Things look bad, very bad, for the Liberals in Canada's latest polling thread

Oh my!

By-Election Results November 9, 2009

New Westminster-Coquitlam

NDP 49.6%, 1st

Cons - 35.8%, 2nd

Libs - 10.3%, 3rd

Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley

Cons - 45.8%%, 1st 

NDP - 25.7%, 2nd

Libs - 21.3%, 3rd

Hochelaga

BQ - 51.2%, 1st

NPD - 19.5%, 2nd

Libs - 14.3%, 3rd

Cons - 10.1%

Montmagny--L'Islet--Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup

Cons - 42.7%

BQ - 37.7%, 2nd

Libs - 13.2%, 3rd

NPD - 4.8%, 4th

As at 12:46 am on November 10th:

33,608 Canadians voted Tory in these by-elections, which was 35.72 per cent of the total vote cast.

22,783 Canadians voted New Democrat, 24.22 per cent of the total.

19,709 Canadians (perhaps we should say, Quebeckers) voted Bloc, 20.95 per cent of the total.

And 13,914 Canadians voted Liberal, 14.79 per cent of the total.

Ergo, in terms of the absolute national poll, Mr. Harper got in the range of what he had in the 2008 election. Mr. Layton is a solid second, improving nicely. And Mr. Ignatieff led his party to fourth place in terms of total vote, behind the Bloc Québécois.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/brian-topp/middling-gaining-and-falling-flat/article1357394/?cid=art-rail-bureaublog

Scott Piatkowski wrote:

It's nice to see that the Liberals are taking solace at having beaten the Green Party.

H1N1 FEARS “EXAGGERATED” SAY MANY CANADIANS

http://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/full-report-november-12.pdf
Canada

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP / Bloc

2008 Election / 37.7% / 26.2% / 18.2% / 10% / Cons surpassed Libs by 12% 

Nov 11 / EKOS / 36.6% / 26.6% / 16.8% / Cons lead Libs by 10%

Nov 5 / EKOS / 37.4% / 26.8% / 16.3% 

Oct 29 / ARS / 40% / 26% / 17%  

Oct 28 / EKOS / 38.4% / 26.8% / 16.7%  

Oct 26 / Envir / 38% / 26% / 16%  

Oct 26 / IR / 40% / 25% / 13% 

Oct 22 / Nanos / 39.8% / 30% / 16.6% 

Oct 22 / EKOS / 38.3% / 27.1% / 14.5% 

Oct 16 / ARS / 41% / 27% / 16% 

Oct 15 / EKOS / 40.7% / 25.5% / 14.3% 

Oct 15 / HD / 35% / 28% / 15% 

Oct 12 / IR / 39% /29%/ 13% 

Oct 8 / EKOS / 39.7% / 25.7%  / 15.2% 

Oct 6 / Strat Con / 41% / 28% / 14%

BC

Date / Pollster / Cons / NDP / Libs

2008 / Election / 44.5% / 26.1% / 19.3%    

Oct 29 / ARS / 43% / 25% / 27%

Oct 28 / EKOS / 36.8% / 28.9%  / 25%

Oct 26 / Envir / 34% / 29% / 24% 

Oct 26 / IR / 49% / 23% / 18%  

Oct 22 / Nanos / 37.3% / 22.6% / 29.4%  

Oct 22 / EKOS / 37.5% / 24.9% / 25.4%  

Oct 16 / AR / 47% / 22% / 21% / 9%  

Sask/Man

Date / Pollster / Cons / NDP / Libs

Nov 11 / EKOS / 44.2% / 28.8% / 16.3%

Ontario

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP

2008 Election / 39.2% / 33.8% / 18.2%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 39.2% / 33.8% / 15.5%

Oct 29 / ARS / 41% / 31% / 17%

Oct 15 / ARS / 45% / 29% / 19%

Quebec 

Date / Pollster / Bloc / Libs / Cons / NDP

2008 Election / 38.1% / 23.8% / 21.7% / 12.2%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 35.6% / 21.3% / 21.7% / 10.7%

Oct 29 / ARS / 40% / 20% / 21% / 15% 

Oct 28 / CROP / 37% / 23% / ? / 16%

Oct 15 / ARS / 36% / 26% / 25% / 8%

AC

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP

2008 Election / 

Nov 11 / EKOS / 36.5% / 32.8% / 25.3%

Oct 29 / ARS / 35% / 32% / 26%

Leadership

Best PM

Quebec

Date / Pollster / Lay / Har/ Ign

Oct 28 / CROP / 26% / 25% / 20% / Layton leads

Maybe we’ll have have an election in… 2011

Harper acts as if he’ll be around for a while; the Liberals hope the hard choices ahead will grind him down

“I don’t think 2011 should be out of the question,” a Liberal MP told me, leaning in conspiratorially.

For what? A summer full of sunshine? A return to three-button jackets? “For an election,” the MP said.

This guy’s thinking, which I’ve since learned is shared by at least a few other veteran Liberals in Ottawa, is as follows. The polls don’t favour Michael Ignatieff right now, and haven’t since he announced in September he would work to bring down the Harper government at the first chance. Indeed the polls have been so stinkeroo for the Liberals that Ignatieff has had to un-announce his September announcement. Now he’s in no hurry to replace the Harper government. Some Liberals suspect Ignatieff replaced his inexperienced, poorly connected chief of staff, Ian Davey, with the wily Chrétien-era fixer Peter Donolo because Davey didn’t foresee the popular backlash against Ignatieff’s “Mr. Harper, your time is up” announcement.

Well then. If there’s no election this autumn, will there be one in the spring? Perhaps not: the Vancouver/Whistler Olympics are in February, and for some reason an ironclad conventional wisdom has sprung up that elections must not be held near an Olympics. A federal budget will soon follow the Olympics. A budget gives the Harper Conservatives a chance to spend some $230 billion. It’s not easy to make enemies while spending $230 billion. Suddenly it’s summer, when we mustn’t have an election, followed by autumn when we mustn’t have an election, I forget why not. This is what we do in Ottawa these days: stare at the calendar, shaking our heads.

Anyway, by late 2010, the recession will be well and truly over, and (my Liberal interlocutor reasoned) there’ll be no more of this stimulus spending. Instead, the government, whoever forms it, will be belt-tightening to get out of deficits. Since belt-tightening is never pleasant or popular, Liberals are thinking it might as well be Harper who is stuck with doing it. Give the nasty work a little time to grind Harper down, and suddenly it’s 2011.

Let’s go with this theory a bit and see where it leads us. For one thing, Harper would by 2011 have passed Alexander Mackenzie, Lester Pearson and—aim high—maybe even R.B. Bennett in longevity, which would make him Canada’s 10th longest-serving prime minister. (He’d need almost another year after that to catch up to John Diefenbaker.) What’s perhaps more significant is that the very atmosphere in the capital would change, and not too soon either. Instead of careening from one crisis of parliamentary confidence to the next, the government and its opponents might finally have the luxury to take the longish view. This could come in handy for all of them. Whether in government or opposition, they all have work they’ve been postponing because they weren’t sure they’d have the time to do it.

All of this seems already to have occurred to Harper. Lately he’s started taking steps that assume he’ll be around for a while. His trips to India and China. His Supreme Court reference on Ottawa’s right to establish a national securities regulator. His judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Pacific salmon fishery. The latter two, especially, will take more than a year to play out. Harper appears to be betting he’ll still be Prime Minister when the time comes to act on their conclusions. It’s been so long since we had a government that thought about the long term that the very prospect is bracing and a bit disorienting. But good for him; even if he’s wrong in his calculations, Harper is beginning work that will serve his successor well.

Michael Ignatieff, meanwhile, gets to do the work that will improve his chances of being Harper’s successor. He, too, has already begun. He made do for nearly a year with temporary help to run the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. Now Donolo can give the place structure and order, really for the first time since 2006. Next comes a “thinkers’ conference” Ignatieff promised when he thought he’d have to fight Bob Rae for the Liberal leadership and probably now heartily regrets promising. It was to happen in September and is now scheduled for early 2010. Ignatieff’s minimal need is to impose a Hippocratic oath on this thing: first, it must do no harm to his leadership. So it mustn’t degenerate into a forum for clannish infighting or a source of quotes for future Conservative attack ads. If it actually produces any ideas that’s a sort of bonus.

One other party must adjust to the yawning chasm of non-crisis that lies ahead. Jack Layton’s NDP doesn’t get much attention around Ottawa these days, but viewed properly, that’s a problem. Layton decided in January he would do the opposite of whatever Ignatieff did. When Ignatieff was desperate to avoid an election, Layton was voting non-confidence at every turn and mocking Ignatieff’s timidity. When Ignatieff reversed polarity in September, so did Layton. Suddenly he was the Only Man Who Wanted Parliament To Work. If Ignatieff’s moves have been dumb, Layton’s must be clever. And yet, in poll after poll, the New Democrats can’t get off the floor. I think Layton has been a good leader for the NDP, but there seems to be a ceiling to his appeal. Now that the party has time to replace him, he must ask himself whether to get that process started by handing in his resignation

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/13/maybe-well-have-have-an-election-in-2011/

Ignatieff slips closer to Dion territory

The good news for Michael Ignatieff in a new Nanos Research poll is that he is still more popular than was his predecessor, Stéphane Dion, after he lost the last general election just over a year ago. 

The bad news is that another month like the one just passed and the Liberal leader will be in Dion territory — that is, where only one in 10 Canadians think you would make the best Prime Minister. 

The latest poll shows that Mr. Ignatieff's popularity has fallen off a cliff since the summer. When he became leader, he was within touching distance of Stephen Harper, with the percentage of people thinking he would make the best prime minister consistently in the high 20s, compared to Mr. Harper's numbers in the low 30s.

----------------

There is great concern in Conservative ranks that any gains in central Canada at the next election could be wiped out if the party lost some of its 22 seats in B.C. to the NDP over the harmonized sales tax issue. For this reason, if no other, one suspects the government will be keen to avoid a general election around the time the HST is introduced in B.C. and in Ontario next summer.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/13/john-ivison-ignatieff-slips-closer-to-dion-territory.aspx

Canada

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP / Bloc

2008 Election / 37.7% / 26.2% / 18.2% / 10% / Cons surpassed Libs by 12% 

Nov 13 / Nanos / 38% / 28.8% / 17.9% / Libs lead NDP by 11%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 36.6% / 26.6% / 16.8% / 

Nov 5 / EKOS / 37.4% / 26.8% / 16.3% 

Oct 29 / ARS / 40% / 26% / 17%  

Oct 28 / EKOS / 38.4% / 26.8% / 16.7%  

Oct 26 / Envir / 38% / 26% / 16%  

Oct 26 / IR / 40% / 25% / 13% 

Oct 22 / Nanos / 39.8% / 30% / 16.6% 

Oct 22 / EKOS / 38.3% / 27.1% / 14.5% 

Oct 16 / ARS / 41% / 27% / 16% 

Oct 15 / EKOS / 40.7% / 25.5% / 14.3% 

Oct 15 / HD / 35% / 28% / 15% 

Oct 12 / IR / 39% /29%/ 13% 

Oct 8 / EKOS / 39.7% / 25.7%  / 15.2% 

Oct 6 / Strat Con / 41% / 28% / 14%

BC

Date / Pollster / Cons / NDP / Libs

2008 / Election / 44.5% / 26.1% / 19.3%    

Oct 29 / ARS / 43% / 25% / 27%

Oct 28 / EKOS / 36.8% / 28.9%  / 25%

Oct 26 / Envir / 34% / 29% / 24% 

Oct 26 / IR / 49% / 23% / 18%  

Oct 22 / Nanos / 37.3% / 22.6% / 29.4%  

Oct 22 / EKOS / 37.5% / 24.9% / 25.4%  

Oct 16 / AR / 47% / 22% / 21% / 9%  

Sask/Man

Date / Pollster / Cons / NDP / Libs

Nov 11 / EKOS / 44.2% / 28.8% / 16.3%

Ontario

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP

2008 Election / 39.2% / 33.8% / 18.2%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 39.2% / 33.8% / 15.5%

Oct 29 / ARS / 41% / 31% / 17%

Oct 15 / ARS / 45% / 29% / 19%

Quebec 

Date / Pollster / Bloc / Libs / Cons / NDP

2008 Election / 38.1% / 23.8% / 21.7% / 12.2%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 35.6% / 21.3% / 21.7% / 10.7%

Oct 29 / ARS / 40% / 20% / 21% / 15% 

Oct 28 / CROP / 37% / 23% / ? / 16%

Oct 15 / ARS / 36% / 26% / 25% / 8%

AC

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP

2008 Election / 

Nov 11 / EKOS / 36.5% / 32.8% / 25.3%

Oct 29 / ARS / 35% / 32% / 26%

Leadership

Best PM

Quebec

Date / Pollster / Lay / Har/ Ign

Oct 28 / CROP / 26% / 25% / 20% / Layton leads

]

Yup, you sure called it Debater.

The reality is EKOS saw the good NDP numbers, and the cave-in for the Liberal numbers and didn't want to publish. 

Debater wrote:

NorthReport wrote:

What, no EKOS polling results, apart from the gun control bullshit, for this week.

Polling must be either very good for the NDP, or very bad for the Liberals, or maybe both, for Graves to have not published his results this week.

Not necessarily.  And the polls are likely to show a small uptick for the Liberals rather than a decline.  The Conservatives are likely to experience a small decline.

Yes, Graves was on Evan Solomon's Politics show today talking about a poll -  a poll on Canadians' attitude towards gun control and the gun registry.  Canadians appear divided on the subject.

Federal NDP making gains at Liberal, Tory expense: Poll

The federal New Democratic Party has vaulted to levels of voter approval not seen since before the last federal election, as Canada's two major parties struggle to hold support, suggest findings of a poll released Friday.

The NDP surged six percentage points to 19 per cent support nationally, according to results of an Ipsos Reid poll, commissioned by Canwest News Service and Global National.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's ruling Conservatives fell three points to 37 per cent, shy of the 40 per cent typically seen as a level needed to land a majority government.

Michael Ignatieff's Liberals garnered 24 per cent of support among respondents, a drop of one percentage point from late October.

The Liberals' steady descent has them almost at the same depths as in December of last year, when former leader Stephane Dion's call for a coalition government sat uneasily with a majority of Canadians. A poll taken Dec. 3 suggested the Liberals' support had dipped to 23 per cent.

The results suggest Liberal attacks during the last month — such as those over stimulus spending, partisan appointments, and reports that Afghan detainees under Canadian supervision had been handed over to local authorities where they were later tortured — have had little traction with voters.

Darrell Bricker, CEO and president of Ipsos Reid, chalked up the gains of Jack Layton's NDP to Ontario voters being frustrated with the McGuinty government, particularly with the forthcoming harmonized sales tax, and that is being carried over to the federal Liberals.

"The NDP has really started to define a position on that issue," said Bricker. "It's not that the NDP has moved so much provincially, but the Liberal brand is in a certain amount of trouble in this province. As we know, (Ontario) is a place where elections are won and lost."

In Ontario, 39 per cent of decided voters said if an election were held today, they would cast their ballots for the Conservatives (down two points since October); the Liberals would attract 29 per cent support (down three points); the NDP 21 per cent, up eight points; and the Greens eight per cent, down six points.

"It looks like the Liberals are caught in that old classic pincer movement," said Bricker, "where they're now not just losing their centrist and slightly right-wing voters, they're also starting to lose their left-wing voters . . . to the NDP."

http://www.canada.com/news/Federal+making+gains+Liberal+Tory+expense+Poll/2247668/story.html

Canada

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP / Bloc

2008 Election / 37.7% / 26.2% / 18.2% / 10% / Cons surpassed Libs by 12%

Nov 20 / Ipsos / 37% / 24% / 19% / Cons lead Libs by 13% & NDP reduces Libs lead to 5% 

Nov 20 / ARS / 38% / 23% / 17% / Cons lead Libs by 15% & NDP reduces Lib lead to 6% 

Nov 13 / Nanos / 38% / 28.8% / 17.9% / Cons lead Libs by 9% & Libs lead NDP by 11%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 36.6% / 26.6% / 16.8% / 

Nov 5 / EKOS / 37.4% / 26.8% / 16.3% 

Oct 29 / ARS / 40% / 26% / 17%  

Oct 28 / EKOS / 38.4% / 26.8% / 16.7%  

Oct 26 / Envir / 38% / 26% / 16%  

Oct 26 / IR / 40% / 25% / 13% 

Oct 22 / Nanos / 39.8% / 30% / 16.6% 

Oct 22 / EKOS / 38.3% / 27.1% / 14.5% 

Oct 16 / ARS / 41% / 27% / 16% 

Oct 15 / EKOS / 40.7% / 25.5% / 14.3% 

Oct 15 / HD / 35% / 28% / 15% 

Oct 12 / IR / 39% /29%/ 13% 

Oct 8 / EKOS / 39.7% / 25.7%  / 15.2% 

Oct 6 / Strat Con / 41% / 28% / 14%

BC

Date / Pollster / Cons / NDP / Libs

2008 / Election / 44.5% / 26.1% / 19.3%    

Oct 29 / ARS / 43% / 25% / 27%

Oct 28 / EKOS / 36.8% / 28.9%  / 25%

Oct 26 / Envir / 34% / 29% / 24% 

Oct 26 / IR / 49% / 23% / 18%  

Oct 22 / Nanos / 37.3% / 22.6% / 29.4%  

Oct 22 / EKOS / 37.5% / 24.9% / 25.4%  

Oct 16 / AR / 47% / 22% / 21% / 9%  

Sask/Man

Date / Pollster / Cons / NDP / Libs

Nov 11 / EKOS / 44.2% / 28.8% / 16.3%

Ontario

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP

2008 Election / 39.2% / 33.8% / 18.2%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 39.2% / 33.8% / 15.5%

Oct 29 / ARS / 41% / 31% / 17%

Oct 15 / ARS / 45% / 29% / 19%

Quebec 

Date / Pollster / Bloc / Libs / Cons / NDP

2008 Election / 38.1% / 23.8% / 21.7% / 12.2%

Nov 11 / EKOS / 35.6% / 21.3% / 21.7% / 10.7%

Oct 29 / ARS / 40% / 20% / 21% / 15% 

Oct 28 / CROP / 37% / 23% / ? / 16%

Oct 15 / ARS / 36% / 26% / 25% / 8%

AC

Date / Pollster / Cons / Libs / NDP

2008 Election / 

Nov 11 / EKOS / 36.5% / 32.8% / 25.3%

Oct 29 / ARS / 35% / 32% / 26%

Leadership

Best PM

Quebec

Date / Pollster / Lay / Har/ Ign

Oct 28 / CROP / 26% / 25% / 20% / Layton leads

Ignatieff slips further behind in poll

Michael Ignatieff is surely hoping this is rock bottom.

A new public opinion survey shows support for the Liberals has slipped to 23 per cent – well back of the 38 per cent support for the front-running Conservatives.

The survey was taken from Nov. 14 to Nov. 16, which is before news broke this week regarding the treatment of Afghan detainees.

It shows the Conservatives are essentially at the same level of support, 37.6 per cent, they received in the 2008 election, while the Liberals under Mr. Ignatieff are now three points lower than the 26.2 per cent the party received in 2008 under previous leader Stéphane Dion.

Support for the NDP has remained constant at 17 per cent this fall, which is one point below the party’s 2008 results.

The Angus Reid/Toronto Star survey polled 1,005 Canadian adults who are part of an Angus Reid Forum online panel. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

In contrast to the same survey company’s results for Oct. 23-24, the Tories are down two points, the Liberals are down three points,

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/ignatieff-slips-further-behind-in-poll/article1371546/

Paul Wells and the rest of the Ottawa punditry sure missed this NDP surge, or did they.

Did the earth move boys

Like who cares what the Liberals hope for? Whatever it is, the Canadian voters aren't buying it.

This Parliament will last for a while

The NDP already negotiating terms for propping up the Conservatives

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/This+Parliament+will+last+while/2249954/story.html