It is both Halloween and the eve before Gomery. There is much expectation in the air.
I propose to simply lay down a couple of bench marks tonight. First, the weighted average of the three most recent national polls:
Liberal - 38.4; Conservative - 28.0; NDP 17.0; BQ - 12.0; Green - 3.6.
And a seat calculation based on a weighted average of the three most recent polls where we have a regional breakout:
Liberal - 146; Conservative - 78; NDP- 22; BQ - 62.
Things have been drifting the Liberals way in recent months (although no majority) but it is not clear if public opinion at the moment has any solid foundations.
The numbers that cause my eyebrows to arch at the moment are comparatively strong Liberal statistics on the prairies. My intuitive reaction is to give them as much credence as the ghosts and goblins. We shall see.
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
Monday, October 31, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Polls and Sponsorship
There was an interesting review of a new book on the Liberal Party by Stephen Clarkson in the Saturday Globe and Mail. The review, written by Paul Martin political advisor and spinmeister John Duffy, included the following passage about the eruption of the sponsorship scandal in 2004.
Liberal polling showed that on the release of the Auditor-General's report, party support dropped 17 per cent in 48 hours, the most sudden, catastrophic plunge in Canadian political history. To the horror of Grits everywhere, the Liberal "brand" had become Enronesque at a stroke. It was only by sharing Canadians' horror at the revelations, announcing significant steps to remedy them and appointing the Gomery commission that Martin was able to recoup 12 points within days.
These numbers from “Liberal polling” are new to me. Curiously the rise and fall cited by Duffy is not evident in the published polls at the time, which showed the Liberals dropping by an average of 10.5 percentage points from an average of several polls in the six weeks preceding the AG report compared to the average of published polls in the month following but not recovering.
The average gap between the Liberals and Conservatives did fall from 28 to 11 points, a fall of 17 points which corresponds to Duffy’s 17 point drop but there was no recovery and the gap remained 11 points for the following month. The miraculous recovery of 12 points cited by Duffy is nowhere in evidence.
However, I do agree with his argument directed against Clarkson. In the review Duffy makes this statement: He (Clarkson) asserts uncritically the view that Paul Martin bungled by failing to cover up the sponsorship scandal. Duffy then goes on to argue: Saying "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," as Clarkson and others argue Martin should have done, would have created a cover-up issue, brought Martin directly into the scandal and doomed the Liberals as surely as Turner's midwifery of Trudeau's patronage had done a generation before.
I have seen the argument attributed here to Clarkson before, and I don’t understand it. Once the AG had taken aim at the sponsorship program, Martin did the only thing he could, which was distance himself from the whole mess. There are those who have the illusion that sweeping it under the carpet was still an option even after Sheila Fraser’s famous expressions of disgust at her news conference. The polls published and now, so it seems, internal to the Liberal Party, say otherwise.
Liberal polling showed that on the release of the Auditor-General's report, party support dropped 17 per cent in 48 hours, the most sudden, catastrophic plunge in Canadian political history. To the horror of Grits everywhere, the Liberal "brand" had become Enronesque at a stroke. It was only by sharing Canadians' horror at the revelations, announcing significant steps to remedy them and appointing the Gomery commission that Martin was able to recoup 12 points within days.
These numbers from “Liberal polling” are new to me. Curiously the rise and fall cited by Duffy is not evident in the published polls at the time, which showed the Liberals dropping by an average of 10.5 percentage points from an average of several polls in the six weeks preceding the AG report compared to the average of published polls in the month following but not recovering.
The average gap between the Liberals and Conservatives did fall from 28 to 11 points, a fall of 17 points which corresponds to Duffy’s 17 point drop but there was no recovery and the gap remained 11 points for the following month. The miraculous recovery of 12 points cited by Duffy is nowhere in evidence.
However, I do agree with his argument directed against Clarkson. In the review Duffy makes this statement: He (Clarkson) asserts uncritically the view that Paul Martin bungled by failing to cover up the sponsorship scandal. Duffy then goes on to argue: Saying "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," as Clarkson and others argue Martin should have done, would have created a cover-up issue, brought Martin directly into the scandal and doomed the Liberals as surely as Turner's midwifery of Trudeau's patronage had done a generation before.
I have seen the argument attributed here to Clarkson before, and I don’t understand it. Once the AG had taken aim at the sponsorship program, Martin did the only thing he could, which was distance himself from the whole mess. There are those who have the illusion that sweeping it under the carpet was still an option even after Sheila Fraser’s famous expressions of disgust at her news conference. The polls published and now, so it seems, internal to the Liberal Party, say otherwise.
Monday, October 17, 2005
A tale of two polls
Two recent polls – one by Ipsos-Reid, the other by Léger Marketing – on
The two surveys were back to back – Léger’s survey ran from Sept. 21-26 while Ipsos-Reid’s was conducted from Sept. 27 to Oct. 6. But Reid had the Tories ahead: Conservative – 38%, Liberals – 37%, NDP – 17% and Green – 7% while Léger gave the Grits a big lead of 43% to 31% for the Conservatives with 15% for the NDP and 11% for others.
So who to believe since it is implausible and the minute difference in survey periods would explain the shift. My guess is that Ipsos-Reid is closer to the truth. There have been several surveys over the past year reporting a narrow or non-existent gap between the two leading parties. Léger looks like an outlier but who knows. There is no election for another two years so we will never know for certain.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Polls this Summer
A conversation I had today told me that wrong impressions of what the polls have said this year are rampant.
Essentially, the status quo was upset in early April by the Brault testimony at Gomery. Liberal support began to plunge but was arrested by Paul Martin's speech on April 21. Wild fluctuations in party preference continued as various dramatic political developments unfolded - Martin's deal with the NDP, David Kilgour leaving the Liberals, Belinda Stronach joining - culminating in the squeaker of the confidence vote on May 18. After that we essentially witnessed a return more or less to the status quo ante.
It is all laid out in a graphic here. Note that I have used a three poll rolling average to smooth fluctuations (which I think are meaningless). My source for all these numbers was the table here.
What isn't shown is that after the May confidence vote, Harper's personal numbers plummeted while Layton's soared.
Essentially, the status quo was upset in early April by the Brault testimony at Gomery. Liberal support began to plunge but was arrested by Paul Martin's speech on April 21. Wild fluctuations in party preference continued as various dramatic political developments unfolded - Martin's deal with the NDP, David Kilgour leaving the Liberals, Belinda Stronach joining - culminating in the squeaker of the confidence vote on May 18. After that we essentially witnessed a return more or less to the status quo ante.
It is all laid out in a graphic here. Note that I have used a three poll rolling average to smooth fluctuations (which I think are meaningless). My source for all these numbers was the table here.
What isn't shown is that after the May confidence vote, Harper's personal numbers plummeted while Layton's soared.
More on OH-2
I have posted before about the by-election in Ohio’s 2nd Congressional district (here and here) and how it demonstrated the potential of the internet to marshal support. The blog MyDD has published a map of contributors to the campaign of Democrat Paul Hackett, who lost narrowly but may run next year for Senate. I think it illustrates well how the internet and the blogosphere is potentially a tremendously important political force. While its efficacy has been demonstrated in the U.S., we have yet to see anything comparable in Canada.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Liberal Caucus and Conservative Ads
The newspaper today brought word from the Liberal caucus meeting in Regina that their principal strategist, David Herle, sees the real prospect of a parliamentary majority emerging from the next election, while conceding that the sponsorship scandal is hurting in Quebec. This implies winning an additional 20 seats minimum in the rest of Canada, a very tall order. Herle makes some suggestions about how this might be done. Let me comment on them:
1. “Make real gains” in Ontario. Given the pattern of recent polls, in my view this is all but impossible. To do so would require raising the Liberal popular vote above the 45.6% received last time. In most recent polls 46% is roughly the highest level of support the Liberals have achieved. For most of its electoral history Ontario has been a three party province. The elections of 1993, 1997 and 2000, when the Liberals won almost all the seats in Ontario, are, in the broader run of history, exceptions not the rule.
2. Win between eight and ten seats in the Prairies. Let us assume he means Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. In the latter, they will be lucky to win back the two they won in 2004, especially given the fact one of the MPs, David Kilgour, has left the Liberal caucus to sit as an independent. Most polling in Manitoba/Saskatchewan has not been kind to the Liberals. The most recent Ipsos Reid poll reported the following: Conservative 34, NDP – 32 and Liberal -29. This would produce a net gain of one for the Liberals, the riding of Kildonan-St. Paul in Winnipeg. Doesn’t look like eight to ten to me.
3. There is a “paradigm shift” in B.C. and it “could move to us”. This is the most plausible of his assertions. The Liberals have quite consistently been ahead of the Conservatives and the NDP in polls in B.C. However, some in the spring were taken just before and just after the provincial election in which the provincial Liberals received 45% support. This almost certainly meant some spike in federal Liberal support. There is also a previous pattern of Liberal support in B.C. being higher between elections than on voting day. Nevertheless I don’t dismiss out hand his claims here. B.C. with its growing urban and increasingly ethnically diverse populations is changing from the B.C. of yesteryear. A strong Liberal result here at the expense of the Conservatives, who won 22 of 36 seats with just 36% of the vote in 2004, is conceivable. It is also equally plausible that there will be a strong NDP showing in B.C. that would limit Liberals gains.
David Herle has a reputation of being arrogant. And perhaps the news report doesn’t do justice to his presentation, given that later in the day he denied the report, embarrassed by the implication that the Liberals could ignore Quebec. The problem with the denial is that if you believe his scenario to be true, then a majority with zero gains in Quebec would be a possibility. Whatever the context, he does seem to be working with some very optimistic assumptions.
--------------------------------
On another front, the Conservatives are running some ads in Ontario that were clearly intended for airing in the last election. You can watch them on the web here. I would give them about a B- overall. They have an amateurish look to them with MP’s and Stephen Harper delivering scripts to a shaky hand held camera (to give it a faux cinema verité style) in a slightly wooden manner.
A few observations:
1. The health care ad, although ostensibly about waiting lists, appears to me to be intended to offer reassurance that the Conservatives will protect public health care.
2. The ads feature a number of women MPs. The visual grammar here implicitly addresses a Conservative weakness among female voters without explicitly talking about the issue. See, we wouldn’t really re-introduce a new abortion law with all these professional looking women in our caucus, would we?
3. Despite their weaknesses, the ads do have specific messages targeted at an audience of target voters the Conservatives hoped to win over including parents using private daycare, immigrants and suburban families.
4. There are moments when Harper comes across as just a bit too partisan/angry – reinforcing a real image problem he has.
5. The slogan ‘Stand up for Canada’. Not original. Used by another man of the political right, George Wallace, in 1968 as ‘Stand up for America’.
1. “Make real gains” in Ontario. Given the pattern of recent polls, in my view this is all but impossible. To do so would require raising the Liberal popular vote above the 45.6% received last time. In most recent polls 46% is roughly the highest level of support the Liberals have achieved. For most of its electoral history Ontario has been a three party province. The elections of 1993, 1997 and 2000, when the Liberals won almost all the seats in Ontario, are, in the broader run of history, exceptions not the rule.
2. Win between eight and ten seats in the Prairies. Let us assume he means Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. In the latter, they will be lucky to win back the two they won in 2004, especially given the fact one of the MPs, David Kilgour, has left the Liberal caucus to sit as an independent. Most polling in Manitoba/Saskatchewan has not been kind to the Liberals. The most recent Ipsos Reid poll reported the following: Conservative 34, NDP – 32 and Liberal -29. This would produce a net gain of one for the Liberals, the riding of Kildonan-St. Paul in Winnipeg. Doesn’t look like eight to ten to me.
3. There is a “paradigm shift” in B.C. and it “could move to us”. This is the most plausible of his assertions. The Liberals have quite consistently been ahead of the Conservatives and the NDP in polls in B.C. However, some in the spring were taken just before and just after the provincial election in which the provincial Liberals received 45% support. This almost certainly meant some spike in federal Liberal support. There is also a previous pattern of Liberal support in B.C. being higher between elections than on voting day. Nevertheless I don’t dismiss out hand his claims here. B.C. with its growing urban and increasingly ethnically diverse populations is changing from the B.C. of yesteryear. A strong Liberal result here at the expense of the Conservatives, who won 22 of 36 seats with just 36% of the vote in 2004, is conceivable. It is also equally plausible that there will be a strong NDP showing in B.C. that would limit Liberals gains.
David Herle has a reputation of being arrogant. And perhaps the news report doesn’t do justice to his presentation, given that later in the day he denied the report, embarrassed by the implication that the Liberals could ignore Quebec. The problem with the denial is that if you believe his scenario to be true, then a majority with zero gains in Quebec would be a possibility. Whatever the context, he does seem to be working with some very optimistic assumptions.
--------------------------------
On another front, the Conservatives are running some ads in Ontario that were clearly intended for airing in the last election. You can watch them on the web here. I would give them about a B- overall. They have an amateurish look to them with MP’s and Stephen Harper delivering scripts to a shaky hand held camera (to give it a faux cinema verité style) in a slightly wooden manner.
A few observations:
1. The health care ad, although ostensibly about waiting lists, appears to me to be intended to offer reassurance that the Conservatives will protect public health care.
2. The ads feature a number of women MPs. The visual grammar here implicitly addresses a Conservative weakness among female voters without explicitly talking about the issue. See, we wouldn’t really re-introduce a new abortion law with all these professional looking women in our caucus, would we?
3. Despite their weaknesses, the ads do have specific messages targeted at an audience of target voters the Conservatives hoped to win over including parents using private daycare, immigrants and suburban families.
4. There are moments when Harper comes across as just a bit too partisan/angry – reinforcing a real image problem he has.
5. The slogan ‘Stand up for Canada’. Not original. Used by another man of the political right, George Wallace, in 1968 as ‘Stand up for America’.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Dog Days of August Polls
New SES and Strategic Counsel polls were published today. While SES President Nik Nanos suggests his poll would mean a Liberal minority, my own calculations in fact produce a Liberal majority with the Grits at 164, the Conservatives all the way down to 62 and the NDP at 27. However, the Strategic Counsel numbers show a tighter outcome than SES, so, in combination I would guess the Liberals are actually still in minority territory.
The SES leadership numbers put Stephen Harper in free fall finishing behind Jack Layton in third place while Strategic Counsel reports that the sponsorship scandal, his principal political asset, is now a key issue for only 2%. Take this latter fact with a grain of salt. I am sure the Conservatives will be courteous enough to remind us all again and again about it in the closing weeks of the next campaign.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)