Toronto's Mayoralty Race

It is a close race.  The momentum and zeitgeist would appear to favour Rob Ford.  However, the race has effectively polarized into pro-Ford and anti-Ford camps to the extent that the many will abandon the left leaning candidate Joe Pantalone, and vote for big "L" Liberal George Smitherman.

The 2009 garbage strike is key to Ford's success in this campaign. It lasted a long time and caused considerable unhappiness at a time when the economic downturn was causing general stress. Add to that the resentments Ford has exploited with his complaints that there is some sort of  "gravy train" at city hall. These sentiments, however much they are divorced from reality, are more easily exploited in difficult economic times.

If one looks at demographics in the polls, one key factor helps Ford - he is most strongly supported by those over 60. One the other hand the better educated and more affluent favour Smitherman.  Polls do a terrible job of measuring and anticipating turnout. However, we know that the better educated and more affluent are more likely to vote, but so also do senior citizens.

If Ford does win, TC's view is that he would be a disastrously bad and unpopular mayor. Unfortunately, the city would be in for four years of real suffering as a consequence.  More so than is generally anticipated even by anti-Ford voters.  Ford looks much worse to TC, for example, than Mike Harris.

Obama's leadership skills

Obama is taking a great deal of heat right now.  It is unlikely that the Democrats will do well in the midterm elections because the economy in the U.S. remains in bad shape.  Brendan Nyhan has argued persuasively that it is this structural factor that is the key determinant of the off year election. One should remember that Obama continues to have good leadership skills as he faces mounting criticism the result of current political circumstances. I certainly remember thinking Reagan was politically finished after the 1982 off-year elections.

A couple of weeks ago Fareed Zakaria interviewed Steven Rattner, the Wall Street executive who headed up the Auto Bailout and has just written a book about it.  Zakaria started off by asking him what he thought of Obama as a CEO.  From the show transcript:

ZAKARIA: What do you think of President Obama as a CEO? You -- you spent a lot of time in the private sector. Was he a good CEO?

RATTNER: I thought he was a terrific CEO. It was interesting, because people said, well, what does he know about being a CEO? He's never managed anything besides a Senate staff. Of course, he did run a campaign pretty well.

But the fact was he was a natural. I thought he was a natural.

I have been around, as you say, a lot of CEOs over the years. But he was -- he didn't dwell on things. He was willing to make decisions, but he didn't sort of rush through and say, well, I've got 10 minutes to make this decision. I'm going to make it.

There was one famous day when he adjourned a meeting until later in the day so he could have more time to reflect on the question whether to save Chrysler, which is one of our toughest -- probably our toughest decision -- his toughest decision.

And I thought he was thoughtful. He did his homework. He came to the meetings having read his briefing papers. I can't imagine when he started running for president he thought dealing with Chrysler was going to be something he was going to have to do, but he -- he was a good soldier and he -- he dug into it.

And so, no. I came away with a lot of respect for his CEO qualities. 

The rest of the transcript is here (you have to scroll down).

When polls don't agree - Ontario and Manitoba

One can usually gauge political trends relatively easily.  Polls vary, but they don't tend to contradict one another dramatically, so one sits up and takes notice when this happens.  There have been a couple of interesting recent examples involving Ontario politics and Manitoba politics, two provinces that will be holding elections a year from now within a week of each other.

An Ipsos-Reid poll released on August 21 received considerable attention because it had the Ontario PCs ahead - 36% to 35% for the McGuinty Liberals and 18% for the NDP. However, a one percent difference is really a tie given the inherent uncertainties of polling, the margin of error, etc.  A poll released by Angus Reid on September 28, just five weeks later (too soon for any actual opinion shift to take place), suggested a very different outcome: an eleven point lead for the PCs, 41% to the Liberals 29% and 22% for the NDP.  The difference matters even more in terms of seats.  TC's forecast model says the Ipsos poll would produce a Liberal minority government of 51 seats, the Angus Reid poll a large PC majority.  They are so different that one can say with confidence that one of these polls is wrong.  With no immediate election, however, we will never know which one it is.

Perhaps we might get some clue as to what to believe from Manitoba.  There, three polls have been released in recent weeks and a similar pattern emerges.  The opposition PCs were reported on September 21 by Angus Reid to have a 15 point province wide lead over the governing NDP 49% to 34% with the Liberals in third at 12%.  It was preceded by a Viewpoints Research poll conducted Sept. 7-15th that had the NDP one point up on the PCs at 39% to 38% with the Liberals at 14%. This survey was followed by a Probe Research poll on October 7th that had the PCs at 42% and the NDP at 40% with the Liberals at 12%.  Again we would have different election outcomes.

Despite the PC lead in the Probe Research poll, the concentration of PC support outside the City of Winnipeg and its weak performance inside would produce an NDP government in a new election - the PCs lead the NDP 53-32 in rural areas but trail the New Democrats 46-35 in the city. TC estimates that the Probe poll would produce a legislature with 32 New Democrats, 23 PCs and 2 Liberals; the Angus Reid poll would produce a PC government with just 30 seats (despite their large overall lead) to the New Democrats 25 and the Liberals 2.

A key difference between the surveys is that Angus Reid does online polling while the others use traditional telephone methods.  Online surveys are relatively new methodology. TC thinks they need to be seen as experimental.  Reid uses large panels (they describe some of their methods here) recruited at least in part through internet ads (such as this).  I have heard that their panel is about 100,000 in Canada.  However, it is not clear that this gives them the truly representative sample they need to properly capture public opinion. And one wonders how large their Manitoba panel can be. 

Angus Reid (or Vision Critical as it is named on its web site) has been close on some election outcomes, including in 2008 in Canada, but they have also had some bad results. Earlier this year they managed to get the order of finish wrong in the UK general election. Reid's final UK poll results are here and the final election results here.  But what explains the apparent Tory tilt in the Manitoba and Ontario polls and the disagreement with traditional pollsters? While the Manitoba and Ontario numbers are suggestive, the limited poll set here can't really tell us anything conclusive.

We know well the methods of the telephone polls but what of the online polls? Their methods remain relatively opaque, and they still haven't established a reputation for accuracy and reliability.  While Vision Critical is not included in his assessment, Nate Silver rated online pollster Zogby the least accurate polling company in a review of the accuracy of dozens of US firms. Éric Grenier of the blog threehundredeight.com estimates the "house effects" (or partisan tilt to put it another way) of polls.  His estimate (top poll in table) suggests Angus Reid's polls are favourable to both the Conservatives and the NDP.

TC puts more stock in polls conducted using the telephone and remains skeptical of online polling. I would therefore see the overall races in Ontario and Manitoba as close and still competitive.  Nevertheless, the NDP in Manitoba will be looking for a fourth mandate (with a new leader), and the Ontario government a third. Both situations imply a change in government even if it is not yet clearly evident in the polling.

Why it is so difficult for Harper to win a majority

A column in yesterday's Star by Jim Travers renews the endless Ottawa speculation about a Harper majority and concludes that Harper "is closer than it appears to the majority he covets."  He quotes pollster Nick Nanos as saying:

Conservatives... are both efficient in converting votes into seats and unusually skilled at "repelling people from voting for others".

TC has discussed this issue before but it is worth reviewing again.  The largest obstacle to any party winning a majority under our current party system is that the Bloc Québecois controls between 40 and 50 seats in Quebec.  A majority must come from the seats that remain. If we assume the Conservatives can win at least 10 seats in Quebec (although most recent polls suggest it will be a few less) then the party must win 145 of the 233 seats outside Quebec to get a bare majority of 155 seats.  That 145 number is 62.2% of all non-Quebec seats. (It would be a little less if the Conservatives could win additional seats in Quebec.)

One can assess the likelihood of this by comparing it to the era prior to the advent of the Bloc when parties did not face the same obstacle to a majority.  I am ignoring the post 1993 period because as TC wrote before:

Chrétien's majorities were flukes in the sense that they depended on an even split between Reform/Alliance and PCs in Ontario and very low NDP numbers, which themselves were a product of a temporary decade-long depressed support level caused both by unpopular provincial governments (Harcourt/Clark in BC and Bob Rae in Ontario) and unusually weak federal leadership, principally Audrey McLaughlin. The NDP did begin to revive a bit under Alexa McDonough and gained new ground in Atlantic Canada but remained very weak in Ontario.

If we ask which majority governments won 62% or more of the seats in the pre-1993 period of Canadian history but after 1921 when third and fourth parties began to emerge, we find the PC majorities of Mulroney in 1984 and Diefenbaker in 1958 as well as the Liberal victories of St. Laurent in 1949 and 1953, and Mackenzie King in 1935 and 1940 (King's wins, however, were strongly affected by the depression and the war).  There weren't that many, they tended to be early wins (Mulroney in '84 and Dief in '58) and there have been just two since 1958. Trudeau was close in 1968 but he won just 58.3% of the seats.

As for Nanos two points: first, the Conservatives are not particularly efficient at converting votes into seats.  For example, look at all the wasted votes they accumulate in their huge majorities in Alberta.  Second, with respect to vote suppression, one should note that in the last election turnout was 58.8%, down from the previous three elections. It appeared to TC that it was particularly concentrated among Liberal voters who lacked confidence in Stéphane Dion. How much greater vote suppression can one realistically expect when over 40% of Canadians already don't show up at the polls?

What Travers and Nanos are asking us to believe (without reviewing the math outlined above) is that a government that has been around for six years can win more than 62% of the seats realistically available to it.  It is possible in the sense that anything is, but it is also not very likely.

Trends still favour New Brunswick PCs

The race in NB tightened up and the final polls are based on surveys more than a week old.  There is a good summary of all the details over at 308.com. It nevertheless looks like the PCs will wind up on top.  The excellent blog Politics from a New Brunswick Perspective foresees a tight race and a narrow PC victory. 

The politics of gun control

The gun registry lives on.

While one can understand the intense media interest in this, the commentary of the pundit class does drive one to distraction.  There are two particularly idiotic examples here and here (both of which ask us to accept that despite the Conservatives being poised to win the vote for many months, losing actually helps them). The clip of Harper on tonight's news says otherwise.

The whole issue matters much less electorally than meets the eye. To accept that it matters, one must believe there are a large number of voters in the constituencies of the NDP and Liberal members who switched their vote tonight to support the registry who, a), did not vote Conservative last time, but b), feel so passionately about this issue that they will hold that concern all the way to the next election, ignore all the other issues that come along, and support the Conservatives due to this consideration either primarily or alone.  Was this a big vote determining issue in 2006 in these places or 2008?  TC does not think so.  In any case most of the rural seats inclined to go Conservative are already safely in that party's camp.

The Liberals recognized the second time around the issue would not hurt them and could give them an advantage by being unified while the NDP was divided, all the while driving soft urban small 'l' liberal votes their way.  The wonderful Pundit's Guide has a detailed listing of the Liberal and NDP members who voted last time with the Conservatives to kill the gun registry.  If you look closely at the results in just these constituencies, there are no more than three or four that could be classified as both rural and holding real potential as Conservative gains in a new election.  The most obvious candidates are the NDP held ridings of Western Arctic (3.8% lead over the Cs) and Skeena (13.8%) and, among the Liberals, Malpeque (4.9%) and Yukon (13%).

There are a few other contests where the Conservatives might think about a challenge but in most constituencies, the principal challenger to the NDP is the Liberal candidate and vice-versa, or, as in the case of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and Welland the ridings are not rural (and presumably therefore not obsessed with gun control) - Esquimalt has a rural component but is mostly suburban Victoria while Welland is mainly industrial and urban.

In the end the vote was a victory for Jack Layton (who I suspect had at least one more vote in reserve).  The potential for a significant setback for the NDP was there, so he should be wiping his brow.  The Liberals might well have been able to use the gun registry vote as a tactical voting metaphor in urban areas in the next election.  In this case the difference between winning and losing was crucial.  In addition, losing is not good for the government (except possibly in fund raising if one accepts their claims) - there is always at least a brief negative honeymoon associated with a strategic defeat in a contest that they had expected to win.

Notwithstanding all the ballyhoo, TC does not expect this to be an issue or key voting consideration in the next federal election.

U.S. Midterms - What are the Democrats Prospects?

Most accounts of the Democrats prospects suggest a bleak midterm election result.  Until far right Christine O'Donnell (who once claimed to have dabbled in witchcraft) won the Republican nomination in Delaware over a moderate, the conventional wisdom was increasingly suggesting the Republicans could win both the House and the Senate.

I have followed all this but noted months ago that surveys reported again and again that the Republicans were more disliked than the Democrats.  The assumption has been that the declining economy and slumping income meant that this would be a very bad year for Democrats.  However, never before in a situation like this has the opposition party been so disliked.

Now there is an intriguing new analysis from Barry Pump, a grad student in political science at the University of Washington, that suggests we should indeed pay close attention to the survey evidence on the unpopularity of the Republican brand.

The argument is simple:

I’ve been looking at the low Republican favorability rating for a long time and always suggesting to friends who ask me about it that it’s more important than we think. People don’t vote for people they hate. But they may hold their nose and vote for people they dislike less.

And from a second post:

....my theoretical argument is that people don’t vote for parties they hate. They vote for the party they dislike the least relative to the other party. The leading counter argument, and the one that has pretty much dominated the narrative is different. That argument goes: because the economy is terrible, people will vote for the opposition party regardless of how much they dislike them. In other words, it’ll be a referendum election on the economy, and the economy stinks so Democrats will lose a bunch of seats, probably even the majority in the House. 

In order to predict how well parties should perform in the upcoming election analysts typically use polls on the generic Democrat or Republican ballot question. But Pump believes that more attention should be paid to the net favourability polls which report that the Republican Party is far more disliked than the Democratic Party.  Look at the bars on the far right of this graphic (Republicans are red) for the most recent party standings on this:

Mr. Pump compared the predictive value in past elections of the favourability surveys with the generic ballot. He acknowledges that there are data limitations on the analysis but concludes:

So what can we take away from this little discussion?

First, we’ve never been in a situation until now — as far as we have data to show it — where both parties were disliked but one party was disliked far more than another. We’ve also never been in a situation where the difference between the favorability rankings of the two parties was as great as it is now. (That’s from the first graph.)

Second, we’ve yet to be in a situation until now — as far as we have data to show it — where the favorability rankings of the two parties were so discordant with the generic ballot.

Third, given this new territory and the uncertainty of estimates made so far away from election day, analysts don’t know as much as we’d like about where things stand in US politics.

Fourth, there appears to be a puzzle about voter decision making embedded in all of this: under what conditions will voters choose a party they profoundly dislike over the party they merely dislike? And is a dismal economy one of those conditions?

And fifth, I’m inclined to think that while Democrats will lose many seats on Election Day, those losses will be tempered by the fact that the Republican Party “brand” has been deeply tarnished over the last six years and many voters don’t think the party is ready to govern again.