Polling thread: The infinite edition

Leger poll.

CPC 36 Lib 30 NDP 17

Best PM (adjusted): Harper 32 (41) Iggy 21(27)  Layton 18 (23)

Some tentative conclusions:

- There doesn't seem to be a backlash against the NDP decision not to force an election.

- There may be a backlash against Liberals for trying to force an election.

- If Ignatieff's not in Dion territory yet he's getting there.

- The NDP may have done Ignatieff the biggest favour of his life.

- Layton may be more popular than his party. Layton LEADS as best PM in Quebec.

Sunday Hat wrote:

Leger poll.

CPC 36 Lib 30 NDP 17

Best PM (adjusted): Harper 32 (41) Iggy 21(27)  Layton 18 (23)

Some tentative conclusions:

- There doesn't seem to be a backlash against the NDP decision not to force an election.

- There may be a backlash against Liberals for trying to force an election.

- If Ignatieff's not in Dion territory yet he's getting there.

- The NDP may have done Ignatieff the biggest favour of his life.

- Layton may be more popular than his party. Layton LEADS as best PM in Quebec.

All reasonable.

Leger is smart. They include Duceppe when the question is about who people trust the most or like the most, but when its about who would make the best PM, its pointless to include Duceppe since he isn't running for Prime Minister (I'm not sure what he actually is running for, but that's another issues)

Given the polling numbers Liberal MPs, particularly from Ontario, should be forced to send NDP MPs a big boquet of thank you roses after the government does not fall on their confidence motion.  Jack Layton should get a nice big box of chocolate as an extra thank you from Ignatieff for pulling him out of the burning poll barn the Liberals have backed themselves into.

The "Best PM" is one - of many - predictors about where the topline numbers will go. Sometimes they won't connect. Sometimes people change their mind about the party and then the Leader. Sometimes vice versa. But, certainly, it's bad news for Ignatieff that the Liberal trend is downward and that his personal popularity is plumetting evern faster.

Joel-Denis Bellevance was hinting on Tom Clark yesterday that they're not looking good for the Liberals.  Which I take it means that we'll be getting a new CROP from La Presse later this week.

What's even worse for the Liberals is that this polling period ended on September 27th, and the Cons are higher in the polls now than when they took 10 seats in the last election

CROP Poll

Bloc - 33%

Libs - 26% (Dion got 24% in the last election) (down 8% since June)

 Cons - 21%

 NDP - 13%

Who would make the Best Prime Minister

Leader / April / May / June / Aug / Sep

Ignatieff/ 45% / 39% / 35% / 35% / 28%

Layton / ?% / ?% / ?% / ?% /23%

Harper / 18% / ?% / 14% / ?% / 23%

Le PLC perd des plumes au Québec

Le Parti libéral perd des plumes au Québec et les espoirs du chef Michael Ignatieff d'y faire des gains importants aux prochaines élections sont compromis.

Le chef libéral suscite ainsi beaucoup moins d'enthousiasme que lorsqu'il est arrivé à la tête du parti, il y a 10 mois. Les attaques soutenues du Bloc québécois et du Parti conservateur contre Michael Ignatieff, la bisbille entre Martin Cauchon et Denis Coderre et l'effacement du chef libéral durant l'été ont eu une influence sur les opinions des Québécois.

Résultat : le Parti libéral n'obtiendrait que 26% des voix au Québec si des élections fédérales avaient lieu aujourd'hui, révèle un sondage CROP-La Presse réalisé auprès de 1000 personnes, du 17 au 27 septembre derniers. Ce résultat est essentiellement le même que celui de Stéphane Dion aux dernières élections (24%).

Il représente aussi une baisse de quatre points de pourcentage par rapport au sondage réalisé en août (30%) et de neuf points comparativement à celui du mois de juin (35%). Ce score est aussi le pire obtenu par les libéraux au Québec depuis que Michael Ignatieff a pris les commandes du parti, en décembre dernier.

Toutefois, le sondage ne tient pas compte des retombées de la démission fracassante de Denis Coderre de son poste de lieutenant politique au Québec et de ses critiques selon lesquelles la garde rapprochée de M. Ignatieff de Toronto essaie de diriger l'aile québécoise du PLC.

À l'avantage du PCC

Le Parti conservateur du Canada tire avantage des ennuis des libéraux au Québec. En effet, les troupes de Stephen Harper obtiendraient 21% des voix si des élections fédérales avaient lieu aujourd'hui, une hausse de quatre points de pourcentage en un mois et une augmentation de huit points depuis juin. Aux dernières élections, les conservateurs avaient récolté 22% des suffrages et réussi à remporter 10 sièges.

Pour sa part, le Bloc québécois se maintient en tête avec 33% des intentions de vote, soit trois points de plus qu'en août. Le NPD voit quant à lui ses appuis passer de 18% en août à seulement 13% en septembre.

Case départ

Selon Maïalène Wilkins, directrice des projets de CROP, le Parti libéral est revenu à la case départ au Québec. «Le Parti libéral se retrouve avec un score similaire à celui qu'avait obtenu M. Dion l'année dernière. M. Ignatieff a connu son sommet en avril quand il a prononcé une série de discours au Québec et qu'il a démontré une certaine ouverture. Les gens étaient à l'époque un peu sous le charme. Mais depuis les appuis sont en baisse», a-t-elle ajouté.

Pour le Parti libéral, malgré le dépôt de la motion de censure, des élections sont loin d'être souhaitables. «Les libéraux tablaient sur des gains au Québec, mais ce serait le statu quo pour eux en ce moment. Et c'est certain que les événements des derniers jours ne viendront pas aider leur cause.»

Mince consolation, de tous les chefs fédéralistes, Michael Ignatieff est perçu par le plus grand nombre de Québécois comme le plus apte à occuper le poste de premier ministre. Mais encore là, sa cote est en forte baisse. Le chef libéral obtient un score de 28% en septembre, alors qu'il récoltait 35% en août et en juin, 39% en mai et 45% en avril.

Pour sa part, la cote de Stephen Harper remonte un peu : 23% des Québécois croient qu'il ferait le meilleur premier ministre, alors qu'ils étaient seulement 18% en août et 14% en juin. Le chef du NPD, Jack Layton, se maintient bien à ce chapitre puisque 23% des Québécois le désignent comme le meilleur premier ministre.

«C'est une véritable dégringolade pour les libéraux et Michael Ignatieff depuis juin. Il a bénéficié d'un capital de sympathie, mais il n'a pas réussi à en profiter», a noté Mme Wilkins.

 http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/politique-canadienne/200909/29/01-906825-le-plc-perd-des-plumes-au-quebec.php

I could care less about how the libs are doing. I want to see the NDP at 20+ and the cons at 33 or lower those are the numbers that will start to fix this country. Can we stop fear mongering a bit now. Harper doesn't have the same vote split that allowed JC to get his majorities. even at 37% It took the PC and Refrom to both be below 20% for a majority. Frankly when the libs do poorly we gain so it isn't a direct shift from libs to cons. If the cons poll slightly less(not much at all) and libs stay low we pick up seats in the west and become more competitive in the urban areas against these lib numbers.

NDP gets into the election at 18% I would be happy as the front runner always has a hard time pulling up their numbers. I could see the NDP getting into the 20's if they stayed on target with just a few ideas.(Some friendly press would help) I think working with the cons may actually benefit them out west with con/dipper swing voters. They have to take a stand and point out stuff like the Lawrence Martin article. Maybe something in Afghanistan could help pull(not propell) us a half point or two.

Mostly we need any of the huge gaffs by the cons to be reported or hounded the way the MSM did with adscam. They could start with the atomic boondogle and the unreasonable firing of linda keen during the house being prorogued.

New poll:

The EKOS poll, released Thursday exclusively to the CBC, indicates the Conservatives have 36 per cent support nationally, followed by the Liberals with 29.7 per cent. The New Democratic Party got the support of 13.9 per cent of poll respondents, the Green Party 10.5 per cent, and the Bloc Québécois 9.8 per cent.

Jan, that was all last year. Since the crisis in December, Harper has stopped making everything a confidence measure. Its not the Tories who keep having confidence votes - now its the Liberals.

I go back to my preference for CONSTRUCTIVE non-confidence votes.

On the push polling-- consider this: both the CBC used to have political panels with all the Liberals, Cons, NDP and BQ and the CTV used to have panels with the Liberals Cons and NDP. We complained about the treatment and unfairness at times in terms of how those panels were handled. This was the format for most of the discussions.

In the last several months both outlets have changed the format: now it is predominantly a Liberal Conservative discussion without anyone else there. Even the Outremont coverage on CTV was between the second place Liberals and the third or fourth place Conservatives (can't remember their placement in Outremont. The First place NDP was not invited to the "panel." The two biggest broadcasters have decided that we will now have a majority government and have manufactured a conversation around that and the other parties no longer exist. Of course if there is a scandal in one of those parties they would cover it but otherwise there is little point. The multi-party panels with three or more people are still done but they are much more rare than they were just a year ago. To assume that this change which has been going on since Duffy went to conservative heaven, does not affect the polls is naive to say the least.

I assume Duffy who was partisan did not want to go so far as not inviting the NDP anymore but the new guy did not need to pretend to be a journalist and is quite happy being a Con cheerleader. The CBC probably saw the CTV get away with it and have gone on to cheerleading for the Liberals a little more shamelessly than before.  I remember during the election the CTV first tried this approach on their News station- that day -- while people were still voting they went to a Conservative and a Liberal format and got away with it. and a few months later adopted this for most discussions-- it is also cheaper as well as suiting the propaganda. Eventually, I suppose the CBC will learn that it can get away with two Liberals and the CTV can get away with two Conservatives. Canadians won't complain-- unless people start phoning and calling the media on this-- giving them about 50 calls at the end of each show where they do not even invite more than the two parties, this will get worse.

Perhaps we could agree on Babble to call these two outlets whenever we see an interview of just a Liberal and Con?

Their knives aren't that sharp. Even an absolutely doomed leader like Dion has to run his course to the inevitable.

We know they are partisan -- but they also care about the numbers of viewers for their advertisers even if they don't give a fig for the viewers themselves -- so if you say you won't watch their crap and there are enough people calling to say that then they might revert to inviting everyone and just being biased in front of the group instead of editing out entire points of view by restricting who appears.

Question: have other people noticed this change? I realize it is not absolute-- there are some multi-party panels but they are now much more rare than the suddenly more common two party Liberal-Troy converssations.

And the CBC no longer mentions how the other parties are doing in their newscast-- now they just say what the Liberals and Consa re doing and leave off the others.

Just out of curiosity has ANYONE (hello all of you people lurking in this thread) actually met anyone in real, living colour who is pissed off at the NDP for not voting for the Liberals non-confidence motion and plunging Canada into a snap election?

I can honestly say that while I have met one or two people who have teased the NDP a bit about switching strategy and going back on always voting non-confidence etc..., I have met ZERO people who are genuinely mad that the NDP isn't forcing an election. Liberals i know are all releived that there won't be an election and that Layton is talking Ignatieff off the ledge.

Stockholm exactly -- this is what I am saying. It was also true though that those pissed at the Liberals for not forcing an election were also not likely Liberal potential supporters either. No partisans of any party will be upset with them for avoiding an election they will lose and if you hate this government you won't be upset with someone avoiding an election that will only return them at least as strong as they were.

Next time the Liberals act sensibly- we should not criticize them for that especially since it is that criticism not what we are doing now that is biting us in the butt.

We should also come out and be direct about this-- say that we will vote down the Cons as soon as it is clear that they could be defeated in a general election but not before. People will respect that because they know its true anyway and are not respecting politicians for pretending otherwise. Any legislation that we support can be brought back-- only with a 45 day delay (house can be called back right away to vote on it). Only something like the EI bill that can't even wait 45 days justify postponing an election that we could win. So the point with the exception of that one vote is that the Cons would win so let's behonest about that.

I think both messages are out there. We need to learn from this because the second was preventable. the only way to deal with this is to be very direct and honest about it- admit the mistake and move on. It is not a big mistake and some humbleness would look good on Jack.

PS The average size of donation was $100.  Only 10% was the max allowable amount.

I wonder how well most ads work. I suspect the quality of the ad is more important than the frequency it runs so it is possible to run a better campaign with less.

Chester Drawers wrote:

PS The average size of donation was $100.  Only 10% was the max allowable amount.

Actually, 10% of donations being the max is quite high, for all parties and for the Conservative Party also.

I've gotta hand it to Angus Reid, they always seem to have the most realistic numbers. In BC they had a low single digit lead for the BC Libs over the NDP while everyone else had Campbell running way with it.

These numbers put everyone within 1% of what they got in the last election - whihc sounds about right.

Forgive me for gloating - but Greens at 6% and that's probably still an overestimate!

Of course we had to change the prompt for the Greens from the so called Greens to the God damned Greens while the poll was still in the field -- do you think it would affect the result?

or maybe the prompts was the Chartreuse Party!

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I am on the line with CBC. The newscast this am on their radio was World report at 8:00 am-- only mention of numbers for Liberals and Cons. I had to go to their website to get numbers for the three other parties.

I called the Ottawa radio newsroom and they told me to call audience relations at 1-866-306-4636 and that there were guidelines for poll reporting.

Thanks for doing this Sean.

I used to do it as well with the "At Issue" panel until one day I received a response from the National's Director stating that my complaint was without merit since their no longer existed a "left" and a "right" in Canada only differences in opinion over strategy.

This comment left me fuming and I simply stopped watching it. Now that others have started rasing these types of issues I and hopefulyy many others will as well.