthusiasm is genuine.

I think the Justin phenomenon goes further than an initial burst of enthusiasm. It has an Emperor’s New Clothes feel about it. I see the enthusiasm of press and pundits, but a disproportionate amount of this is the politics of reputation, which, as the comments above reveal, can disappear when there is a sober, candid appraisal of his actual performance. The residual popularity of Trudeau the father has made the son a celebrity, and has driven a circular self-reinforcing narrative that is predicated in large part simply on this popularity and celebrity. This has an impact on the polling, which then reinforces the media narrative, thus influencing future polls. This has happened before. It will happen again.

However, there is a limit to this cycle.  He must perform well as leader, especially in Parliament. We can judge him in part based on how well he has performed in the past. Justin Trudeau was first elected to the House of Commons on October 14, 2008. On that same day another rookie, slightly younger than Justin, was elected. New Democrat Megan Leslie was elected in Halifax to replace former NDP Leader Alexa McDonough. So of these two newcomers, who was named rookie of the year in 2009 by Maclean’s, or named in early 2011, along with Bob Rae, Gilles Duceppe, John Baird and Jack Layton as one of the five best members of Parliament? Well, it wasn’t Justin.

The point of this is not to praise Megan Leslie, much though that is merited.  It is to ask the question: what has Justin Trudeau, done to distinguish himself in parliamentary or public life? He apparently has some conventional political skills, can work a room like an old pol. Seems more the descendant of his grandfather on this mother's side (a St. Laurent cabinet minister) than his father's son. In any case leadership requires more than that. There have been numerous media references to whether or not he has substance. And for good reason. The appearance of being vacuous is not accidental. Justin Trudeau appears to be at his core, hollow. There is no there there. One of the new Conservative attack ads on Youtube seems to play into this perception of Justin as inexperienced lightweight. The ad is no doubt based on research so there is already some perception that this is a Trudeau characteristic.

Justin's first and larger problem, however, is that he will be compared in his new role to Bob Rae, who has been receiving well-justified plaudits from his party for his performance as interim leader. In 2006, 2009 and again in 2013, the Liberals might have selected Bob Rae, who lost in 2006, was pushed aside for Ignatieff in 2009, and finally found Justin Trudeau standing in his way in 2013.

Trudeau does appear to be the best choice among the field of candidates, which was extremely weak (reflecting the state of the party?), but Rae might have been pressured to run. The Liberal Party has been in decline. Is it partly because the shrewd political instincts that led the Liberal party to take a chance on Trudeau the father have been recklessly abandoned in selecting Trudeau the son? Is this the third such misjudgment in a row? 

The Liberal leadership race and the popularity of Justin Trudeau

I have been strongly influenced in my interpretation of polls and politics by a book I read about 20 years ago.  It is titled The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion and was written by UCLA political scientist John Zaller.  I want to quote a passage from Chapter 5: Making it up as you go along. After describing a polling experiment to test self-perception and awareness of political knowledge he says the following:

To state the matter more generally, most people aren't really sure what their opinions are on most political matters, including such completely personal matters are their level of interest in politics. They're not sure because their are few occasions, outside of a standard interview situation, in which they are called upon to formulate and express political opinions.  So, when confronted by rapid fire questions in a public opinion survey, they make up attitude reports as best they can as they go along. Because they are hurrying, they are heavily influenced by whatever ideas happen to be at the top of their mind.... This sort of dependence on immediately salient ideas is ubiquitous in public opinion polling....  

Zaller proceeds to argue that 'salience effects' are crucial in influencing responses including question order effects and the priming effects of TV news. A key influence of course is the influence of the words in the question.

One perception that has dominated the Liberal leadership race has been the idea that the popularity of Justin Trudeau would lead to large Liberal gains in an election. One reason for this has been several polls, including a series of surveys by Forum Research, that have asked the question: ‘If a federal election were held today, which party would you be most likely to vote for if Justin Trudeau were the Liberal leader?’ It leads Forum to describe the result in the headline in the particular poll just cited: Trudeau Liberals to Run Table.

This question does not mention the names of the other leaders that Trudeau would be competing against. Might this influence how some respondents reply to the question?  Another influence is the enduring popularity of Justin's father Pierre Trudeau who still tops polls such as this Angus Reid survey where respondents were asked to name the best PM since 1968.

TC's view on this, which I have blogged about before citing the example from 1993 of Kim Campbell, is that polls of this nature can be extremely misleading. A more recent Forum poll, released on March 8, does report an improvement in Liberal support in their standard party preference question where no leaders are mentioned.  One can make a reasonable argument that Justin Trudeau is having a modest positive impact on Liberal support but the headlines generated by the Forum poll such as this one in the National Post: "Liberals tied with Tories… but would win commanding victory with Justin Trudeau as leader: poll" are unreasonably inflating the hopes of Liberals.

Such polls capture momentary perceptions rooted in Justin Trudeau's reputation, which is influenced by memories of this father. What will matter is not how Mr. Trudeau performs against the other relatively weak Liberal candidates in debates (his most formidable potential opponent, Bob Rae, did not run), but how he carries out the job as leader once chosen as clearly he will be. When it comes to the next election due in October 2015 what will matter will be two and a half years of doing the job of party leader.To quote from a comment I made about the NDP leadership race, what matters in the end are a list of the "important aspects of leadership: the role of the party chief as motivator, cheerleader, reconciler of the inevitable party factions, lead party organizer, most important fund raiser, and chief executive officer."

The polls published during a leadership race should be viewed as of limited importance: the skills, experience and character of the person selected are what matters. Justin Trudeau has a legendary name but limited experience and a party weakened by decades of decline (see my series from 2010 on this). He faces a highly uncertain future.

New Ontario poll has good news for Wynne

Innovative Research released a poll this week headlined Early Signs Positive for Wynne.  The poll suggests all may not be lost for the Ontario Liberals now that they have changed leaders.  In particular, it is clear from the poll results that being a lesbian is not going to be a political liability for Wynne.  TC thinks this is part of a broader shift of public opinion to a positive view of homosexuality. Half of the poll sample believe that it is a "good thing" Ontario has a lesbian Premier and another 28% express neutrality on the subject. Just 9% strongly disagree. Being a woman is also an asset, as 71% agree that "It's exciting to have a woman as Premier."

From the perspective of the Liberals, the poll has another key finding.  Only 30% either strongly or somewhat agree with the statement "After the past few years, I am so angry at the Ontario Liberals, I will never vote for them again." (See page 26 for the results discussed). So, despite all the floundering of the McGuinty government, enough of the electorate is still open to voting to Liberal to give the party more than faint hope.

More interesting is the specific challenge that must be met.  When asked what was "the single most important change" hoped for from Wynne, some 17% want an end to the teachers' dispute (this was the most frequent response and the number rises to 21% if we include only those who had a response). Support for the NDP has risen significantly since the last election but if Wynne reverses the rightward drift of the Ontario Liberals some could move back.

The survey also found only 8% wanted a balanced budget/deficit reduction or control of spending.  As my previous post argued: austerity is not the path to political success.  In this survey, of those offering a response, over half wanted action on the teacher's dispute, improved health care, education, social issues or immigration.  A collection of responses I would label as reflecting a right-wing outlook commands only 17.5%.

I discovered this survey on a posting on the ThreeHundredEight.com site.  The site also aggregates recent Ontario polls.  Over the past two months while Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak has been aggressively releasing a series of very conservative policy papers, support for the party has been the following (beginning with the oldest survey): 37, 35, 35, 33, 32, 30. You get the picture.

Note that the managing director of the Innovative Research Group, Greg Lyle, is a former chief of staff to former Manitoba PC Premier Gary Filmon. The one important qualification one must make regarding this survey is that the sample size at 446 has a somewhat large ± 4.6 percentage points margin of error.

Ontario's new Premier: the poisoned chalice

The Ontario Liberals have chosen a new leader who will within days become Ontario's Premier.  She sets precedents as the first female and first gay in that post. Her victory was clearly a product of Wynne's excellent political skills.  She will need them. The weekend convention was greeted by a new Forum Research poll putting support for the Liberal party in third place.

Bob Rae once joked that he had always wanted to be Ontario's premier in the worst way and he got his wish. He was alluding to a situation that also confronts Kathleen Wynne, who politely refers to "facing challenges". Ontario's economy experienced a severe recession in the early years of the Rae NDP government in the early nineties. As a consequence the province's finances suffered a severe setback. There were political and media pressures to follow a program of  spending cuts to achieve a "balanced budget". Rae resisted at first but later became a strong convert to cutting spending. Wynne enters office facing a similar situation. However, the McGuinty government has already committed the province to make deficit reduction a priority. Rae's fate should have served as a warning. It is no accident that third place beckons.

In addition, the party has encountered a series of headline-grabbing scandals. TC's view is that the political damage from the Liberal government's program of austerity and the general sense of malaise that comes from economic stagnation are the greater problems. The confrontation with teachers whatever else it entails, ultimately stems from an effort to cut spending.

In addition, although we live in a world where many have difficulty recognizing it, austerity causes the economy to contract not expand. See this excellent post on "The Austerity Delusion" from the economics blog Not the Treasury View. It is true that Canadian provinces are subject to the international trade winds, and can see their own efforts to stimulate offset by recessionary forces from abroad. However, Ontario actually trades principally with a jurisdiction, the United States, now experiencing at least moderate growth as a consequence of the Obama stimulus - not large enough but producing far better results than the UK or Europe (see Austerity Delusion above). Getting the economy really moving again should be our top priority not deficit reduction.