My strongest impression of the campaign to date is that it has been characterized by spitting-mad hostility to the Liberals. One interesting aspect of this is that I have been hearing a great deal of anecdotal evidence that the Green Party will receive a significant protest vote, largely from those who one assumes previously voted Liberal. Now they are attracted by the increasingly familiar Green brand name. This is not necessarily a serious, environmentally conscious vote – I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of those contemplating a Green vote drive SUV’s and grouse about high gas prices (the Green Party is the only federal party explicitly promising higher gas taxes). It is a pure protest vote.
I have heard from canvassers that on the doorstep voters are mad at the Liberals, but haven’t decided how to vote. This does give the debates considerable importance (of which more below). In addition the perception is only now beginning to sink in that Harper could form a government. The Ekos poll released this week shows 52% expect the Liberals to form the government compared to just 31% who think the Conservatives will. This could well have an impact on the mad-at-the-Liberal voter who doesn’t support many aspects of the Harper platform. A perception that he could win combined with growing knowledge of his platform could well hurt Harper.
The Polls
What are the polls now saying? My current estimate of the election result based on polls released this week is: Conservatives – 118, Liberals – 98, NDP – 38, Bloc – 54, a weak Conservative minority (fyi, my estimates of NDP seats are higher than other forecasters). As inputs for my election model, I averaged the regional results of the Ekos, Reid and Léger polls released this week with two exceptions – B.C. and Quebec. There was a poll conducted by Reid in B.C. this week with a large sample (1,066) so I used its numbers for British Columbia, and I used a CROP poll with a sample of 600 in Quebec. In B.C. the national pollsters’ regional numbers for B.C. have been extremely erratic giving me little confidence in any one individual result. Quebec has had more examples of polling errors compared to actual election results than anywhere else. I think the Quebec-based polling companies are now figuring out how to poll Quebec – their final polls prior to last year’s provincial election were accurate. I am therefore generally sceptical of the results of non-Quebec firms for Quebec (except for Environics which uses CROP to conduct the Quebec part of its polls).
That the Conservatives are now ahead does not mean they are enthusiastically supported. Frank Greaves, the President of Ekos, was quoted in the Star this week as saying: "In essence, what we are seeing is disaffection with the Liberals overwhelming wariness of the Conservatives."
The Conservatives are still running well behind their 2000 performance in the west so they do have some potential to pick up support there in terms of the polls. I estimate, however, that they can add no more than ten seats at the most to what their current level of support would enable them to win.
THE DEBATES
Because they permit the electorate an unfiltered view of the candidates and their abilities to defend their positions, I think the idea of televised debates is a good one. However, in the past the format of the debates in Canada (dictated I am told largely by the broadcasters) could hardly be worse. By encouraging a five-way free-for-all, the resulting discordant chaos of interruption and overlapping voices was both incomprehensible and offensive to viewers (a large percentage of voters tune in but don’t stay tuned). The net effect in my view has been to discredit politics and Parliament, and I have no doubt it is a factor in lowering turnout. There are to be changes this year. Let us hope they will deliver a calmer, more rational exchange of views that might make sense to someone tuning in hoping to find clarification on where the parties’ stand on various issues.
Despite the weaknesses of debates I have identified, the 1988 debate focused on free trade that turned around John Turner’s flagging campaign (he eventually lost as a consequence of highly effective Tory attack ads) illustrates their potential importance.
The Leaders and their approach
Of the three leaders, Stephen Harper appears to have the style best suited to television – he is calm, relaxed and articulate. He is intellectually very bright and was effective defending himself in a televised interview in French with Bernard Derome that I saw this week. What Harper needs to do is keep the focus of the campaign and the debate on the Liberals and their various sins that have made voters mad at them, and away from his beliefs and platform. If the election becomes a referendum on Harper and his party’s views, the Liberals would likely be returned with a minority.
I think Jack Layton also has the potential to be effective. He is media savvy and knows how to communicate well. His handlers, however, would be well-advised to give him a shot of tranquilizer so that he is not tempted to hyperbole. What Layton needs to accomplish in the debate sounds contradictory: he should focus on creating doubts about Harper’s credibility and at the same time try to appear to be relentlessly positive. The point of the former is that the campaign appears to be about trust and credibility, so damaging Harper’s (Liberal credibility is already damaged) helps the NDP, which has escaped much media attention simply because it is in third place. The point of the latter is that it helps make the NDP attractive to those who are repelled by Liberals and the Conservatives. This is probably Layton’s best opportunity for something of a breakout, although the NDP’s poll numbers are already fairly strong.
Unlike the other two, Paul Martin brings a weak skill set to the debate – an intense, florid style given to superlatives, and a tendency to stammer, making him the classic hot personality in the cool medium. In theory, he should be the weakest debater. However, as a policy wonk he does have a command of his subject matter. He needs to cast doubt on Harper’s ability to keep his promises, again, given that trust is a key campaign theme. Most voters are baffled by numbers and statistics so this is exceedingly difficult to do, but it does appear that Harper could be vulnerable here.
For example, in a column this week Globe business columnist Bruce Little made the following point about the Conservative program: “In the end, the Conservative numbers add up only if you think they can dramatically change the underlying dynamic of most federal spending. If the spending trend … is too entrenched to buck, and the Tories go ahead with their tax cuts and new spending, they'll begin running deficits within a year.” In less polite language, they can’t deliver on their promises – a factor that could be important in a subsequent election.
Martin’s weaknesses as a television performer have always been there but most of the public have been only been discovering them since he became Prime Minister. However, the media are well aware of his abilities. This probably means most don’t expect him to do well. Countering expectations is probably his best chance to be seen to do well in the debates. However, he could also do well simply by using the debates as a vehicle to advance voter awareness of aspects of the Conservative platform that voters may not find appealing. It matters less whether you score points in a boxing sense than that you raise the profile of what helps you and diminish the profile of what creates problems.
Conclusion
The election is too close to be over. We would have a Conservative minority today, but the numbers say a very slight shift back to the Liberals would take us back to a Liberal minority. The general lack of enthusiasm for the various alternatives illustrated by my point about the Green Party as a vehicle for protest, points to a highly divided Parliament, which would probably have a short life span.
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Sunday, June 13, 2004
Sunday, June 06, 2004
The Campaign – Week Two
Various points:
1. To take literally the word of the Globe and Mail and other media, the zeitgeist says we will have a Conservative government. They generally don’t say it, but they imply that it will be a majority government.
However, the slow upward progress of the Conservatives seems more a product of the downward glide of the Liberals at this point than any campaign accomplishments of their own. What is being missed is NDP strength, a product not so much of a brilliant campaign, which clearly it is not, but as the logical place for defecting left-of-centre Liberals to place their votes. Recall that the Ekos poll of a few weeks ago said that Liberal second choices were roughly evenly divided between Conservatives and NDP.
2. The Liberals’ authored the dopiest stunt of the campaign this week when they sent out cabinet ministers Judy Sgro and John McCallum to harass Stephen Harper.
3. All say health care is the number one issue but I have a question: Do the public actually have confidence in any party to solve the problem? I am not sure that they do. If that is the case, then health may not determine any actual votes, despite its “importance”. We saw something similar ten years ago with the then number one issue, unemployment. I suspect running on a second order issue such as the environment, where it is more likely that the public believes that government can do something, might yield a greater electoral dividend. The Conservatives seem to be running in reality on trust and credibility.
4. The Liberals are being hurt badly by the Ontario budget in Ontario, and by sponsorship in Quebec although the latter goes back to February - the overall damage is reflected as distrust. Elsewhere the campaign has not yet taken a definite shape.
4. Overall the three parties all stumbled in various ways in week two. I will assess the TV ads below but, in general, they are all weak.
The Leaders
Jack Layton
Jack Layton recovered ground this week. The NDP campaign isn’t great, but he is a strong media performer, and that counts for a great deal in the free media part of the campaign.
I watched all of the CBC town hall and most of an interview on Le Point, plus the Martin/ Layton appearance on the Newsworld youth show. He did well overall in the town hall and gave an excellent response on the homelessness issue in a brief accountability session with Mansbridge at the end. Occasionally, he did not answer the concerns raised by the audience directly (or was too partisan) and should have more often said as he did once in the program, “I respectfully disagree…” instead of trying win over someone who clearly he couldn’t seduce. Bernard Derome conducted a tough accountability interview with Layton on Le Point, that I thought he handled relatively comfortably. I thought he was effective on the youth program as well.
The NDP does best when both the Liberals and Conservatives are weak. The 1990 Ontario election is a good example. The Peterson Liberals were in trouble on a number of fronts including the integrity issue. Just as significant the Conservative brand name had been damaged by its association with Mulroney – Meech, GST, etc. The NDP had a comparative advantage on the key issues which were health, environment and integrity. This time the Conservatives have seized the integrity issue as theirs, although it should be more an issue for the NDP as they have never held power federally. True, the B.C. NDP has some scandals in its closet but so do the Ontario Conservatives. Former provincial PC MPP’s including former Health Minister Tony Clement are running. Yet there has been no discussion of the integrity issue in relation to the Ontario Conservatives despite recent disclosures of $135,000 emails, etc.
The NDP has a morbid fear of strategic voting (which they can’t really do anything about) so they try to campaign against it, and Layton seems more comfortable attacking Martin, but at this stage his interests would be better served by switching his sights to Harper.
Stephen Harper
Pity Stephen Harper. If this were the last week of the campaign, no one might be looking closely at his proposals. However it is not the last week, and he is beginning to be picked at by the media. For example, this Toronto Star piece on the Harper war on crime.
Now that the platform has been released one can expect more. It is vulnerable on a number of fronts, especially on its numbers. See for example, the Liberal response.
His platform is highly dependent on tax cuts. That is partly why we may see a low ceiling in the Conservative performance in Ontario. Walkerton, lax meat inspection, deteriorating civic infrastructure etc. are still fresh in many voters’ minds. The attacks so far by his opponents have been weak on narrative – linking tax cuts to loss of environmental protection etc, but that could change.
However, the appetite to get rid of the Liberals that is drawing votes to the Conservatives (and the NDP) is very powerful. And determined electorates tend to believe what they want to believe.
Harper is being most hurt, however, by eruptions such as the one on abortion. It may be too much to expect that he and all his candidates will maintain what they call “message discipline" from now ‘til voting day. And that may be what he has to fear most.
Paul Martin
The only point I would make about Martin’s campaign is that I think the daycare promise was a net negative for the Liberals. It simply allowed opponents and media to focus on the 1993 Redbook and its daycare commitment, subsequently not fulfilled. Martin’s explanation that the situation was different was too technical for the average voter to comprehend. Because a key issue is trust and credibility, this promise made his situation worse.
TV Ads
The parties’ television ads are among the very most important instruments of communication in the campaign as they reach voters who tune out the news. Yet, the ones we have seen so far seem quite weak. I think the Conservatives’ have the best of a bad lot. Oddly, the newspapers tend to seek only the critique of professional ad men who haven’t a clue about the importance of the political content. Want to see the ads I am talking about – look here:
http://www.conservative.ca/english/ads.asp
http://www.liberal.ca/campaign_ads_e.aspx
http://www.ndp.ca/ - Small box on left hand side.
The Liberals
Their ads seem quite amateurish, especially visually, and the scripts simply aren’t compelling. One obvious problem is that Martin is overweight, something you can hide either with clothing or camera angles. A neglected image always distracts from the message, and that is the case here. A larger point is that the Liberals need a biographical ad that reminds the voters of Martin’s great claim to fame – his vanquishing of the budget beast. His story is that just as Canada was to hit the “debt wall”, he came on the scene with his 1995 budget to save the day. The most pertinent word in the previous sentence is “1995” – it was so long ago no one remembers, especially voters under 35, and even older voters need to be reminded of how they felt a decade ago.
The Liberals need an ad like that but there is no sign of it. It could (ideally should) be a combination of two the better ads from American politics: The John Kerry ad called “A Good American” (To be found here on the right hand side further down: http://www.johnkerry.com/videos/ ), and the Reagan ad from 1984 known as “morning in America” (enter here: http://www.ammi.org/livingroomcandidate/index_2000.html , set your video format here: http://www.ammi.org/livingroomcandidate/format.html and find the ad by year. It is the 1984 Republican ad called “Prouder, stronger, better”, the first one in the row.
The Conservatives
Their ads are the best of a bad lot. The first one called Accountability with Harper speaking directly to camera works relatively well. He is a little beefy himself but the framing and zoom in keep that from being obvious. The script is clear and understandable if trite.
The second one called carousel works well, but is your classic dirty ad (so I confess I enjoyed watching it very much). However, it is essentially unfair. The ad uses the visual and aural qualities of the medium to convey messages subconsciously to the viewers. We see scenes of money being crumpled then thrown away, and hauled away by garbage trucks accompanied by carousel music. They would never literally accuse the Liberals of this but that is what the music and pictures do. The ad also contains factual errors, so the media really should be going after Harper on this.
The final ad called Demand Better is like the first ad but has a script that is nearly incomprehensible.
The NDP
The worst of the bunch. I actually agree with the comment of the Globe’s critic who said: “The spot addresses too many issues. Ideally, you’d have one spot for each issue. Instead, Layton’s promises come across like a laundry list for saving the world.”
The ad jumps so fast from issue to issue it is hard to follow. The ad echoes the lack of a coherent theme in the broader NDP campaign.
Yet, the NDP has an opportunity like the Liberals to do a positive issue ad connected to Layton’s biography. For example, they could construct a narrative around his role in building the electricity-generating windmill on the Toronto waterfront and use it as a takeoff point for why he is best qualified on the environment issue.
----------------
There comes a point where the campaign jells and we can see the shape of what is to come on voting day, if not the exact result. That happens some time in mid-campaign. I don’t think we are there yet. But it is coming soon.
1. To take literally the word of the Globe and Mail and other media, the zeitgeist says we will have a Conservative government. They generally don’t say it, but they imply that it will be a majority government.
However, the slow upward progress of the Conservatives seems more a product of the downward glide of the Liberals at this point than any campaign accomplishments of their own. What is being missed is NDP strength, a product not so much of a brilliant campaign, which clearly it is not, but as the logical place for defecting left-of-centre Liberals to place their votes. Recall that the Ekos poll of a few weeks ago said that Liberal second choices were roughly evenly divided between Conservatives and NDP.
2. The Liberals’ authored the dopiest stunt of the campaign this week when they sent out cabinet ministers Judy Sgro and John McCallum to harass Stephen Harper.
3. All say health care is the number one issue but I have a question: Do the public actually have confidence in any party to solve the problem? I am not sure that they do. If that is the case, then health may not determine any actual votes, despite its “importance”. We saw something similar ten years ago with the then number one issue, unemployment. I suspect running on a second order issue such as the environment, where it is more likely that the public believes that government can do something, might yield a greater electoral dividend. The Conservatives seem to be running in reality on trust and credibility.
4. The Liberals are being hurt badly by the Ontario budget in Ontario, and by sponsorship in Quebec although the latter goes back to February - the overall damage is reflected as distrust. Elsewhere the campaign has not yet taken a definite shape.
4. Overall the three parties all stumbled in various ways in week two. I will assess the TV ads below but, in general, they are all weak.
The Leaders
Jack Layton
Jack Layton recovered ground this week. The NDP campaign isn’t great, but he is a strong media performer, and that counts for a great deal in the free media part of the campaign.
I watched all of the CBC town hall and most of an interview on Le Point, plus the Martin/ Layton appearance on the Newsworld youth show. He did well overall in the town hall and gave an excellent response on the homelessness issue in a brief accountability session with Mansbridge at the end. Occasionally, he did not answer the concerns raised by the audience directly (or was too partisan) and should have more often said as he did once in the program, “I respectfully disagree…” instead of trying win over someone who clearly he couldn’t seduce. Bernard Derome conducted a tough accountability interview with Layton on Le Point, that I thought he handled relatively comfortably. I thought he was effective on the youth program as well.
The NDP does best when both the Liberals and Conservatives are weak. The 1990 Ontario election is a good example. The Peterson Liberals were in trouble on a number of fronts including the integrity issue. Just as significant the Conservative brand name had been damaged by its association with Mulroney – Meech, GST, etc. The NDP had a comparative advantage on the key issues which were health, environment and integrity. This time the Conservatives have seized the integrity issue as theirs, although it should be more an issue for the NDP as they have never held power federally. True, the B.C. NDP has some scandals in its closet but so do the Ontario Conservatives. Former provincial PC MPP’s including former Health Minister Tony Clement are running. Yet there has been no discussion of the integrity issue in relation to the Ontario Conservatives despite recent disclosures of $135,000 emails, etc.
The NDP has a morbid fear of strategic voting (which they can’t really do anything about) so they try to campaign against it, and Layton seems more comfortable attacking Martin, but at this stage his interests would be better served by switching his sights to Harper.
Stephen Harper
Pity Stephen Harper. If this were the last week of the campaign, no one might be looking closely at his proposals. However it is not the last week, and he is beginning to be picked at by the media. For example, this Toronto Star piece on the Harper war on crime.
Now that the platform has been released one can expect more. It is vulnerable on a number of fronts, especially on its numbers. See for example, the Liberal response.
His platform is highly dependent on tax cuts. That is partly why we may see a low ceiling in the Conservative performance in Ontario. Walkerton, lax meat inspection, deteriorating civic infrastructure etc. are still fresh in many voters’ minds. The attacks so far by his opponents have been weak on narrative – linking tax cuts to loss of environmental protection etc, but that could change.
However, the appetite to get rid of the Liberals that is drawing votes to the Conservatives (and the NDP) is very powerful. And determined electorates tend to believe what they want to believe.
Harper is being most hurt, however, by eruptions such as the one on abortion. It may be too much to expect that he and all his candidates will maintain what they call “message discipline" from now ‘til voting day. And that may be what he has to fear most.
Paul Martin
The only point I would make about Martin’s campaign is that I think the daycare promise was a net negative for the Liberals. It simply allowed opponents and media to focus on the 1993 Redbook and its daycare commitment, subsequently not fulfilled. Martin’s explanation that the situation was different was too technical for the average voter to comprehend. Because a key issue is trust and credibility, this promise made his situation worse.
TV Ads
The parties’ television ads are among the very most important instruments of communication in the campaign as they reach voters who tune out the news. Yet, the ones we have seen so far seem quite weak. I think the Conservatives’ have the best of a bad lot. Oddly, the newspapers tend to seek only the critique of professional ad men who haven’t a clue about the importance of the political content. Want to see the ads I am talking about – look here:
http://www.conservative.ca/english/ads.asp
http://www.liberal.ca/campaign_ads_e.aspx
http://www.ndp.ca/ - Small box on left hand side.
The Liberals
Their ads seem quite amateurish, especially visually, and the scripts simply aren’t compelling. One obvious problem is that Martin is overweight, something you can hide either with clothing or camera angles. A neglected image always distracts from the message, and that is the case here. A larger point is that the Liberals need a biographical ad that reminds the voters of Martin’s great claim to fame – his vanquishing of the budget beast. His story is that just as Canada was to hit the “debt wall”, he came on the scene with his 1995 budget to save the day. The most pertinent word in the previous sentence is “1995” – it was so long ago no one remembers, especially voters under 35, and even older voters need to be reminded of how they felt a decade ago.
The Liberals need an ad like that but there is no sign of it. It could (ideally should) be a combination of two the better ads from American politics: The John Kerry ad called “A Good American” (To be found here on the right hand side further down: http://www.johnkerry.com/videos/ ), and the Reagan ad from 1984 known as “morning in America” (enter here: http://www.ammi.org/livingroomcandidate/index_2000.html , set your video format here: http://www.ammi.org/livingroomcandidate/format.html and find the ad by year. It is the 1984 Republican ad called “Prouder, stronger, better”, the first one in the row.
The Conservatives
Their ads are the best of a bad lot. The first one called Accountability with Harper speaking directly to camera works relatively well. He is a little beefy himself but the framing and zoom in keep that from being obvious. The script is clear and understandable if trite.
The second one called carousel works well, but is your classic dirty ad (so I confess I enjoyed watching it very much). However, it is essentially unfair. The ad uses the visual and aural qualities of the medium to convey messages subconsciously to the viewers. We see scenes of money being crumpled then thrown away, and hauled away by garbage trucks accompanied by carousel music. They would never literally accuse the Liberals of this but that is what the music and pictures do. The ad also contains factual errors, so the media really should be going after Harper on this.
The final ad called Demand Better is like the first ad but has a script that is nearly incomprehensible.
The NDP
The worst of the bunch. I actually agree with the comment of the Globe’s critic who said: “The spot addresses too many issues. Ideally, you’d have one spot for each issue. Instead, Layton’s promises come across like a laundry list for saving the world.”
The ad jumps so fast from issue to issue it is hard to follow. The ad echoes the lack of a coherent theme in the broader NDP campaign.
Yet, the NDP has an opportunity like the Liberals to do a positive issue ad connected to Layton’s biography. For example, they could construct a narrative around his role in building the electricity-generating windmill on the Toronto waterfront and use it as a takeoff point for why he is best qualified on the environment issue.
----------------
There comes a point where the campaign jells and we can see the shape of what is to come on voting day, if not the exact result. That happens some time in mid-campaign. I don’t think we are there yet. But it is coming soon.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Assessment of Week Two - the Polls
Polls & Seats
In a federal election, sometimes the campaign matters, and sometimes it is events outside the campaign that determine the outcome. So far, I think it is the latter. I agree with Darrell Bricker’s assessment in the Saturday Globe that the two most important factors in the campaign so far are the Ontario budget and the sponsorship scandal. The campaign itself as yet does not seem to have had much impact. One has to remember that the first instinct of the media is to attribute every little wiggle in the polls to some campaign development. I attribute most of the wiggles to the margin of error. For example, there is no way that the NDP is really at 14% on Tuesday in B.C. but 23% on Saturday - but that is what the Reid poll reported. I realize the temptation to do this microanalysis is strong but one must resist. It is usually not justified.
On average the four most recent polls would produce an average seat distribution as follows: Liberal – 107, Conservatives –111, NDP – 33, BQ – 57.
This means a weak minority Conservative government that can only ensure a partisan majority with the support of the Bloc, a sure fire formula for instability given the differences between the two groups. The nub of the problem was articulated in an op-ed in the Globe by former Bloc MP Pierrette Venne:
Just consider the Bloc's history: When it was first elected in 1993, it was so uncomfortable in the role of Official Opposition that Lucien Bouchard even refused to move into Stornoway, the official residence of the Leader of the Opposition. In its very early days, long before being taken over by career union leaders and becoming a branch of the Parti Québécois, the Bloc's roots were profoundly conservative.
Over the years, however, in order to rid the party of everything that was not appropriately social democratic, it has undergone several purges. It's hard to see how Gilles Duceppe and Co. could associate themselves with outsiders who have a conservative ideology they could not stomach in their own ranks.
I tried out various scenarios again in my number cruncher to try to find a Conservative majority. I couldn’t do it, mainly because the Conservatives won’t win seats in Quebec. Even an optimistic projection elsewhere at best gets them into the 140 to 145 range, but that is the equivalent of a landslide on a 1984 scale in English Canada. The key difference this time is that defecting Liberals are about as likely to vote NDP as Conservative.
More on The Campaign & the Leaders Tomorrow
In a federal election, sometimes the campaign matters, and sometimes it is events outside the campaign that determine the outcome. So far, I think it is the latter. I agree with Darrell Bricker’s assessment in the Saturday Globe that the two most important factors in the campaign so far are the Ontario budget and the sponsorship scandal. The campaign itself as yet does not seem to have had much impact. One has to remember that the first instinct of the media is to attribute every little wiggle in the polls to some campaign development. I attribute most of the wiggles to the margin of error. For example, there is no way that the NDP is really at 14% on Tuesday in B.C. but 23% on Saturday - but that is what the Reid poll reported. I realize the temptation to do this microanalysis is strong but one must resist. It is usually not justified.
On average the four most recent polls would produce an average seat distribution as follows: Liberal – 107, Conservatives –111, NDP – 33, BQ – 57.
This means a weak minority Conservative government that can only ensure a partisan majority with the support of the Bloc, a sure fire formula for instability given the differences between the two groups. The nub of the problem was articulated in an op-ed in the Globe by former Bloc MP Pierrette Venne:
Just consider the Bloc's history: When it was first elected in 1993, it was so uncomfortable in the role of Official Opposition that Lucien Bouchard even refused to move into Stornoway, the official residence of the Leader of the Opposition. In its very early days, long before being taken over by career union leaders and becoming a branch of the Parti Québécois, the Bloc's roots were profoundly conservative.
Over the years, however, in order to rid the party of everything that was not appropriately social democratic, it has undergone several purges. It's hard to see how Gilles Duceppe and Co. could associate themselves with outsiders who have a conservative ideology they could not stomach in their own ranks.
I tried out various scenarios again in my number cruncher to try to find a Conservative majority. I couldn’t do it, mainly because the Conservatives won’t win seats in Quebec. Even an optimistic projection elsewhere at best gets them into the 140 to 145 range, but that is the equivalent of a landslide on a 1984 scale in English Canada. The key difference this time is that defecting Liberals are about as likely to vote NDP as Conservative.
More on The Campaign & the Leaders Tomorrow
Saturday, May 29, 2004
The Fourth Term Problem
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to Liberal success in this campaign is the simple fact that they are seeking a fourth term. In recent decades with but a few exceptions, Canadians have tended to get fed up with the party in power, generally after two terms, but almost always by the time a party is seeking a fourth term. This applies to both federal and provincial governments.
There was a time, roughly the period after World War II until the 70’s, when it was quite common for governments to win multiple consecutive majorities. At the federal level the 22-year King-St. Laurent era from 1935 to 1957 won five consecutive majorities before falling to the Diefenbaker Tories in 1957. Between 1963 and 1979, the Liberals finished first five consecutive times, but won only two majorities (in 1968 and 1974). Since then the Liberals had a one-term government in 1980, the Mulroney era was two terms, and now the Liberals have won three majorities.
However, it is now barely more than ten years since Chrétien was first elected and the circumstances that produced his three majorities were unusual. His opponents in English Canada were weakened by divisions on the right, and unpopular provincial NDP governments in B.C. and Ontario on the left, plus less than sterling leadership of the federal opposition parties. In Quebec, support for the BQ was strong in 1993 but began to erode after election of the PQ provincially in 1994. My conclusion is simply that whatever his virtues as a political leader, which were considerable, he was one lucky petit gar de Shawinigan.
Now the right is united, the left reinvigorated, and the PQ out of office in Quebec. On top of it all the sponsorship scandal has acted as a symbol of the need for change that is fed naturally by the passage of time.
The Provinces
Except for Newfoundland and Alberta (and just recently Saskatchewan), there have been no new four term governments elected in Canada since the defeat of the PC dynasty in Ontario in 1985.
The Exceptions:
1. Alberta has had small ‘c’ conservative government since 1935, with a switch from Social Credit to Progressive Conservatives in 1971, but it is a virtual one-party state.
2. The Saskatchewan government first elected in 1991 won re-election last fall to a fourth term by a very narrow margin (two constituencies and 5%) over an opponent, the Saskatchewan Party, because the Saskatchewan Party was too strongly rooted in rural Saskatchewan, and unable to secure enough urban votes to win.
3. Newfoundland has been governed by multi-term administrations since entering Confederation in 1949.
The Others
In the period just preceding and the 30 to 40 years after World War II there were several multi-term provincial governments:
1. The CCF in Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas won five consecutive majority governments, governing between 1944 and 1964.
2. The Liberal-Progressives in Manitoba won seven majorities (partly as a coalition) between 1922 and 1958.
3. The Ontario Tories governed for 43 years from 1943 to 1985, including winning seven consecutive majorities between 1945 and 1971.
4. In B.C. W.A.C. Bennett won six consecutive majorities and one minority while governing from 1952 to 1972.
5. In Quebec, the Union Nationale won four consecutive majorities, governing from 1944 to 1960.
6. In New Brunswick, Richard Hatfield won four majorities, governing between 1970 and 1987.
7. In Nova Scotia, the PC’s won four consecutive majorities beginning in 1978, leaving office in 1993.
8. In P.E.I. the Liberals won six majorities commencing in 1935, finally being defeated in 1959. They then won four more majorities between 1966 and 1979.
The contrast is clear, multi-term governments were once the norm in Canada but are no longer. The task of satisfying the electorate and keeping the opposition at bay has clearly become a much more difficult task. Mr. Martin faces a significant challenge simply from the appetite for changing government after a few terms that now seems to prevail in Canada.
There was a time, roughly the period after World War II until the 70’s, when it was quite common for governments to win multiple consecutive majorities. At the federal level the 22-year King-St. Laurent era from 1935 to 1957 won five consecutive majorities before falling to the Diefenbaker Tories in 1957. Between 1963 and 1979, the Liberals finished first five consecutive times, but won only two majorities (in 1968 and 1974). Since then the Liberals had a one-term government in 1980, the Mulroney era was two terms, and now the Liberals have won three majorities.
However, it is now barely more than ten years since Chrétien was first elected and the circumstances that produced his three majorities were unusual. His opponents in English Canada were weakened by divisions on the right, and unpopular provincial NDP governments in B.C. and Ontario on the left, plus less than sterling leadership of the federal opposition parties. In Quebec, support for the BQ was strong in 1993 but began to erode after election of the PQ provincially in 1994. My conclusion is simply that whatever his virtues as a political leader, which were considerable, he was one lucky petit gar de Shawinigan.
Now the right is united, the left reinvigorated, and the PQ out of office in Quebec. On top of it all the sponsorship scandal has acted as a symbol of the need for change that is fed naturally by the passage of time.
The Provinces
Except for Newfoundland and Alberta (and just recently Saskatchewan), there have been no new four term governments elected in Canada since the defeat of the PC dynasty in Ontario in 1985.
The Exceptions:
1. Alberta has had small ‘c’ conservative government since 1935, with a switch from Social Credit to Progressive Conservatives in 1971, but it is a virtual one-party state.
2. The Saskatchewan government first elected in 1991 won re-election last fall to a fourth term by a very narrow margin (two constituencies and 5%) over an opponent, the Saskatchewan Party, because the Saskatchewan Party was too strongly rooted in rural Saskatchewan, and unable to secure enough urban votes to win.
3. Newfoundland has been governed by multi-term administrations since entering Confederation in 1949.
The Others
In the period just preceding and the 30 to 40 years after World War II there were several multi-term provincial governments:
1. The CCF in Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas won five consecutive majority governments, governing between 1944 and 1964.
2. The Liberal-Progressives in Manitoba won seven majorities (partly as a coalition) between 1922 and 1958.
3. The Ontario Tories governed for 43 years from 1943 to 1985, including winning seven consecutive majorities between 1945 and 1971.
4. In B.C. W.A.C. Bennett won six consecutive majorities and one minority while governing from 1952 to 1972.
5. In Quebec, the Union Nationale won four consecutive majorities, governing from 1944 to 1960.
6. In New Brunswick, Richard Hatfield won four majorities, governing between 1970 and 1987.
7. In Nova Scotia, the PC’s won four consecutive majorities beginning in 1978, leaving office in 1993.
8. In P.E.I. the Liberals won six majorities commencing in 1935, finally being defeated in 1959. They then won four more majorities between 1966 and 1979.
The contrast is clear, multi-term governments were once the norm in Canada but are no longer. The task of satisfying the electorate and keeping the opposition at bay has clearly become a much more difficult task. Mr. Martin faces a significant challenge simply from the appetite for changing government after a few terms that now seems to prevail in Canada.
The First Week
A Star-Ekos poll released on Friday, May 28 suggests a close race with a weak Liberal minority. My seat count is Liberal – 126, Cons. – 97, NDP – 32, BQ – 53.
When the poll respondent’s second choices are requested, Ekos found that the NDP was in first place at 22% followed by the Conservatives at 20%. The second choice preferences strongly imply minority government.
The pollster believes that a substantial negative impact from the Liberal budget in Ontario on May 18 is a key explanatory factor. This could be. Ekos asked questions about the Ontario budget but hasn’t reported the results yet. But Ekos pollster Frank Graves said: "Ontarians are furious with Dalton McGuinty and his budget. They're looking for someone to get,"
The Liberals
I thought that during the first week of the campaign the Liberals ran the best campaign. They were quick to establish their key campaign theme – that they will reform and protect Medicare – and they consistently hammered away at it. The attacks of their opponents – mainly that Martin cut health care as Finance Minister – had some bite, but swing voters are mostly those who won’t remember the details about budgets a decade ago and, to some extent, will be confused by it all. This, at least, is what the Liberals hope. There is a fair bit of media commentary. However, it appears the Liberals have yet to do anything that will yield a recovery in Quebec, so minority government still looms. It is worth remembering that the last time the Liberals won a majority of francophone constituencies in Quebec was 1980, nearly 25 years ago.
All in all though, it was a generally good week for the Liberals. Their weakness in the Ekos poll released on May 28 shouldn’t be seen in my view as a contradiction as polls seem to me to have a lag effect. They tend to measure the impact of earlier events. This is one reason that last minute news, even if it is dramatic, tends not to affect election outcomes.
It takes time for campaign strategy and tactics to pay off. My comments here are only about the way I perceive the execution of campaign structure and strategy. The Liberals appeared to be very effective in establishing a cohesive theme for their campaign. At the end of a week focusing on health care they returned to the cities theme. A handful of key policies under an overarching theme are what parties try to achieve in an election campaign. The Liberals seem to be doing this effectively in week one.
The media is hostile to the Liberals, however, and is giving a great deal of play to the genuine hostility in reaction to the McGuinty budget. Anecdotally, I was also told by a Conservative canvasser in a suburban riding that there he encountered a lot of anger at the door and ABL sentiment – Anybody But (the) Liberals. A Liberal source confirms the antagonism to the budget. However, Martin’s record in this area is very strong – promising a balanced budget “come hell or high water”, and then delivering. There ought to be enough time for damage from this problem to be significantly reduced. However, I do see it as evidence of the fourth term problem.
The Conservatives
In week one the NDP and Conservatives used a more scattershot approach with the Tories emphasizing scandal (their big promise at the end of the week was to extend the powers of the Auditor-General). The Conservatives conceded their weakness in Quebec and Atlantic Canada by touring Eastern Canada in the first few days. Expect to see limited appearances there from now on. In Atlantic Canada, the Ekos Poll, once I convert the regional results to ridings, would give the Liberals 31 seats and the NDP 1 with the Tories being shut out.
The Conservatives were never going to do well in Quebec but the critique of federal bilingualism by their constitutional critic, Scott Reid, on May 27, despite Harper’s subsequent repudiation, has sealed their fate. Quebeckers already perceived the Conservatives this way and this type of “admission” can potentially be perceived as more real than the party’s official position. It could also be damaging to the Conservatives in Ontario.
The Stephen Harper charisma deficit is clearly still there. The title of a Chantal Hébert column this week was: Watching paint dry with Harper.
The NDP
I thought the NDP had the weakest campaign. To be successful, any election campaign needs a cohesive theme to establish an answer to the ballot question:
“So why are you voting NDP?” and the answer of “I’m voting NDP because…” simply isn’t there. Their overall approach is too scattershot and Layton probably hurt himself somewhat with the homelessness comment ("Deaths due to homelessness in this city took a rapid rise immediately after Paul Martin cancelled the affordable housing program….”). More on this below.
The NDP has the following quote on its website www.ndp.ca: This campaign is about who listens to you and who will make positive choices to build a green and prosperous country where no one is left behind. Ho-hum. Useful rhetoric for a speech perhaps, but not a campaign theme or a simple, cogent reason to vote NDP on election day. By contrast, Liberal voters can say: “I am going to vote Liberal because Paul Martin will protect health care.” Conservatives can say: “I’m voting for Stephen Harper because he is the only one who will cut taxes and reduce government waste.” What is the equivalent for the NDP? At the moment, it is not there.
Layton’s Remarks on Homelessness
One of Jack Layton’s faults is a proclivity for hyperbole. Clearly it was on display here. One of his virtues is an ability to learn from mistakes. If he read the papers or watched or listened to the news the day after his commotion caused by his comments, he would see that he needs to discipline himself better in the future. I noticed that his second day rhetoric was muted even while officially he clung to his position.
Even if the core facts are true, he left the impression that Paul Martin was very personally responsible for the deaths of the homeless by cutting affordable housing funding. Layton could easily have simply critiqued him for cutting the funding at a time when low vacancy rates and rising homelessness made that a callous decision, without appearing to be unfair. Now the appearance of unfairness has distracted from his message.
By coincidence, I concluded last summer that there was an increase in deaths among the homeless beginning around 1995. There is a plaque outside a church in downtown Toronto that I chanced upon. It recorded the deaths of the homeless by year beginning in 1991. After studying it for a few minutes I was struck by the rising incidence of deaths among the homeless recorded there after 1995. I concluded that the most likely cause was the sharp cut in welfare rates by the Harris government in July of 1995. This caused a significant drop in real income among the poorest in Toronto at a time when the rental vacancy rate was 1.2% and falling. Following the rate cut, the Harris government tightened eligibility requirements, another factor that could well have contributed to the rise in homelessness.
With respect to housing and Paul Martin, I think Layton’s remark was just partisan claptrap. In fact, building any affordable housing project is a long, complex, process that can take years. Any impact from the Martin decision could only have appeared years later, and any evaluation of the impact is obscured by the need to analyze other developments in the housing market and other changes, whereas the impact of the welfare policy shift was direct and quick. My impression at the time as well was that there was a rapid rise, after the welfare changes, of panhandling on Toronto streets, a factor likely associated with homelessness.
Conclusion: None of this matters much. The first week of a campaign is like the fall of 1939: a phony war. Only the most politically committed are paying much attention and most of them already have firm political commitments so what happened positively and negatively is much less important that what is to come.
When the poll respondent’s second choices are requested, Ekos found that the NDP was in first place at 22% followed by the Conservatives at 20%. The second choice preferences strongly imply minority government.
The pollster believes that a substantial negative impact from the Liberal budget in Ontario on May 18 is a key explanatory factor. This could be. Ekos asked questions about the Ontario budget but hasn’t reported the results yet. But Ekos pollster Frank Graves said: "Ontarians are furious with Dalton McGuinty and his budget. They're looking for someone to get,"
The Liberals
I thought that during the first week of the campaign the Liberals ran the best campaign. They were quick to establish their key campaign theme – that they will reform and protect Medicare – and they consistently hammered away at it. The attacks of their opponents – mainly that Martin cut health care as Finance Minister – had some bite, but swing voters are mostly those who won’t remember the details about budgets a decade ago and, to some extent, will be confused by it all. This, at least, is what the Liberals hope. There is a fair bit of media commentary. However, it appears the Liberals have yet to do anything that will yield a recovery in Quebec, so minority government still looms. It is worth remembering that the last time the Liberals won a majority of francophone constituencies in Quebec was 1980, nearly 25 years ago.
All in all though, it was a generally good week for the Liberals. Their weakness in the Ekos poll released on May 28 shouldn’t be seen in my view as a contradiction as polls seem to me to have a lag effect. They tend to measure the impact of earlier events. This is one reason that last minute news, even if it is dramatic, tends not to affect election outcomes.
It takes time for campaign strategy and tactics to pay off. My comments here are only about the way I perceive the execution of campaign structure and strategy. The Liberals appeared to be very effective in establishing a cohesive theme for their campaign. At the end of a week focusing on health care they returned to the cities theme. A handful of key policies under an overarching theme are what parties try to achieve in an election campaign. The Liberals seem to be doing this effectively in week one.
The media is hostile to the Liberals, however, and is giving a great deal of play to the genuine hostility in reaction to the McGuinty budget. Anecdotally, I was also told by a Conservative canvasser in a suburban riding that there he encountered a lot of anger at the door and ABL sentiment – Anybody But (the) Liberals. A Liberal source confirms the antagonism to the budget. However, Martin’s record in this area is very strong – promising a balanced budget “come hell or high water”, and then delivering. There ought to be enough time for damage from this problem to be significantly reduced. However, I do see it as evidence of the fourth term problem.
The Conservatives
In week one the NDP and Conservatives used a more scattershot approach with the Tories emphasizing scandal (their big promise at the end of the week was to extend the powers of the Auditor-General). The Conservatives conceded their weakness in Quebec and Atlantic Canada by touring Eastern Canada in the first few days. Expect to see limited appearances there from now on. In Atlantic Canada, the Ekos Poll, once I convert the regional results to ridings, would give the Liberals 31 seats and the NDP 1 with the Tories being shut out.
The Conservatives were never going to do well in Quebec but the critique of federal bilingualism by their constitutional critic, Scott Reid, on May 27, despite Harper’s subsequent repudiation, has sealed their fate. Quebeckers already perceived the Conservatives this way and this type of “admission” can potentially be perceived as more real than the party’s official position. It could also be damaging to the Conservatives in Ontario.
The Stephen Harper charisma deficit is clearly still there. The title of a Chantal Hébert column this week was: Watching paint dry with Harper.
The NDP
I thought the NDP had the weakest campaign. To be successful, any election campaign needs a cohesive theme to establish an answer to the ballot question:
“So why are you voting NDP?” and the answer of “I’m voting NDP because…” simply isn’t there. Their overall approach is too scattershot and Layton probably hurt himself somewhat with the homelessness comment ("Deaths due to homelessness in this city took a rapid rise immediately after Paul Martin cancelled the affordable housing program….”). More on this below.
The NDP has the following quote on its website www.ndp.ca: This campaign is about who listens to you and who will make positive choices to build a green and prosperous country where no one is left behind. Ho-hum. Useful rhetoric for a speech perhaps, but not a campaign theme or a simple, cogent reason to vote NDP on election day. By contrast, Liberal voters can say: “I am going to vote Liberal because Paul Martin will protect health care.” Conservatives can say: “I’m voting for Stephen Harper because he is the only one who will cut taxes and reduce government waste.” What is the equivalent for the NDP? At the moment, it is not there.
Layton’s Remarks on Homelessness
One of Jack Layton’s faults is a proclivity for hyperbole. Clearly it was on display here. One of his virtues is an ability to learn from mistakes. If he read the papers or watched or listened to the news the day after his commotion caused by his comments, he would see that he needs to discipline himself better in the future. I noticed that his second day rhetoric was muted even while officially he clung to his position.
Even if the core facts are true, he left the impression that Paul Martin was very personally responsible for the deaths of the homeless by cutting affordable housing funding. Layton could easily have simply critiqued him for cutting the funding at a time when low vacancy rates and rising homelessness made that a callous decision, without appearing to be unfair. Now the appearance of unfairness has distracted from his message.
By coincidence, I concluded last summer that there was an increase in deaths among the homeless beginning around 1995. There is a plaque outside a church in downtown Toronto that I chanced upon. It recorded the deaths of the homeless by year beginning in 1991. After studying it for a few minutes I was struck by the rising incidence of deaths among the homeless recorded there after 1995. I concluded that the most likely cause was the sharp cut in welfare rates by the Harris government in July of 1995. This caused a significant drop in real income among the poorest in Toronto at a time when the rental vacancy rate was 1.2% and falling. Following the rate cut, the Harris government tightened eligibility requirements, another factor that could well have contributed to the rise in homelessness.
With respect to housing and Paul Martin, I think Layton’s remark was just partisan claptrap. In fact, building any affordable housing project is a long, complex, process that can take years. Any impact from the Martin decision could only have appeared years later, and any evaluation of the impact is obscured by the need to analyze other developments in the housing market and other changes, whereas the impact of the welfare policy shift was direct and quick. My impression at the time as well was that there was a rapid rise, after the welfare changes, of panhandling on Toronto streets, a factor likely associated with homelessness.
Conclusion: None of this matters much. The first week of a campaign is like the fall of 1939: a phony war. Only the most politically committed are paying much attention and most of them already have firm political commitments so what happened positively and negatively is much less important that what is to come.
Monday, May 24, 2004
The Conservatives' electoral math
In assessing the Conservatives prospects it is useful to look at the numbers from the 1988 election, the last time a party with Conservative in the name won a majority.
No matter what else happens this time the Conservatives are highly unlikely to win a single seat in Quebec. In 1988 they won 43% nationwide and 53% in Quebec. If the Conservatives reach or exceed 32% this time they will have done as well or better than the Conservatives in 1988 with the exception of Quebec which added about 11% to the PC total then – about what the Bloc gets now.
This means that they are trying to win a majority with two hands tied behind their back. They can win a bare majority only if they repeat the Mulroney 1984 experience in English Canada – by winning the equivalent of a landslide outside Quebec.
No matter what else happens this time the Conservatives are highly unlikely to win a single seat in Quebec. In 1988 they won 43% nationwide and 53% in Quebec. If the Conservatives reach or exceed 32% this time they will have done as well or better than the Conservatives in 1988 with the exception of Quebec which added about 11% to the PC total then – about what the Bloc gets now.
This means that they are trying to win a majority with two hands tied behind their back. They can win a bare majority only if they repeat the Mulroney 1984 experience in English Canada – by winning the equivalent of a landslide outside Quebec.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Pre-election Outlook
Overview
The federal election is about to be called for June 28. In this note I will briefly outline my overview of how it might go and provide some polling statistics you won’t see elsewhere. My view is that the media has, since the sponsorship scandal broke, been endeavouring to construct a simple narrative that sees the election as a gladiatorial contest between Martin and Harper. The problem with this is that the Conservatives are non-existent in Quebec and very weak in Atlantic Canada, and running far behind their performance in the 2000 election (as the Alliance and the PC’s combined) elsewhere. To win a majority I estimate they would need to win about 140-145 seats, about 70% of the total west of the Ottawa River. The media have been saying over and over that Stephen Harper is underestimated (the latest example can be found in Graham Fraser's column in the Sunday May 23 Toronto Star), which means, because the media keep saying it, that the exact opposite is true – he is by no means being underestimated.
I view the appropriate question about the campaign as: Will the Liberals be able to win a majority? My own intuition is that it will be exceedingly difficult and, in fact, unlikely. To do so they must recover in Quebec. This appears improbable at the moment, but I have always found Quebec politics difficult to read and have been surprised many times in the past. One thing that might be a consideration in Quebec voting is the de-merger referendums scheduled for June 21st. There are going to be quite a few. However, it is unclear today what the impact might be, and which party might benefit.
If the Liberals flame out like John Turner in 1984 the Conservatives could win the most seats but a majority is almost certainly out of reach. I have thought for a long time that the national media has been underestimating the NDP. Yes, they see them returning to a traditional level of support, 18% or so in the polls, about 20 seats in the House of Commons but they sort of dismiss them with a yawn.
The NDP's support in the polls has averaged 17% over the past couple of months but when I convert the polls of the past couple of weeks to seat numbers I calculate they would win on average roughly 29 seats. In addition, the numbers on leadership when available tell me that large numbers of voters still don’t know much about Jack Layton. I think the NDP could quite possibly increase their support to greater than 20% (their previous high) during the campaign, particularly if Martin performs poorly. And a strong showing by the NDP will have a critical bearing on whether or not the Liberals can form a majority government, and whether any two parties can form a majority if the Conservatives are able to win more seats than the Liberals. The media ought to have been paying more attention to the NDP. However the media rules for balanced campaign coverage mean the NDP will henceforth be more or less on an equal footing with the other parties. Plus the party appears to be competitive in terms of money for advertising.
Polls
Much of the fluctuation in the polls in recent months in my view is just so much statistical noise. I actually think changes since February have been marginal.
The National Post and the Globe have made much of the McGuinty budget affecting support in their polls for the Liberals. They both have them at 42% but one (Compas) has the Conservatives at 39% (which is inconsistent with all previous polling) while the Reid has the Tories at 28%. Clearly, someone is wrong.
I have created a weighted average of the recent polls (since April 1) in the table below including the Saturday May 22 Reid poll and the new CROP poll in Quebec (which is far more likely to be accurate than Reid about the Quebec numbers.)
April-May Average National and Regional Polls Province...Lib....Cons...NDP...BQ...Green...Oth...Total...Sample...MoE
Atl........46.9...30.0...18.6..........1.3.....3.1....100......4,048...1.5
Que........35.1...8.8....7.5...44.7..1.7....2.4.....100.....17,691...0.7
Ont........46.6...29.1...18.8..........2.7.....2.8...100.....11,297...0.9
Mb/Sk.....34.0...33.4...26.4..........2.6.....3.6...100.......3,779...1.6
Alta........27.5....53.2...13.2.........3.5.....2.6....100......4,512...1.5
BC.........32.1....30.0...27.2..........6.2.....4.6....100......5,800...1.3
Cda........38.9....26.7...16.9..11.4...3.1.....3.1....100......48,512...0.4
When I apply these numbers to my seat generator I get the following outcome:
Liberal - 158, Conservatives - 69, NDP - 28, BQ- 53. A bare majority is 155 so it is clear that the Liberals were (during this period)just over the line. Contrary to the findings in the Ipsos-Reid poll published in Saturday's Globe, I find the following seat totals Liberal-141, Conservatives-76, NDP-30, BQ-61.
Pre-election Polls Compared to Final ResultsOne phenomenon of previous campaigns has been that the Liberals lose support during the campaign. This happened, for example, in the 2000 election. This time the Liberals start from a weaker position than four years ago, so it is more likely they are closer to their base vote and any drop-off will be smaller. It is worth noting that the drop-off for the Liberals appeared to be greater in the West than the East (except in Atlantic Canada where pre-election polling had the Liberals very high. Could it happen again? Yes, and if the pattern repeats itself, a Liberal minority would result.
Comparison Pre-campaign Polls Compared to Final 2000 Results
..............Lib......All.....BQ.....NDP.....PC....Oth.
Atl........-16.0......-0.7...........+4.5...+11.4...-0.8
Que.........+1.2......-2.1...-0.3....-2.2....+2.7...+0.6
Ont.........-5.4.......+3.7..........-1.6....+3.1....0.0
Mb/Sk.......-11.2......+8.0..........+4.9....+0.3....-1.8
Alta........-7.6.......+4.8..........+0.5....+3.2....-1.1
BC..........-10.1......+7.7..........-0.2....+1.3.....0.0
This table compares polls from late September to the election call in the third week in October to the final official results.
My conclusion: fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a wild ride.
The federal election is about to be called for June 28. In this note I will briefly outline my overview of how it might go and provide some polling statistics you won’t see elsewhere. My view is that the media has, since the sponsorship scandal broke, been endeavouring to construct a simple narrative that sees the election as a gladiatorial contest between Martin and Harper. The problem with this is that the Conservatives are non-existent in Quebec and very weak in Atlantic Canada, and running far behind their performance in the 2000 election (as the Alliance and the PC’s combined) elsewhere. To win a majority I estimate they would need to win about 140-145 seats, about 70% of the total west of the Ottawa River. The media have been saying over and over that Stephen Harper is underestimated (the latest example can be found in Graham Fraser's column in the Sunday May 23 Toronto Star), which means, because the media keep saying it, that the exact opposite is true – he is by no means being underestimated.
I view the appropriate question about the campaign as: Will the Liberals be able to win a majority? My own intuition is that it will be exceedingly difficult and, in fact, unlikely. To do so they must recover in Quebec. This appears improbable at the moment, but I have always found Quebec politics difficult to read and have been surprised many times in the past. One thing that might be a consideration in Quebec voting is the de-merger referendums scheduled for June 21st. There are going to be quite a few. However, it is unclear today what the impact might be, and which party might benefit.
If the Liberals flame out like John Turner in 1984 the Conservatives could win the most seats but a majority is almost certainly out of reach. I have thought for a long time that the national media has been underestimating the NDP. Yes, they see them returning to a traditional level of support, 18% or so in the polls, about 20 seats in the House of Commons but they sort of dismiss them with a yawn.
The NDP's support in the polls has averaged 17% over the past couple of months but when I convert the polls of the past couple of weeks to seat numbers I calculate they would win on average roughly 29 seats. In addition, the numbers on leadership when available tell me that large numbers of voters still don’t know much about Jack Layton. I think the NDP could quite possibly increase their support to greater than 20% (their previous high) during the campaign, particularly if Martin performs poorly. And a strong showing by the NDP will have a critical bearing on whether or not the Liberals can form a majority government, and whether any two parties can form a majority if the Conservatives are able to win more seats than the Liberals. The media ought to have been paying more attention to the NDP. However the media rules for balanced campaign coverage mean the NDP will henceforth be more or less on an equal footing with the other parties. Plus the party appears to be competitive in terms of money for advertising.
Polls
Much of the fluctuation in the polls in recent months in my view is just so much statistical noise. I actually think changes since February have been marginal.
The National Post and the Globe have made much of the McGuinty budget affecting support in their polls for the Liberals. They both have them at 42% but one (Compas) has the Conservatives at 39% (which is inconsistent with all previous polling) while the Reid has the Tories at 28%. Clearly, someone is wrong.
I have created a weighted average of the recent polls (since April 1) in the table below including the Saturday May 22 Reid poll and the new CROP poll in Quebec (which is far more likely to be accurate than Reid about the Quebec numbers.)
April-May Average National and Regional Polls Province...Lib....Cons...NDP...BQ...Green...Oth...Total...Sample...MoE
Atl........46.9...30.0...18.6..........1.3.....3.1....100......4,048...1.5
Que........35.1...8.8....7.5...44.7..1.7....2.4.....100.....17,691...0.7
Ont........46.6...29.1...18.8..........2.7.....2.8...100.....11,297...0.9
Mb/Sk.....34.0...33.4...26.4..........2.6.....3.6...100.......3,779...1.6
Alta........27.5....53.2...13.2.........3.5.....2.6....100......4,512...1.5
BC.........32.1....30.0...27.2..........6.2.....4.6....100......5,800...1.3
Cda........38.9....26.7...16.9..11.4...3.1.....3.1....100......48,512...0.4
When I apply these numbers to my seat generator I get the following outcome:
Liberal - 158, Conservatives - 69, NDP - 28, BQ- 53. A bare majority is 155 so it is clear that the Liberals were (during this period)just over the line. Contrary to the findings in the Ipsos-Reid poll published in Saturday's Globe, I find the following seat totals Liberal-141, Conservatives-76, NDP-30, BQ-61.
Pre-election Polls Compared to Final ResultsOne phenomenon of previous campaigns has been that the Liberals lose support during the campaign. This happened, for example, in the 2000 election. This time the Liberals start from a weaker position than four years ago, so it is more likely they are closer to their base vote and any drop-off will be smaller. It is worth noting that the drop-off for the Liberals appeared to be greater in the West than the East (except in Atlantic Canada where pre-election polling had the Liberals very high. Could it happen again? Yes, and if the pattern repeats itself, a Liberal minority would result.
Comparison Pre-campaign Polls Compared to Final 2000 Results
..............Lib......All.....BQ.....NDP.....PC....Oth.
Atl........-16.0......-0.7...........+4.5...+11.4...-0.8
Que.........+1.2......-2.1...-0.3....-2.2....+2.7...+0.6
Ont.........-5.4.......+3.7..........-1.6....+3.1....0.0
Mb/Sk.......-11.2......+8.0..........+4.9....+0.3....-1.8
Alta........-7.6.......+4.8..........+0.5....+3.2....-1.1
BC..........-10.1......+7.7..........-0.2....+1.3.....0.0
This table compares polls from late September to the election call in the third week in October to the final official results.
My conclusion: fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a wild ride.
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