Saanich Gulf Islands Poll - May In Contention

Boy, this is just so typical of Elizabeth May, isn't it.  They commission a poll to show them in striking distance, leak it to the media, and then she says she doesn't put any stock in polls.

They tried EXACTLY the same thing in Central Nova, and it didn't work then either.  You'd have to ask what other questions were asked in the poll, because if you asked the right set of questions in the right order, you could easily produce this (or any other) result you wanted.

My guess is that they probably started off by asking a bunch of questions about how "history-making" and "monumental" it would be to elect GREEN PARTY LEADER May to parliament and then they probably asked "Would you vote for Gary Lunn, the NDP candidate, the Liberal candidate or NATIONAL GREEN PARTY LEADER ELIZABETH MAY etc...

That being said, the fact that Gary Lunn is at 34% is not that surprising - that's down 10% from what he got in the '08 election and that mirrors the general callapse in Tory support across BC that we have seen in many polls. But I suspect that by e-day you will see reasonably active Liberal and NDP campaigns in that riding which will whittle down the Green vote.

I don't any riding in the country makes the case for PR stronger.

GPS poll: Can May win in SGI?  [John Fryer, former campaign manager, is the 3rd commenter.]

The good news: May can win [6]

Plus, Greg Morrow earlier:

How is Elizabeth May's Campaign Going in Saanich-Gulf Islands? [7]

and for serious junkies:

Are Survey Innovations a Threat to Horserace Polls? [8]

That's weird. The Greens commissioned another poll by another firm, Oracle Research, for SGI in the same month of August, (5 - 10) 2010?

And the generic party results, also with a 400 sample size, were:

Lib: 37%

Con: 25.3%

Green: 19.1%

NDP: 18.6%

But when asked which candidate they would support, party preferences change as follows:

Con (Lunn): 30.4%

Green (May): 28.3%

Lib: 26.4%

NDP: 14.9%

BTW, I doubt that the Libs are in 1st place in SGI based upon the generic party preference question.

I don't see how this riding makes a case for PR. What it does do is make a very strong case for Australian-style AV (Alternative Voting) or preferential voting. That way people voting NDP, Liberal or Green could all make sure to always preference Gary Lunn dead last and that way he would be guaranteed to be trounced by about a two to one margin by whoever he faced on the final count. If I was in that riding and had a preferential ballot I would probably fill in my ballot NDP-1, Liberal-2 and then I would flip a coin to decide who to rank last Gary Lunn or Elizabeth May

We all know that if there was a candidate to the left of the NDP, then such candidate would be last for you.

I don't believe this poll.

I live next door to Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound.  The Greens there tried this same stunt, with Oracle as well.  It was clear when they were forced by a questioning media to release the acutal poll results and questions that is was complete set up.  The Greens and polling have zero credibility except for the gullible.

They still finished second place in the Ontario provincial election of 2007.

I agree.  The Liberal number seems too high.

That was a pretty distant 2nd and mostly by default- the Liberal and NDP candidates were some of the worse I have ever seen.  Plus you had the personal draw of Shane Jolley who is from a very well known and popular family.    On top of that I didn't say the stunt wasn't successful

Not *that* distant--33.14% vs 46.61%.  And if you factor out Bill Murdoch's personal pull, imagine how close it might have been...

I think 13.5 points is distant.  You need to finish within 10 points or less to be considered a strong 2nd place finisher.

Yes, the Greens did well in the 2007 Ontario provincial election, but most of the increase in vote they got was as a result of disgruntled PC voters who were angry with John Tory and didn't want to vote Liberal or NDP.  I think many of those voters will return to the PC's in the next Ontario election.

Mark this down on your calendar, folks, because for once I agree with Debater.  Any Green party totals for the 2007 Ontario provincial represent the ceiling of folks for whom religious school funding is a vote-determining issue, and nothing to do with that party's intrinsic support.

 That 3rd in the series on SGI mentioned in post#4:

The bad news: mixed messages

So less than 1/3 had heard of EMay and of those 29% who have heard of her, 36% are unfavourable or neutral towards her.

Ummmmmm, excuse me, but there is a big difference between unfavourable and neutral, so why did they get lumped together? My personal opinion is that they had to cover up just how many hold unfavourable positions on her, so they lumped them.

Irrespective of that though, what it shows on the face of the numbers, is that contrary to the GP spin, EMay does not have a chance, and she most certainly is not in contention.

Being "in contention" is not a very high bar to clear.

It doesnt say how likely or unlikely.

And I dont think they were trying to cover-up at all. Its just the need to generalize what is relavent. These aren't May cheerleaders.

If I was to guess as to their 'motive'... they are Greens that from previous experience want to make sure that when and if May loses that everyone knows the signs were there all along. Pre-emptive blunting of the excuses.

There is a lot of naivete in the GPC for May to tap into. Most people think that if she loses she wont be hanging around. But you can never be too sure. And even if she isnt trying to ride the excuses, her putative successor most certainly will use them.

Even so, aside from the Green whys-and-wherefores, I still think Debater's splitting hairs over the close vs non-close issue--though technically he's right, at least if we want to used those British psephological terms of "marginal" (10 pts) and "supermarginal" (5 pts).  Just substitute "NDP" for "Green" and Babblers'll be all over Debater's back, as per usual.

And unless Murdochian populism continues to rule the day in a landslide post-Murdoch, I wouldn't guarantee a bigger win for the Tories next time--though the opposition vote may be more "spread-out" than the heavy Green onus last time...

Oh, and re

Actually, Murdoch only lost 5.5% over his 2003 total--not a lot of "lost PC voters" there.  The NDP also lost 5.5%; but with their already-low 2003 share, that meant being more than halved to 3.8%, their worst Ontario result in '07.  And the Liberals lost an astronomical 18.3%.  So you can see where most of the Green gains *really* came from--anything but disgruntled PCs; indeed, the Liberals lost even more from 2003 than Murdoch did from his 63.2% 1995 peak.

Oh, and speaking of 1995: one Michael Schmidt (*him*, I presume) got 703 votes as an independent vs Murdoch that year...

There is another blunter and more in the present message evident right at the front of that upthread quote from the blog [post#16].

Everyone in the GPC who pays the slightest attention knows that a decision was explicitly made to put all the eggs in the basket of May winning her campaign. Everyone knows that despite lip service saying otherwise, everything else has been downgraded.

And you only need to pay a little more attention to know that there is a financial crisis in the party, with all the field organizers laid off and other essential services cut. There isnt any money to go around for anything except the singular priority of the May SGI campaign.

So all those sacrifices were made. And over $300,000 was spent in a year of campaigning in SGI... which you dont have to know the GPC budget or exactly how much is spent in a maximum period during an actual campaign [let alone before it starts], to know that is a lot of money.

And for all that focus and money spent, with very diminished resources for anything else.... two polls, each of respectable size come back with the same support levels for May as showed by the poll before the campaign started.

Again, that message is for the post mortems after the election. But for Greens, it hits home more starkly right now than does the studious exegisis of the numbers.

So....the Green Party has spent 300k trying to blow smoke up SGI's collective asses, and have gotten nowhere.

Again, how does that translate into "contention"?

Like I said, being in contention is not a very high bar. The NDP is in contention a lot of places we probably wont win.

May has always been in contention.

yes, I see I have weighted the word "contention" too heavily.

I would say any party leader by definition is in contention. On the other hand a national party leader that repeatedly can't win is not a success.

The NDP has polled as low as 6.88% without having the leader lose. I don't see being in contention as an achievement.

When you are in contention, and you run a really good campaign, if things you cant control go in your favour, you have a good shot at winning.

Running a good campaign- which means at a minum better than your opponents- means you get a shot at winning.... if things fall your way.

Conversely, if you are not expected to win, but are in contention, and you do not at least run a better campaign than your opponents, then you don't have even a long shot of winning.

[Sometimes you can fluke a win with a just OK campaign, if your favoured opponent does not run a good campaign. But that wont be happening with Gary Lunn. These people know what theay are doing, have both experience and data history, and they will mine Saanich peninsula like crazy.]

Critics of May's leadership of the GPC have no interest in saying "look at the screwups, they cant win." They literally just want to make the facts known as they happen.

And re-play the tape after the election is over. Pre-empt the inevitable revisionist excuses- which even if May just quits, will be used by others.

Using the handy-dandy formula the GPC have helpfully provided (EMay+$300K=Contention!), we can assume two things:

1. They need about $50M to get into CONTENTION (using their veeeeeeery broad definition, with the dice loaded from the get-go) in a majority of seats.

2. They need to clone EMay.

I honestly don't know which one of these is less likely.

Thats $300,000 and counting. Tens of thousands more per month until the election, another $80,000 then. [And if as seems likely by  the time we get there, the election date is all but inevitable for many weeks ahead, some more $10Ks thrown onto the bonfire for that.]

And do you count Central Nova and LondonNorthCentre by-election as well? They are part of the path too. [Though the office furniture didnt have to be burnt to fuel those.]

KenS, what do you think they can revise in this situation, anyway? And just who would be doing it, if May leaves all the other opportunists like her will too? Their gig would be up.

Literally all the cards are on the table for all to see.

In this case stating May is in contention only means that she is running as a candidate in SGI. Trying for better optics at this point makes them appear very ridiculous.

All I know is that the adults in the GPC are thinking ahead to picking up the pieces. For better or worse most have known for quite a while that there is no getting off this course, wherever it ends.

The crass opportunists will be one of their problems. None of the well known ones are quite joined to May at the hip. At least not obviously enough that they dont all think they'll have a chance at the leadership. With the exception of Carr- whose wagon is undeniably hitched to May's fate. But she of course isnt expecting the kind of spectacular failure that would make her succession to the leadership a non-starter. I'm not expecting it either- its just one of the posibilities. I suspect that Carr will think she can still go for the leadership if the election is a run of the mill failure [May doesnt get even close enough to not look bad, and the national vote share takes a noticeable dip.]

But lets not get ahead ourselves, they haven't failed yet. And whether they do or not is their affair. I'm just saying what the adults are doing right now.

"all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put humpty dumpty together again...."

Funny but I expect if the Conservatives were spending that kind of money, or the NDP even on the election of one MP, even a leader there would be hell to pay in the media and from May herself.  What hypocrits the new Greens have become.

Where does the $300,00 figure come from?

Greg Morrow uses it first in his blog, and then I back it up with detail in the comments.

Linked was upthread a while back, without reference to what was in it:

How is Elizabeth May's Campaign Going in Saanich-Gulf Islands?

They have always been hyprocrits Life, at least in BC.

Yes, it's a lot of money to spend in the Canadian political system.  It's nothing in American terms of course, because in the U.S. it takes millions of dollars just for one candidate to run a campaign, but usually that amount of money isn't spent in one riding in Canada.

Not just usually. This is unprecedented, period.

Last in that series of articles from Green Party Strategy that I have been linking to:

Observations from close-by and afar

Aside from the particulars about the May campaign in SGI, its a good general excursion into whats involved in a full bore campaign.