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Now that the other thread started at the same time as this on polling is full and closed, we might as well use this one up, will get a mod to change the thread title to # 9.
So continued from here
Last polling numbers were from Nanos as follows:
Conservative 35.6% (-3.9)
Liberal 33.9% (+3.7)
NDP 16.4% (-2.3)
BQ 8.5% (+0.8)
Green 5.6% (+1.6)
From the previous polling thread:
If they wish to remain viable as a federal political party, the Liberals will have no choice but to turn to Justin to lead them after the next election.
Why would the Liberals need a new leader after the next election? Does this mean you are predicting that the Liberals will lose the next election?
When I was here last week, people were telling me that the Conservatives would lose the next election.
So you have come around and are now predicting a Conservative win?
Tell me you are not stating that NR speaks for everyone here at babble, and that we are all of one mind, are you?
Tell me you are not stating that NR speaks for everyone here at babble, and that we are all of one mind, are you?
No, but it seems as if some of you are predicting a new Liberal leader. The logical conclusion from such a prediction would be that you are not predicting success for the current Liberal leader.
In any event, the tie in the polls may not last much longer. In a couple days the Olympics will begin and Canadians will become interested in what their athletes are doing and will not worry any more about the liberal media's focus on prorogation. Christina Blizzard recently exposed the biased coverage of the prorogation issue. The CBC is a pro-liberal party network that wanted to create a controversy for political advantage.
Then when Parliament returns in March, Canadians will be focused on what matters to them - jobs and the economy, and poll numbers will rise again.
What matters to Canadians is what Canadians say matters to Canadians, and they say, pretty damned consistently, that they want parliament to actually be working. They said it during the coalition fiasco, they said it when Iggy threatened an election, and they're saying it now.
Oh and Christina Blizzard and the Toronto Sun aren't biased? Are you saying that they are neutral and objective, perhaps "fair and balanced" Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining.
And, if you want my prediction...
2011 - Harper wins another minority, Iggy stays
2013 - Haper wins another minority, Iggy goes
2015 - Trudeau sweeps to power with majority
No, but it seems as if some of you are predicting a new Liberal leader. The logical conclusion from such a prediction would be that you are not predicting success for the current Liberal leader.
No....actually only one person was and you decided to make it a sweeping generalization. Just as you did again in this post as a matter of fact.
Certainly you are not trying to tell Canadians what they want to think about are you?
West Coast Greeny, I disagree with your prediction. I see Justin as a lightweight and young people of this day read "no logo". Trudeau is just a brand!
And, if you want my prediction...
2011 - Harper wins another minority, Iggy stays
2013 - Haper wins another minority, Iggy goes
2015 - Trudeau sweeps to power with majority
Whatever happened to the idea that Harper would be gone if he failed to win a majority after four tries? By 2015 the social, econonomic, environmental, and hence political landscape will have shifted considerably if not completely with likely no party having the same leader and possibly new parties.
Odds are greatest that the government will be gone with the next failure to achieve a majority: like I said before, even if Harper's still gaining and only 2 seats short of a majority.
Historically, such a plurality in a 3 party field, much lessa 4 party field, would virtually guarantee a returning minority government.
But it will end this government not because its the 4th failure- rather it will be the inevitable blow back on government by bullying.
I do not take it as a given that Harper will be out if he does not win a majority because coalitions and arrangements are hard to predict.
That said I do not think that it is certain that the Cons will even win a minority plurality of seats in the next election. Possible but not more likely than the Liberals.
I suspect the Liberals are ging to gain in Quebec substantially (they have recorded several near misses and I beleive a lot of BQ voters are getting fed up with Harper and may even hold their noses and give the Liberals a chance to a have a party with more seats in the House than Harper. I also think the Liberals may gain in Ontario many of the seats they lost previously to the Cons and that they along with the NDP will also gain in both NB and BC directly off the Cons column. I don't think the NDP will lose much if anything and may in fact make some gains including sliding up the middle to retake a seat in Sask.
EKOS
Canada
Conservatives: 31.0 (-)
Liberals: 29.0 (-1.9)
NDP: 15.5 (+0.1)
Bloc Quebecois: 10.3 (+1.9)
Green: 11.3 (+0.4)
Other: 2.8 (+0.4)
Undecided: 13.1 (-1.4
British Columbia (MoE 5.27)
Conservatives: 30.3 (-0.1)
NDP: 26.9 (+3.9)
Liberals: 24.1 (-3.5)
Green: 15.0 (-1.4)
Other: 3.7 (+1.0)
Alberta (MoE 6.46)
Conservatives: 57.1 (+5.0)
Liberals: 21.9 (+3.6)
NDP: 8.6 (-1.8)
Green: 8.1 (-4.9)
Other: 4.1 (-2.1)
Saskatchewan/Manitoba (MoE 7.35)
Conservatives: 45.5 (+5.6)
Liberals: 24.4 (+4.5)
NDP: 17.6 (-13.6)
Green: 10.3 (+2.4)
Other: 2.1 (+0.9)
Ontario (MoE 3.08)
Liberals: 36.2 (-4.4)
Conservatives: 31.0 (-1.4)
NDP: 16.7 (+2.7)
Green: 13.6 (+3.1)
Other: 2.4 (-)
Quebec (MoE 3.83)
Bloc Quebecois: 41.7 (+6.8)
Liberals: 23.1 (-3.9)
Conservatives: 16.0 (-1.8)
NDP: 8.3 (-1.5)
Green: 8.1 (+0.7)
Other: 2.7 (+1.0)
Atlantic Canada (MoE 6.68)
Liberals: 34.1 (-4.7)
Conservatives: 33.7 (+2.0)
NDP: 21.3 (+2.1)
Green: 9.1 (-0.5)
Other: 1.8 (-1.1)
The Ekos poll makes a point-- the last edition of this poll is the one that sparked a bit of a row with a person who was making such a big deal of the Sask - Manitoba numbers because they had increased-- I said pay no attention as they are not accurate. Here we see the number reversed. Either we conclude that the NDP has gone way up and then way down in those provinces or that the provincial numbers are a joke.
The major point is that if the problem is not a disagreement regarding a single aspect of methodology but one of quality then you can draw little from any individual poll. I have already made the point that there are numerous methodological differences but none of them explain variations between one edition and another where there is nothing going on out there to explain them. Low quality where the margin of error is much higher than advertised does explain all of these.
This may be a more important poll:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/11/bbc-poll-influence.html
Canadians care about what other people think of them and these findings if they are part of a longer term trend are going to affect people's confidence in the foreign policy of the country.
If you drill down, you recognize that this is from only last year when Canada may already have lost standing from previous years. Secondly the weakest point (given where the drops are) may be due to environmental policy.
Our broken immigration system may also be a factor (some of the biggest hits come from countries where applying to visit Canada has become more of a hassle and where immigration files have been facing longer waits).
What if all the polls except Nanos and CROP are bogus?
Tories do well in poll - but with protest, not so much
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/tories-do-well-in-poll-...
And 1 time out of 20 they will be bogus as well.
With polls it only means something if several agree and do so over time.
That Harper lost support over proregation seems to ahve been confirmed -- specific numbers are crap.
Environics
Libs - 37%
Cons - 33%
NDP - 13%
NR, those numbers came in a poll that was commissioned by the group advocating on behalf of income trust investors. The sample was not likely to be as NDP-friendly, just based on who would be interested in completing such a survey.
So only B.C. has NDP as 2nd favorite. We will send even more NDP MPs to the house next time as the Cons fall from grace and the Libs remain with Iffy as leader. Maybe it will happen across Canada like that, or do they need a new leader? Will they be forced by Jack's illness to find one? Can they find a superstar NDP leader that could sweep the nation [like many Libs are hoping for too, eh N.R.]?
NS
I think Layton will be around for another election or two, seeing as he has been relatively successful as the NDP Leader. I'm anticipating a breakthrough for the NDP in Quebec next election.
Leger
Quebec
Bloc - 38%
Libs - 27%
Cons - 16%
NPD - 12%
AngusReid Strategies (Vision Critical)
Cons - 34%
Libs - 30%
NDP - 18%
Bloc - 9%
The Tories remain the most popular party in Alberta (62%) and Manitoba and Saskatchewan (48%).
In British Columbia, the governing party is holding on to the top spot (36%), with the NDP (30%) maintaining its edge over the Liberals (26%).
In Ontario, a tight race continues. The Tories (37%) are barely ahead of the Grits (35%), followed by the NDP with 17 per cent and the Greens at 11 per cent.
In Quebec, the Bloc is first with 35 per cent (-7), followed by the Liberals with 28 per cent (+2), the NDP with 14 per cent (=), and the Conservatives also with 14 per cent (+3).
Harris Decima
Cons - 32%
Libs - 30%
NDP - 16%
Tories take early gold in polls
In keeping with the Olympic spirit, it's gold so far for Stephen Harper's Conservatives, according to two new national public opinion polls.
And in keeping with Canadians' generous spirit, NDP Leader Jack Layton has received a slight bump in public perception, an increase the latest Angus Reid survey attributes to news he is suffering from prostrate cancer.
Mr. Layton's approval numbers are at 29 per cent, up 2 per cent, since the firm's last poll in late January.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/tories-take-early-gold-...
It looks like the anger over prorogation has faded and that things are returning to normal.
We missed you Augustus.
Your're premature. Looked at the other way- if your fondest wishes come true, your party may get back to where they were before you decided to stir the pot.
Only 1 week left in the O Show, and many weeks left until prorogation is over....
Not to worry the train wreck that is the olympic is making canadians sick. Most of the people I work with are A pissed that it isn't televised(350,000 in our region no CTV) B upset at the cost of the olympics, and C watching what an embaressment this has been. How is the view of the torch things...sorry you can't get close to it like all the elites are aloud to do.
The latest Ekos is out:
http://ekos.ca/admin/articles/cbc-2010-02-18.pdf
CPC - 31%
Libs - 29%
NDP - 16.5% (up 1% from last week)
Where is the Olympic bounce for the Tories??? Even in BC where you'd think it would be happening, Tory support has been 30% for three straight weeks - that is a FIFTEEN point drop from the 45% they got in BC in the '08 election!!
If IR were to be believed Canadians can thank our lucky stars there will be no election this year.
Cons - 37%
Libs - 29%
NDP - 16%
Voters would elect another Tory minority: Poll
Harper's personal numbers, though, have suffered over the last three months. When survey respondents were asked if their impression of the prime minister had improved over the last three months, about one in 10 (12 per cent) said it had but four in 10 (38 per cent) said their impression of Harper had worsened.
"This is fairly typical for Harper," Bricker said. "Very rarely has he ever had a time of public positive momentum. He's a controversial leader and even though people respect him, they don't personally warm to him."
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, too, has had a rough few months, with about one in 10 (12 per cent) saying they had a better impression of the Liberal leader but about three in 10 (29 per cent) saying their impression had worsened.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, though, is viewed more favourably at the end of the prorogation period, with just one in 10 (12 per cent) feeling worse about him but two in 10 (18 per cent) feeling better about him.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Voters+would+elect+another+Tory+mino...
Polls galore today!
Let's go from bad to good:
Ipsos week old poll says: Tories 37%, Libs 29%, NDP 16%
Harris-Decima says: Tories and Libs tied at 31% each, NDP 16%
Angus Reid says: Tories 33%, Libs 29%, NDP 20% (!) - I'll take it!
I think we now know why the Liberals are jealously taking potshots at Jack Layton every nasty little chance they get.
Even Warren Kinsella knows it's not looking good for Iggy ... and that was *before* the Angus Reid numbers came out:
http://www.warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry100301-202713
Does anyone know what the seat projections would be for NDP with 20% in the polls. The NDP should get a minimum of 50 seats in the next election, and more are possible. Nice to see the NDP picking up steam with 22% support in Ontario.
Latest ARS poll:
Party/ Poll / 2008 Election
Cons - 33% / 38% / down 5%
Libs - 30% / 26% / up 4%
NDP - 20% / 18% / up 2%
VisionCritical (ARS)
NDP results
BC - 25%
AB - 9%
SK/MB - 15%
ON - 22%
QC - 16% (Up 4% from 2008 election - Not too shabby!)
AC - 27%
Total - 20%
Ontario is also up 4% from the last election. Its funny with the polls one will have the NDP doing really well in the west but badly in Ontario - then another one (like this one) will show us doing well in Ontario and not so well out west.
If you had the high water mark of recent polls reached in all regions at once the party would be around 22-3%.
The question is -- is the highwater mark realistic or polling inaccuracy? As I said in another thread a jump to the mid twenties may come with little warning. I don't think that this is incremental-- there are tipping points that large numbers of people have in common. Anyway, I've commented at length about this in another thread on waht it would take to get to 25% (or better).
Here is what I think is very possible in the next election. let's assume that the NDP loses no ground anywhere.
Say that the 26% in Atlantic from last time stays about the same.
There is more growth in Quebec and the 12% from 2008 grows to 15%.
There is an inch up in Ontario from 18% to 20% (perfectly possible given the number of times the NDP took 20-21% in Ontario all thorugh the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Then as a result of falling Tory support, we manage to gain a couple of points in Man/Sask from 25% last time to 27% - keep in mind that as recently as the 2000 election the NDP took close to 30% of the vote in Man/Sask.
maybe Alberta stays stuck at 13%
Then in BC if we even took the 26% from the 2008 election back up to the 29% that was won in 2006.
Add it all up and that is what could put the NDP nationally at about 20/21%
You know what region always gets overlooked in these discussions: the North.
The NDP has at one time or another in the last 30 years held every one of those three northern seats. Does anyone have any insights into what's going on in Yukon these days, or how popular Leona Agglukaq is at home?
You got to think that home town girl as fairly highly regarded Health Minister counts for a LOT in Nunavut... that it would take hard core sentiments against her or the government to trump that.
True, Ken, but Iqaluit is also a small town and not everyone supported her approach in the territorial government. I also suspect the way the community dinner at the G-8 Fiance Ministers meeting was handled would have wound up making people feel bad when none of the ministers attended, and I'm not sure how that would have reflected on the government. But I was just looking for any on-the-ground intel.
Interesting thing about Yukon--Audrey's old turf--is that the NDP was a poor *fourth* there last time (though I'd definitely be cautious about using that as a benchmark)
Tories hold lead over Liberals: EKOS
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/03/03/ekos-voter-intention-poll.html
Never heard about this, could you detail what happened, or give a link, please?
Maybe after a meeting with Layton - Harper screams "The creature has stolen the space modulator!!"
Maybe after a meeting with Layton - Harper screams "The creature has stolen the space modulator!!"
In the Ekos daily numbers the Conservatives had a 16% lead for March 2 so I guess that's their temporary Olympic bounce
Remind, I don't have easy access to links right now, but if you google Jim Flaherty Iqaluit Finance Ministers meeting and seal meat, you should find what you're looking for.
Never heard about this, could you detail what happened, or give a link, please?
Iqaluit handles summit without a hitch
"We're quite proud," said Elisapee Sheutiapik, the mayor of Iqaluit, who said the foreign visitors likely had an experience of a lifetime. Yet she expressed some disappointment that none of them came to the country dinner.
...
The Inuit followed through with their plan to showcase the importance of seal meat to their local culture. Their campaign was highly visible and not the least bit aggressive. Virtually everywhere the visitors went, there was seal skin. Outside the Nunavut legislature - which served as the main venue for the G7 meeting - an igloo was set up with a seal skin drying outside.
...
Several of the European visitors gladly took up Mr. Flaherty's call to go dog-sledding and some checked out the igloo, but the seal issue clearly made them uncomfortable.
Huh, how very rude of them, thank you scott.......
Yeah, but the pushy tactics of the Conservatives kind of set them up for that kind of disappointment. Of course the Europeans couldn't be seen by their own media to sell out the vitriolic anti-seal hunt folks back home. So, in getting the Inuit to do all that preparation for a dinner they knew or ought to have known would be politically impossible for the other finance ministers to attend, I think the government people were being a bit too clever by half, and setting up the Inuit for a disappointment. They never should have been put in that position.
ETA: BTW, thanks for hauling up that link, Scott.
never under estimate the Conservatives ability to amuse themselves at others expense.
I suppose Layton's leadership is so strong the Globe though it should discuss the leadership of the also-rans instead.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-rides-olympic-bounce...
maybe those who commissioned the poll did not even ask the question
Actually the full Harris Decima results are available:
http://www.harrisdecima.com/sites/default/files/releases/2010/03/09/hd-2...
Note that Layton has 48% approval (and just 36% disapproval). Compare that to Harper's 41% approval/49% disapproval and Iggy's 29% approval and 51% disapproval.
Layton is the only leader nationally with a net approval rating
Easy stock we have never let facts get in the way of a good old NDP ashing in the media before> I would hate for it to start happening now.
Always the optimist eh Sean!
I value honest truthful inquiry over propaganda even if it is the propaganda of my side.
And actually I am optimistic-- so much so that I don't have to stretch all credulity by celebrating every positive, yet insubstantial blip as if it were something meaningful even though any unbiased observer would recognize it as meaningless.
I find the interpretation of any positive blip in the polls to be more like seeing faces in the clouds than political analysis and just as useful.It would be easy to ignore if it did not involve several victory lap-style content-free posts. At times I find it easier to ignore these extreme posts as static but at other times I find that much static to be in the way of more considered opinion -- just as I find those who cite the coming of summer to be a sign of global warming to provide a disservice to a valid argument. I find the meaningless celebrations of non-events get in the way of recognition of real solid progress - and there has been some of that.
You are not remarking with the same emphasis on the NDP numbers in the other polls showing the 15-16% the party has often been in recently I guess just leaves room to declare the same type of victory the next time the NDP hits 20% in a single poll.
I do think it is a problem that many polling questions seek opinions on only the government and the official opposition when in fact the gap between the official opposition and other opposition parties does not justify the line being drawn there. The fact that the Liberals are said to be the only other party that could be expected to govern after the next election is in many respects a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Actually the full Harris Decima results are available:
http://www.harrisdecima.com/sites/default/files/releases/2010/03/09/hd-2...
Note that Layton has 48% approval (and just 36% disapproval). Compare that to Harper's 41% approval/49% disapproval and Iggy's 29% approval and 51% disapproval.
Layton is the only leader nationally with a net approval rating
Too bad that 48% approval doesn't translate into voting intention. The approval/disapproval numbers are largely meaningless. Voting intention and maybe best PM a smidgeon are all that really counts.
Sorry, not trying to be snippy there, just realistic.
Campaigns matter and I would rather go into an election campaign with leader with 48% approval than with one who has 29% approval. Vote intention is often a lagging indicator.
BTW: The Ipsos poll that came out last week also had Layton as a solid second on the best person for PM question.
So take that Eee-yore!
I like that analogy.
C.(on)B.C. was crowing about the cons leading this morning after the budget(so they didn't factor this weeks shenanigans good job ekos best spin you can manage)
Cons 32
Libs 30
NDP(well back as the reporter said) 16
2% is probab;y the margin of error but yeah they are leading, I think ekos had them with a larger lead in the last poll which then should have been reported as tory lead cut to just 2% but we can't have that. I am pretty pissed at how bad the CBC is a mouthpiece for the cons. Power and Politics this week has not been any better with Barton. Terrible.
Maybe this Kady O'Malley is a little smarter than what we're used to seeing in our national press. She seems to grasp things a bit better than most of the rest of the flock. The Liberal CBC will have to reign her in with comments like these:
EKOS of the Day: Nothing to see here, folks -- move along, move along.
If I had to declare a winner for this week, it would be the NDP -- which is up nearly a full point nationally, although given how not awesome last week's numbers weer, that's less cause for raucous celebration and more deserving of a quiet sigh of relief for Team Orange. Everyone else seems mired in meh
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/03/ekos-of-the-day-nothing-to-see-here-folks----move-along-move-along.html
Thanks remind
working link to kady's article
EKOS again has the Greens at a surprisingly high level of support -11%, vs 6.7 in the last election. Almost everyone thinks this is a mirage and the Greens will melt down considerably come polling day.
If we accept that the Green vote in some polls, like EKOS, is artificially large, how should be read the poll? Does it really relect a 2% lead by the Conservatives over te Liberals with the NDP at 16%? Or should we read it in light of the expected racheting down of the Green vote to its general election level or less?
Personally I think it really refects something like Con 32.5, Lib 32, NDP 18, and Greens 6%.
A month ago EKOS asked about second preferences. The numbers among Green voters were: C 9.7, L 26.1, N 25.7, B 6.4, none 30.0
Assuming that the true Green vote is only about half of what the polls reflect, the Cons should be more worried.Why doesn't the CBC tell us something we don't know. Duh!
Kory's Tories media-not-so-friendlies list: Yup, we made it...
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/03/korys-tories-media-not...
Tied my ass. The NDP received close to 3 times the support the Greens did in our last election.
But this is the kind of misleading polling our mainstream press (read mainly Liberal, with the balance being primarily Conservative) love to publish to try and manipulate voters with going into an election campaign. Three weeks before the last federal election campaign this is what they came up with.
We're No. 2: NDP, Greens tied as second choices, poll says
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?pid=1447&cpcat=election&stry=137746062
I'm sure it's not hard for people to figure out which polling company was involved here.
Yes, that was a funny blast from the past!
Still, I think it may have been true that the Green party might have been an acceptable second choice for a lot of voters last time. However, either that was amongst firm supporters of other parties who didn't have a reason to switch, or else it was amongst voters who didn't want to support either their first or second choices (I'm thinking disillusioned Liberals) and just stayed home instead.
One difference now is that the national media has written off Elizabeth May as flaky. The "Green" name on its own obviously still has some attraction in some of these polls, but add it to the leader's name, or require people to actually volunteer who'll they'll vote for, and I think we'll find that the momentum has petered out for them.
The Liberals realize that they got badly burned by their gambit with the Greens last time, too. I think they thought it was a way to drain off NDP votes, but it just drained some of off their own instead. So, I doubt you'll see the big Liberal pollsters (like Bruce Anderson of Harris Decima, quoted in the above story from September 2008) pushing the Greens much more this time. If the party loses votes in the next election, I think at least one polling firm will even stop prompting for their name.
I assume a lot of nonvoters say "Green" and that Green supporters seem to draw disproportionately from the NDP (i.e. when we hear Greens boasting about 11-12% in Ontario, say, usually the NDP is at something like 13-14%) and hardly at all from the Conservatives.
I agree LP.
The NDP should change its name to the Green New Democratic Party until this GPC is completely routed. To suggest that the GPC hierarchy, the decision-makers, are progressive is one of the biggest political con jobs ever perpetuated on Canadians.
Though it appears in the last election the Dion-May deal seemed to ironically shift a lot of Liberal votes to the Greens in the last election.
There is a new Leger poll out in Quebec:
BQ 37% (-1%)
Libs 25% (-2%)
Cons 17% (+1)
NDP 14% (+2)
http://www.ledevoir.com/documents/pdf/sondage_federal.pdf
Here is a very good article from the UK exploding some myths about political polling:
http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
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1) The polls are ALL wrong, the real position is obviously X
Er… based on what? The reality is that opinion polling is pretty much the only way of measuring public opinion. We have some straws in the wind from mid-term elections, but they tend to be low turnout protest votes, don’t tend to predict general election results and are anyway quite a long time ago now. Equally a few people point to local government by-elections, but when compared to general election results these normally grossly overestimate Liberal Democrat support. If you think the polls are wrong just because they “feel” wrong to you, it probably says more about what you would like the result to be than anything about the polls.
2) I speak to lots of people and none of them will vote for X!
Actually, so do pollsters, and unless you regularly travel around the whole country and talk to an exceptionally representative demographic spread of people, they do it better than you do. We all have a tendency to be friends with people with similar beliefs and backgrounds, so it is no surprise that many people will have a social circle with largely homogenous political views. Even if you talk to a lot of strangers about politics, you yourself are probably exerting an interviewer effect in the way you ask.
3) How come I’ve never been invited to take part?
There are about 40 million adults in the UK. Each opinion poll involves about 1,000 people. If you are talking about political voting intention polls, then probably under 100 are conducted by phone each year. You can do the sums – if there are 40,000,000 adults in the UK and 100,000 are interviewed for a political opinion poll then on average you will be interviewed once every 400 years. It may be a long wait.
4) They only interview 1000 people, you’d need to interview millions of people to make it accurate!
George Gallup used to use a marvellous analogy when people raised this point: you don’t need to eat a whole bowl of soup to tell if it is too salty, providing it is sufficently stirred a single spoonful will suffice. The same applies to polls, providing an opinion poll accurately reflects the whole electorate (e.g, it has the right balance of male and female, the right age distribution, the right income distribution, people from the different regions of Britain in the correct proportions and so on) it will also accurately reflect their opinion.
In the 1930s in the USA the Literary Digest used to do mail-in polls that really did survey millions of people, literally millions. In 1936 they sent surveys to a quarter of the entire electorate and received 2 million replies. They confidently predicted that Alf Landon would win the imminent US Presidential election with 57% of the popular vote and 370 electoral votes. George Gallup meanwhile used quota sampling to interview just a few thousand people and predicted that Landon would lose miserably to Roosevelt. In reality, Roosevelt beat Landon in a landslide, winning 61% of the vote and 523 electoral votes. Gallup was right, the Digest was wrong.
As long as it is sufficent to dampen down sample error, it isn’t the number of people that were interviewed that matters, it is how representative of the population they are. The Literary Digest interviewed millions, but they were mainly affluent people so their poll wasn’t representative. Gallup interviewed only a few thousand, but his small poll was representative, so he got it right.
5) Polls give the answer the people paying for it want
The answers that most clients are interested in are the truth – polls are very expensive, if you just wanted someone to tell you what you wanted to hear there are far cheaper sources of sycophancy. The overwhelming majority of polling is private commercial polling, not stuff for newspapers, and here clients want the truth, warts and all. Polling companies do political polling for the publicity, there is comparatively little money in it. They want to show off their accuracy to impress big money clients, so it would be downright foolish for them to sacrifice their chances with the clients from whom they make the real money to satisfy the whims of clients who don’t really pay much (not to mention that most pollsters value their own professional integrity too much!)
6) Pollsters only ask the people who they know will give them the answer they want
Responses to polls on newspaper websites and forums sometimes contain bizarre statements to the effect that all the interviews must have been done in London, the Guardian’s newsroom, Conservative Central Office etc. They aren’t, polls are sampled so they have the correct proportion of people from each region of Britain. You don’t have to trust the pollsters on this – the full tables of the polls will normally have breakdowns by demographics including region, so you can see just how many people in Scotland, Wales, the South West, etc answered the poll. You can also see from the tables that the polls contain the right proportions of young people, old people and so on.
7) There is a 3% margin of error, so if the two parties are within 3% of each other they are statistically in a dead heat
No. If a poll shows one party on 46% and one party on 45% then it is impossible to be 95% confident (the confidence interval that the 3% margin of error is based upon) that the first party isn’t actually on 43%, but it is more likely than not that the party on 46% is ahead. The 3% margin of error doesn’t mean that any percentage with that plus or minus 3 point range is equally likely, 50% of the time the “real” figure will be within 1 point of the given figure.
8 ) Polls always get it wrong
In 1992 the pollsters did get it wrong, and most of them didn’t cover themselves in glory in 1997. However, lessons have been learnt and the companies themselves have changed. Most of the companies polling today did not even exist in 1992, and the methods they use are almost unrecognisable – in 1992 everyone used face-to-face polling and there was no political weighting or reallocation of don’t knows. Today polling is either done on the phone or using internet panels, and there are various different methods of political weighting, likelihood to vote filtering and re-allocation of don’t knows. In 2001 most of the pollsters performed well, and in 2005 they were all within a couple of points of the actual result, with NOP getting it bang on.
9) Polls never ask about don’t knows or won’t votes
Actually they always do. The newspapers publishing them may not report the figures, but they will always be available on the pollsters’ own website. Many companies (such as ICM and Populus) not only include don’t knows in their tables, but estimate how they would actually vote if there was an election tomorrow and include a proportion of them in their topline figures.
Latest Nanos Poll
No Post Budget Bounce for Tories
(Nanos Poll Completed March 12th 2010)
Nik on the Numbers
The latest research indicates that there is no post- Olympic, post-Throne Speech or budget bounce for the Conservatives. In terms of the Olympics, it's unlikely that Canadians associated positive national sentiment toward the Olympics with the Conservative government. Likewise, the "stay the course" budget had little in it to break the deadlock between the Conservatives and the Liberals. (34.7% for Conservatives and 34.6% for Liberals).
Support for all the federal parties remains relatively stable.
Based on the current situation, an immediate election is unlikely in the short term unless there is a new political revelation which could rock the government or the Liberals. The next realistic election windows include the Fall of 2010 or early 2011 prior to the next federal budget.
To chat about this poll join the national political online chat at Nik on the Numbers. The detailed tables and methodology are posted on our website along with regional breakdowns. You can also register to receive automatic polling updates.
Methodology
Nanos conducted a random telephone survey of 1,000 Canadians, 18 years of age and older, between March 6th and March 12th 2010. A survey of 1,000 Canadians is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20, for 804 committed voters, it is accurate to within 3.5 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20. Margins may be larger for smaller samples.
Ballot Question: For those parties you would consider voting for federally, could you please rank your top two current local preferences? (Committed voters only - First Preference)
The numbers in parenthesis denote the change from the last Nanos National Omnibus survey completed between January 29th and February 4th, 2010.
National Committed Voters Only (n=804)
Conservative 34.7% (-0.9)
Liberal 34.6% (+0.7)
NDP 17.8% (+1.4)
BQ 7.7% (-0.8)
Green 5.2% (-0.4)
Note: Undecided 19.6% (-2.3) of total voters surveyed
Feel free to forward this e-mail. Any use of the poll should identify the source as the latest "Nanos Poll."
Latest Nanos Poll
Conservative 34.7% (-0.9)
Liberal 34.6% (+0.7)
NDP 17.8% (+1.4)
BQ 7.7% (-0.8)
Green 5.2% (-0.4)
What's surprising about this poll is that the BQ seems to have lost support and is now tied with the Liberals in Quebec. If this is true, the BQ will want to avoid an election and will prop up the Cons if necessary.
It'll be interesting to see if this tie between the BQ and Liberals in Quebec is replicated in future polls.
The Ignatieff Liberals are scared shitless about having an election right now as they know, even with all the Harper gaffes, there is no hope for them to form government. Probably the only Liberal who wants an election now is Bob Rae.
As far as Quebec polling, it is usually CROP and Leger that have an accurate handle on what is happening there.
The Ignatieff Liberals are scared shitless about having an election right now as they know, even with all the Harper gaffes, there is no hope for them to form government. Probably the only Liberal who wants an election now is Bob Rae.
As far as Quebec polling, it is usually CROP and Leger that have an accurate handle on what is happening there.
NR, I am somewhat confused. I have a question for you:
I assume that you are a NDP supporter? Is that correct? Now, imagine for a second that the NDP mysteriously vanishes, would you say that your ideology more closely aligns with the Harper Conservatives or Ignatieff liberals if you were on a "desert island" and those were the only 2 choices left. If you could please stay away from using the line, "they're both the same", I'd appreciate it. It just seems to me that you have more hatred for the Ignatieff Liberals than you do for that psycho maniac Harper which I find bizarre.
Imagine for a second that the NDP mysteriously vanishes, and you were on a desert island with Steven Harper and Michael Ignatieff. Would the political situation you found yourself in be extremely different than the political situation you find yourself in today?
If water started flowing upwards and the sky turned Green, would the NDP still be worth supporting?
If Jack Layton were to drown you in peanut butter, would you think he was an appropriate leader for the NDP?
Rob8305, it is your questions i find bizarre.
While the Liberals and Conservatives are not equal, they are equally unacceptable as governing parties.
Wishful (even robotic) thinking on the Liberals' part, I suspect NR, although your comment on peanut butter did make my afternoon ! ;-)
If you could please stay away from using the line, "they're both the same", I'd appreciate it. It just seems to me that you have more hatred for the Ignatieff Liberals than you do for that psycho maniac Harper which I find bizarre.
Well stick around babble for awhile, there are a number of babblers who do think they are essentially the same.
Personally, I think the parties are different in two ways:
1) During election campaigns, and occasionally when the Liberals are in opposition* - Liberals will promise to be progressive. Conservatives don't make that promise.
2) In minority parliaments*, Liberals can occasionally be forced to act in progressive ways.
However, when it comes to how the parties act in majority government situations - I personally don't see any difference.
*Does not apply during Michael Ignatieff's leadership.
NR, I am somewhat confused. I have a question for you:
I assume that you are a NDP supporter? Is that correct?
Isn't NR a Conservative spin doctor?
Paul Martin legalized SSM, stood up for aboriginal rights with the Kelowna accord, was moving towards the legalization of marijuana, passed the new deal for cities and set up the health care fix at the first ministers' conference in 2004. Martin did this in the context of an unbelievably tenous minority to be sure but the Cons would never make such conessions in a minority parliament to hold onto power. We also have the unmistakable legacy of Pierre Trudeau. We also have the legacy of the Liberals bringing down the government in 1988 to force an election on the FTA. We also have the liberals bringing in gun control and standing up to the cons draconian crime legislation. Cons are secretly pro death penalty. Liberals anti.
Now their #2 MP is Bob Rae!!!! Bob Rae of all people. Bob Rae is as far away from Conservative ideology as you can possibly get.
I have no idea why Chretien lurched so unbelievably far to the right in the 1990s but the Liberals have a strong progressive tradition. Once Ignatieff loses the next election, Rae or Justin Trudeau will take over the leadership and the Liberals will become progressive once more.
There is a huge difference between the cons and libs. What you are probably seeing right now is the right-wingers are still running the show in the Liberal party through their proxy, Michael Ignatieff, who actually was pushed for the leadership by Chretien who was engaged STILL in his never-ending war with Paul Martin. All influence of Chretien/Martin needs to be drained ASAP from the Liberals.
I personally would like to see a Liberal/NDP merger to take on the Con montrosity. The "experts" say that the 2 parties are too disparate but I am not entirely convinced that it couldn't work. What came out of a policy convention would be fascinating.
As for me, I think of myself as a progressive pragmatist/realist.
Well this seems like a good time to enter a brief exerpt from Brian Topp's new book (which just arrived by mail this afternoon) into the record. He is writing about the previous time the NDP tried to work with the Liberals in government:
A good budget was passed as a result. Layton and his caucus were pleased. They thought they were finally starting to get some results in the minority Parliament, exactly as Layton had hoped. The NDP team in Parliament was therefore willing to do more business with the Martin government. But the Prime Minister wasn't interested.
Instead, as a senior official in Mr. Martin's Privy Council Office explained to me over lunch in the early fall of 2005, the Martin Liberals decided on a political offensive. They concluded that there was "no danger on the right" (a ludicrous conclusion, as it turned out), but there was one on their left--us.
That being so, the Martin team's political priority was to eradicate the NDP in a late-2005 or early-2006 election campaign. To that end, in the summer of 2005, a number of Martin's politicos travelled to London to study the language and political framing used by the British Labour Party. The Liberals worked hard to court high-profile New Democrats who might be persuaded to switch parties and run as right-wing Martinite Liberals in the next federal election. And, in the fall of 2005, the Martin government began issuing a series of press releases designed to reposition itself on top of Jack Layton's NDP.
The Liberals were suddenly committed to early action on child care, cities, First Nations, the environment, safe communities, and many other issues they thought would persuade NDP voters to switch to them. Little was actually done about any of these pressing national issues, but the Martin government communications team certainly astonished many non-governmental organizations and city mayors, whose previously ignored memos and briefs were suddenly spinning out of the PMO in the form of mock-British Labour Party government press releases.
Concurrently, the federal Liberal Party was being eaten alive by an inquiry into a publicly funded political slush fund used to sponsor festivals and other events in the province of Quebec .... The federal New Democratic Party was therefore coming under growing pressure internally to stop cooperating with the Liberals .... In particular, former federal leader Ed Broadent ... was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with a policy of open-ended support for Mr. Martin's government in the circumstances that were facing us in the fall of 2005 ....
Layton then offered to support the Liberal government for another brief period, provided the Martin government agreed to take some appropriate steps to ensure that Canada's public health-care system was not further eroded by the Chaoulli decision. We had in mind a reinforcement of the Canada Health Act.
We made this offer privately and publicly.
In response, Prime Minister Martin allowed himself to be quoted in The Globe and Mail telling his caucus that he would not permit the NDP to make health care an issue, because "health care is a Liberal issue"....
[Martin transfers billions to the provinces to "fix healthcare for a generation" with no associated conditions.]
Nonetheless, the Martin team seemed to feel they now owned the medicare file. They felt entitled to it. They were in no mood to "share" it with the NDP. Quite the contrary. They hoped to use it to help crack the New Democrats in the coming federal election.
[Martin tells Layton they would consider what the NDP was saying, and refers it to Ujjal Dosanjh.]
If Mr. Martin had been looking for a minister who would settle Layton down and to make the issue we were raising go away, he picked the wrong guy .... Mr. Dosanjh had now become a particularly bitter, anti-NDP hit man in his new guise as a right-wing Martinite Liberal .... [He] made himself briefly available to Layton as his team. The Liberal health minister dismissed our caucus's concerns about the Supreme Court ruling, saying in as many words the the Martin Liberals were not going to do anything about it, notwithstanding our views. That being so, the NDP caucus concluded it could and would no longer support the Martin government, which then promptly collapsed in a parliamentary confidence vote.
Mr. Martin, it emerged, had not thought through his own "scenarios". He took our support in Parliament as an entitlement, and had no relationship with either the Conservatives or the Bloc to fall back on. His team nevertheless had felt free to target us, to boast about it, and to ignore what we had to say about the issues that might earn our support.
The public threw them out of office in the 2006 election.
Sorry if that went a bit beyond what should normally be quoted from a copyrighted book (although note that I do link to its entry at Indigo.ca, and can report that it's well worth the read, even if you already read the 6-part coalition series at the Globe online).
But frankly the Liberal lines in some of the posts above are such total BS in comparison to the way their party actually behaves, that we should not take them seriously or at all at face value.
If indeed there are such things as progressive Liberals, they need to understand that the only way their progressive agenda will be implemented is to vote NDP. Period, full stop.
That's kinda the way I remember things as well OO, although it is quite enlightening to see Topp, now for a second time, produce a documented version of how Liberals really behave. Finally, for the first time that I can remember, there is a serious expose of this two-faced Liberal party. One face is the secret one, the one that is hidden from the voters most of the time, and the other face which they use to try and promote themselves to the public.
What you are probably seeing right now is the right-wingers are still running the show in the Liberal party through their proxy, Michael Ignatieff, who actually was pushed for the leadership by Chretien who was engaged STILL in his never-ending war with Paul Martin. All influence of Chretien/Martin needs to be drained ASAP from the Liberals.
So let me see, if we can just change the leadership of the Liberal party, and then drain it of all the influence of the previous two Prime Ministers, THEN, the Liberals will be progressive.
I'll get right on that. :)