Polling thread, the non-election edition

There sure is a strange silence on the forum over the latest EKOS poll that shows the

nDP 13.8%

Greens 10.2%

helter skelter she's coming in fast.....3.6% differance oh oh!

Enabling harpers conservatives not one but two times now is costing the nDP. Now the center oriented lib/con is probably thinking ..look the conservative policy's are so good ..even the nDP support them , which is now sending the conservatives even closer to majority territory ..hovering at 37&

If you check out the poll ..I find the age and education sections enlightning.

http://www.ekos.com/media/default.asp

Buddy Kat wrote:

There sure is a strange silence on the forum over the latest EKOS poll that shows the

nDP 13.8%

Greens 10.2%

helter skelter she's coming in fast.....3.6% differance oh oh!

 

Enabling harpers conservatives not one but two times now is costing the nDP. Now the center oriented lib/con is probably thinking ..look the conservative policy's are so good ..even the nDP support them , which is now sending the conservatives even closer to majority territory ..hovering at 37&

If you check out the poll ..I find the age and education sections enlightning.

 

http://www.ekos.com/media/default.asp

 

No kidding.  Whenever there are low NDP numbers they are ignored here.  But whenever there are low numbers for the Liberals they are taken to mean that the Liberal Party will be reduced to 0 seats in the next election.

I was making an extreme exaggeration to make a point - a frequent technique that is used in discussion as I'm sure you are aware.  Many people here have predicted that the Liberals will end up with fewer seats than the NDP, and that is equally as unrealistic.

And there was no equating of the NDP with the Liberals on the political scale.

With Ignatieff in freefall that Conservative majority is looking closer and closer to reality with each new poll result now.

ARS 

C - 37%

L - 29%

N - 16%

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/701421

The CEO Poll: Harper vs. Ignatieff

Most CEOs want a majority in their next Parliament.

Compas Inc. put that question to CEOs and business leaders in a recent poll. Respondents had a strong preference (nearly 90%) for a majority government. Said one: "A five-party system belongs in Italy, not Canada."

Asked to choose between majority and minority/coalition governments led by Harper or Ignatieff, 69% of those polled thought a Harper majority would foster the best conditions for economic growth. Results were similar when participants were asked about specific elements of economic policy such as inflation. As for the factors influencing the current government's policies, panelists believed the views of the opposition were more important than international forums such as the G7 and G20.

Comments from participants hardly offered a ringing endorsement for the federal Conservative party, however. "Unfortunately, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have skill, intelligence and vision to lead Canada past this economic slowdown," opined one respondent. (Former prime minister Jean Chrétien, a Liberal, received praise for "single-minded" control of public spending while in office.) And some clearly lamented the prospects for a return to the polls. "We need another election now like we need another hole in our head," one respondent quipped.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/ceo-poll/article.jsp?content=20091012_10014_10014

Margin of Error 3.1%

Perhaps the reason both the NDP and the Liberals are facing lower polling numbers is that there is a MSM push now for a majority to restore stability. So the idea is we give a majority to Harper for the purpose of restoring stability when he was the one who refused to work with anyone creating the instability. It is amazing what you can get away with.

Unfortunately I thik there are enough politically unsophisticated people for this to work-- I think that eventually Harper will get a majority. he combination of a fawning press not worth shit when it comes to either investigative reporting or honesty and a Liberal party headed by someone that sounds like the teacher you least liked in highschool combined with one looks like someone you would never let alone with your kids. Apart from the horrible lack of focus and right wing rhetoric--

For people who go on looks Ignatieff looks creepy. For those listening to what he says, that impression is confirmed. Layton can't beat Harper-- that;s a fact -- the party will do well to hang on to current seats the way nthis is going and that is in the face of what could be a Liberal collapse. Ignatieff may be 3 points above Dion but once poeple see more of him he may drop further as he has in his first round of ads.

Consider this-- the Liberals dropped during the Con ad campaign against Dion. The Liberals dropped slightly again in the Con ads against Ignatieff. But boy did they drop when the Liberals launched their own ineffective ad campaign together with wanting to push an election without any agenda as to how they would govern differently.

The political opposition to Harper as a group are poor failed miserable weaK excuses. The least they could do is not force an election Harper will win. And maybe Layton should just come out and say that for the time being the NDP has been unsuccessful in convincing Canadians to support the NDP and the other opposition parties are all failing miserably and therefore there is no point in an election nobody other than Harper can win. At least people will recognize the honesty rather than trying to come up with some other garbage to justify not voting down a hateful, horrible, nasty and thoroughly out of touch and incompetent government by a small minded party that is making Canada look like the worst stereotype of a small-town backwater community run by a pack of bigotted ignorant jerks. Or am I being too partisan here?

And no, even if the NDP managed to get to 20% in the polls with the Liberlas at 24% -- this would still not ustify an election that would leave Harper in power. The truth is this is a democracy (to a point) and we need to put forward proposals and convince the public that they are worth while before we can do election after election. Listen to what the people are saying: they don't like Harper-- not the bulk of them but if the opposition does not recognize that it does not have the support to govern then it better not destabalize the system by having another useless election otherwise the people will elect a majority Con government. If you don't want a majority Con government then you better let this parliament run its course--  or at least till people are prepared to throw the bums in power out.

The opposition has two funtions-- one is to propose an alternative and the other to vote to bring down a government to install it. It is collectively doing fine on the second but has little clue that it has to get broad support for the first before doing so.

If the NDP was smart it would start an extended campaign on the first with a real admission that the second cannot be done without the first. The NDP will have to take some lumps on crapping about a weak Liberal party unwilling to force a vote it would lose-- frankly the NDP should just come out and say "we were wrong on that" and move on to try to create broad support for an alternative.

Incidentally, here are the full results from Angus Reid

http://www.angusreidstrategies.com/uploads/pages/pdfs/2009.09.26_fedpolE...

I tend to only pay attention to the regional numbers from Quebec and Ontario since everywhere else the sample size is way too small. But this further confirms that the Liberals have plunged in Ontario where the Tofries now lead by 14 points and in Quebec, the Liberals are almost back to where they were in 2008 (I wonder if all the saturation publicity about the Outremont shenanigans reminded Quebecers of why they hate the Libs).

Anyways, these polls are telling me that the NDP did the country a great service by saving the Liberals from immolating themselves in an election and possibly giving us a Tory majority.

Incidentally, the Ignatieff leadership numbers in this poll are ABYSMAL. The danger now is that the Tories will really try to provoke the opposition to defeat them and force an election. It will be interesting to see how the three opposition parties respond to that.

So it seems all the polling is similar with Harper up around 7 points.  I wonder if it is backlash for Iggy threatening to bring the government down?

This is the first time in my lifetime I really seen the Liberal party on their knees. Sure they lost big to Mulroney but they still had their donations and seemed organized with no infighting unlike now where donations are down, although have started to come up and apparently the Martin/Chretien camps are stil at 'war' and they seem so disorganized...

if the economy starts to improve and people get back to work, Harper will win easily and Harper has 143 so that is what 12 from a Majority and even if losesall in Quebec he can still make up those lost seats from Ontario (as Harper is on the up there and in Toronto of all places) and pick up a few in BC, he could easily get a 160 seats for a small majority next time.

The only way to counteract a MSM push for a majority is for the opposition parties to give us specific policy differences-- reasons to vote for them.

Ignatieff, I think is incapable. Can the NDP? Stop the self-rightious crap and get down to detail.

Depends on if they will show up and vote.

"And maybe Layton should just come out and say that for the time being the NDP has been unsuccessful in convincing Canadians to support the NDP and the other opposition parties are all failing miserably and therefore there is no point in an election nobody other than Harper can win. "

I am happy with the idea that Jack and the team thought about the likely results of an election and came to the same conclusion as NR.

If you compare those numbers to the last election, it suggests that Conservative and NDP support are almost exactly where they were on election night, Liberals are up three points and the BQ is down three points.

Stockholm wrote:

If you compare those numbers to the last election, it suggests that Conservative and NDP support are almost exactly where they were on election night, Liberals are up three points and the BQ is down three points.

True - that's what I was saying above.  That poll doesn't show much movement in Quebec at all except for a small Liberal increase and a bit of a BQ decrease.  Not a lot to get excited about at this point.  I'm waiting until we see some Quebec specific pollsters weigh in.

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janfromthebruce wrote:

More bad news for the libs and relatively good news for Layton and the NDP -

Fed election blues

Ignatieff not catching on with Canadians (check out their leadership numbers)

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has so far failed to convince Canadians he's ready to lead the country, and if an election was held today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper would likely lead the Tories to another minority government.

An exclusive Leger Marketing poll for Sun Media reveals 36% of Canadians would vote for the Conservatives, down almost two percentage points from the last election. Only 30% would vote for the Liberals, but that represents a gain of 4% since the Liberals won 26% of the popular vote in the last election. The NDP is at 17% support, down 1% [within margin of error]

But it's party support which is most important, and the Liberals are up since the last election and the Conservatives down.  That's what effects the seat count.  So while it's not great news for Ignatieff's leadership, it's not so bad for the Liberal party.

If the Leger poll were correct, the Liberals would gain very little ground in an election. Almost all of their gains are in Quebec, where they would only pick up about 6 seats unless they gain a lot more ground. As long as the Liberals remain in the low 30s in Quebec, they will gain nothing there.

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Oh look, a nine point spread between the NDP and Greens. I'm sure that our good Buddy will explain to us why this means that the NDP should be worried.

Hey no fair- that's my secret conspiracy theory plot- that a number of Conservatives will suddenly be out putting shovels in the ground, or have the flu, or be busy with some sort of constituency work or whatever.

janfromthebruce wrote:

Don't step on my turf of fantasy - not enough cons "don't show up" when the bell rings - the lights dim as Harper can be heard laughing all the way to the GG with "poison pill" in hand - I'll get you my little pretty

"We need an election because we no longer have confidence in ourselves"

I'm certainly not joking.

My pet theory of the past week is that the Liberals will be hoisted on their own petard by the Conservatives conveintly being ill or whatever.  It would be win, win, win for the Conservative from their viewpoint - Iggy would get blamed for the election (the subtly will be lost on most people), they have their shot at a majority due to the Liberal lacklustre messaging lately and they would catch a Liberal party (and Bloc and NDP) off guard and for the Liberals at a time when they are facing a house divided or at least pissed off at each other.

Maybe it is a bit too cute by half, but I expect it has been kicked around the Conservative war room more that a few times over the last couple of days.

I'd be very surprised if the Tories tried that. When Harper withdrew that measure in December in order to save his skin, he explicitly said that it was off the table and that it would not be reintroduced but that it would be part of the Tory platform in the next election. So, he would be blatantly lying if he did that. Also, it would lead to endless replays of how he miscalculated a year ago with that and almost lost power.The last thing Harper needs are endless replays of his biggest political miscalculation ever.

It would be totally obvious that they were purposely trying to trigger an election. I also wonder how they would justify calling that a confidence measure after stating on numerous occasions that they wanted to avoid an election at all cost.

At the very most, I MIGHT see them including that in the federal budget in the Spring since they will probably be voted down on that anyways

West Coast Lefty wrote:

Debater wrote:

janfromthebruce wrote:

More bad news for the libs and relatively good news for Layton and the NDP -

Fed election blues

Ignatieff not catching on with Canadians (check out their leadership numbers)

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has so far failed to convince Canadians he's ready to lead the country, and if an election was held today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper would likely lead the Tories to another minority government.

An exclusive Leger Marketing poll for Sun Media reveals 36% of Canadians would vote for the Conservatives, down almost two percentage points from the last election. Only 30% would vote for the Liberals, but that represents a gain of 4% since the Liberals won 26% of the popular vote in the last election. The NDP is at 17% support, down 1% [within margin of error]

But it's party support which is most important, and the Liberals are up since the last election and the Conservatives down.  That's what effects the seat count.  So while it's not great news for Ignatieff's leadership, it's not so bad for the Liberal party.

The 2 are very much connected, debater.  The Leger voter intention numbers nationally are virtually identical to the 2006 election results.  The "down" result for the Cons is within the margin of error to the 2008 election result, and doesn't factor in the higher turnout and voter intensity among Conservative  voters. 

Leadership numbers tend to be a leading indicator - they start to move a few months before the voting intentions reflect the shift in public option as voters have residual loyalty to their preferred party "brand/"  The fact that Harper is ahead of Iggy on almost everything including the enviroment (!), the economy, Best PM, etc, is very bad news as the Libs don't have a winning wedge issue to fight the election on.

Speaking of polls, J-D Bellevance of La Presse was on Power Play this PM saying they will have a poll this week showing more bad news for Ignatieff and the Libs in Quebec.  Something to look forward to...

Ignatieff's numbers are not good - I agree.  He needs to be much more competitive on the leadership index with Harper.  The big difference from the last election though is that Ignatieff is ahead of Layton, whereas Dion was usually not.