New and Improved Polling Thread with extra fibre!

Yes, WCL, except Iggy can't bring down the government except with the support of both the BQ and the NDP, and that is far from certain. In that same QP on CTV Lawrence Martin said he believes the BQ especially do not want to go to the polls right now, and without the BQ onside, Iggy can't defeat the Cons.

The bottom line is that no one knows. The Conservatives were poised to have a majority the last time out. Harper made a gaff and look what happened. 

There wont be an election. The NDP will always have their base support up and down a couple of points. Layton will be fighting his last election the next time out. So will Harper if he loses. 

The supposed experts have it all wrong with the Bloc.

The Bloc not wanting an election now means nothing. For different reasons not one of the parties wants an election now.

What is different about the Bloc, is that they have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose from cutting a deal with Harper that brings home the bacon for Quebec.

Thats the trump card, but my guess is that thigs want even develop far enough that Harper needs it.

One need only to look at the Canadian msm's actions, including Herbert, to see that it is occuring.

It seems like you can get any two of size, a tight time-frame, and a random sample, but never all three at once.  This poll was conducted over 3 weeks in May ... although I suppose at least the sample size was large enough to discern trends within its time-frame.  Apparently Ekos is promising more detailed analysis in the coming days (see Paul Wells' blog), which should be interesting at least.

Frank Graves of EKOS was just on Newman's Politics show explaining his poll numbers would translate into 110 seats for the Liberals - certainly better than the 70+ they have now. Neither the Cons nor the Libs are anywhere near majority territory. He also said it's his opinion that  the Libs would not be able to bring either the NDP and the BQ onside to defeat the Cons and force an election this summer.

Also of note he said the last couple of days, after the deficit number rolled in, the percentages on the cons had begun to slip. So the Angus reid poll may be more acurate at this time. NDP at 17 yeah!

Or the more likely scenario the more they see of Ignatieff the less they like.  I have predicted this for some time.  Liberal spin notwithstanding, Ignatieff is a dud of a leader.  The big secret of these polls is that both the Liberals and Conservatives have little traction, yet despite all the rhetoric and all the Liberal focus the NDP is essentially holding its own.  If I were a betting person I would expect to see significant growth in NDP numbers as people get turned off by both the other choices in an actual election.  Chances are the Greens would see a bounce too, but it is the big unknown whether the none of the above Green vote would show up to vote on E day if such a scenario panned out.

remind wrote:

TD Bank stated today that under the Cons, if things keep up the way they are with their spending, our deficit could be 171 billion.

And Trudeau certainly did not capture my imagination. Though admittedly he from a historical perspective is much closer than Iggy and his "serene" state would achieve in that regard.

 

I get the sense that no Prime Minister has captured your imagination.  But if I am wrong, please correct me.

As I've stated in the past. I was very nationalistic when I was young. Probably would have been red tory(canadian business first) So I have problems relating with any of the prime ministers since my birth. All the good I was taught was from the liberals pretty much originated with Tommy Douglas so yet another illusion was shattered.

I would say my real political awakening came in 1987 (I wasn't quite a teenager even) and the FTA debates raged. I knew enough that BM the PM was a liar. Everything he promised was never realised to me as a consumer. I still cannot take anything across the border without duty. If anything it is harder than ever. But I got to watch all out business get locked out or bought up by foreign interests. The only group that seem to give a ratts ass at all was the NDP(Other than 1993 with hurtig) So I moved to that camp and learned about social justice. Being from a mostly white gradeschool were everyone was equally poor made highschool interesting to say the least. Lucky for me the NDP shared the values I learned as a child. Something many forget when the become adults and money is more important than community.

Back on topic though, there has been a shift. But mostly to apathy. The cons and libs have done such a great job making all politicians seem like greedy pigs at the trough that few care to even vote anymore. Iggy does little to distance himself from this stigma. I don't see much room for the libs to grow without the economy sliding even worse into the depression we are currently facing. The greens are more of spoilers than much else. My gripe has to do with perception. If the greens where not factored and the NDP had 20% in the polls(the magic number, regardless of the other parties) people would start to notice them and look more closely at the platform. Jack has to stop listening to some of his handlers though. I hate when he sounds scripted. His in house critiques are very good and would serve better than the day old gruel they serve up at election time.

If we saw sustained polling in the 20+% the band wagon effect would happen. It does exist as I know people who have told me they don't want to vote NDP cuz it throws away their vote. Or they don't want to lose for a losing party. Which is strange because for the vast majority of time it is an NDP/Lib race down here, last election not withstanding. It would be nice to at least slide into third or be tied at say 45 seats to have that feel of momentum. Heck if the NDP/Bloc had 104 seats between them (hard to do, to be sure) They would pretty much be in charge of the government given a perfect split between the libs and cons. Yeah I do realize thatis impossible given voting patterns in certain regions.

Hope Jack gets some good press while south of the border, an Obomba bump (colbert would be nice!) could give us a few extra points we need.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I think Harper could go in a tailspin at election time.

Possible. But given his discipline, and the greater discipline of their campaign machine, up against a rookie campaigner with a lot of sticky issues... the significantly higher possibility is that the Liberals are the ones to worry about unpredicatble campaign dynamics going south on them.

That said, I don't think it is going to be on the list of top few concerns for either of them.

You're right.  And if it can happen to an experienced campaigner, it is even more likely to happen to an inexperienced one.

Indeed.

I think that there are residual problems for the Cons and that some of the negatives are starting to mount and to stick-- I am not convinced that the Liberal polling increase is associated with them so much as it is dissatisfaction with the ruling party as is usually the case.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

If I predicted now- I would say the story is likely some moderate losses for the NDP in a couple places together with a few gains and little over-all change-- The Cons I thik will lose a lot of marginal seats and the BQ could lose several to the Liberals as well.

Actually, I think the Liberals vs Bloc thing might be a sleeper issue here--I wouldn't be surprised if quite an unexpected few existing BQ seats go Grit, if only because Iggy's got more of a potentially compelling Mulroney/Bouchard quality than any leader Quebec's witnessed since Mulroney/Bouchard.  Though I'd be thinking more of suburban-moderate Laval-type seats than Hochelaga/Laurier/Rosemont left-leaners that are most likely to switch.

It may be mixed news for an NDP desperately trying to broaden their Quebec base--but by way of consolation, the NDP might just bluff their way back into being the third place party in national seat totals.

Why is Marg Bedore posting a poll that has the NDP up a point from the last one? This isn't usually her "m.o.".

Nanos June, 2009 poll out West

CP - 42%

Lib - 31%

NDP - 18%

Grn - 9%

Undecided - 10%

NorthReport wrote:

 

Nanos Poll

 

Libs 37%/Cons 32%/NDP 16%/ Bloc 8% / Green 7%

Quebec Libs 38%/ Cons 12%/ NDP 13% Bloc 35%/ 

Ontario Libs 42% Cons 34%/ NDP 14%/ Green 10%

 

Okay...so according to the Nanos study the Liberal lead is now outside of the margin of error and firming.   They are in solid minority/weak majority territory according to this study.  Other pollsters are showing them in minority territory.  NDP support is climbing, but still below last election. 

Harper is in deep trouble and he knows it.  He will certainly lose his Quebec seats save one or two, several he gained in Ontario, and maybe even some in the east.  He is trailing the Liberals badly in urban Ontario, and has no growth prospects outside of a few seats in BC and Northern Ontario.  I can only think that he is desperately trying to stretch this parliament into the spring of next year when the infrastructure spending will be boosting the economic numbers and when declining growth slows or turns upwards a tick.

If the Liberals choose to roll the dice with a confidence motion, then the Bloc is the only opposition party that has flexibility in rejecting the motion or skipping the vote. If I were a Bloc advisor though, I would be wanting to perhaps cut my losses in the next election, so going to the polls before the Liberals surge peaks would seem to make at least some sense.  And if I were a candidate it would be very difficult to justify why I chose to keep the hated Harper in power as the provincial economy tanks even further.  I would hate to be reminded of that every day on the trail.

Reading the polls and the strategic positioning of the opposition parties, I just can't rule out a summer election at this point. 

That would not make me happy right now.

Latest Ispso Reid Cons 33%/ Libs 36%/ NDP 12%/ Bloc 9%/ Green 9%

Ontario Cons 34%/ Libs 41% NDP 14%

Quebec Cons 8%/ Libs 37%/ NDP 8%/ Bloc 38%

Certainly in Ipsos-Reid polls we have been.  I'm going to try and link to a graphic of the poll results over the period since Dion was elected leader (Dec, 2006) from PollingReport.ca  ...

OK, looks like that worked !  Anyways, it proves your point, LP.

ETA:  You can see the graph and all the results for this period here.

Neither did most people see the biggest global recession since the great depression coming and the bail out of financial power houses, and buying in on auto manufacturers and so on. So the past does not predict the future. We'll see and under Layton it's just fine - it appears its those who aren't really NDP supporters who keep wanting to change leaders. I wonder why? Having a leader who has actually gone through a couple of elections as leader is helpful during these "uncertain times."

So who exactly do you think could just "sashay" in as a successor to Layton and presto have the NDP take 25% of the vote and 70-odd seats??

If there were such a person, I'd be all for it - but I think that what's more likely is that anyone else would be inexperienced and gaffe prone and would quickly learn that it takes years to get the hang of being a party leader and that switching to a different leader would be more likely to lead to a big drop in support than to lead to any sudden gains.

Gary Doer for two elections, with Jack in his caucus.

Thomas Mulcair after that.

I think that would be best bet to build on Jack's work and move towards government in the next decade. 

Unfortunately, the probability of that is near or at zero.