Federal polling - April 22

New Nanos leadership indicators:

http://www.nanosresearch.com/election2011/20110421-LeadershipE.pdf

I know it is too early yet, but remember just a few weeks ago when the prevailing wisdom was that nothing was going to change in this election or if anything changed it was going to be the NDP being squeezed to the sidelines and lose all kinds of seats.  Shows you how much the big name pundits really know.  

L,tU&E: hearing you loud and clear. The events of the last week have put quite the smile on my face... I am looking forward to the pointy little heads of a number of the big name pundits literally exploding as the results roll in a week from Tuesday. I wonder if the hospitals closest to the CBC and CTV broadcasting centres have thought to schedule extra staff for that evening to deal with the increase in stress-related cerebrovascular accidents?

Yeah, just a re-hash of Ipsos and there was one oher seat projection model that was disturbing as well.

I'm nervous about Ignatieff's rise.

If I were a New Democrat right now (I guess I am, I voted for Duncan), I'd really be cooling my jets over making seat projections. The NDP in Quebec has a decent ground game in Quebec, but I don't think they have the ground game of Conservatives or the Bloq in the regions, or even the Liberals in and around Montreal.

If you watched the 2010 UK Election, and Clegg-mania. You can see how surges can wither away at the ballot box.

As it stands (and who knows where this surge goes), the NDP will retain Outremont and win Gatineau, are likely to win a couple other seats in downtown Montreal and Hull, and are a in very good position to snatch a few more seats around the Montreal Metro. That's a gain of at the extreme least of 1, probably at least 4, and if I had to put money on it, around 7.

I agree with Charles. Whenever there is a very large and unexpected change in an election, all kinds of strange things can happen.

When Gordon Wilson suddenly had an upsweep in the British Columbia elections after a strong performance in the debates, there were many big surprises as to who won in the various ridings.

There was one candidate (I think from Chilliwack) who won but was hard to find on election night as he had so little expectation of winning, he had gone off somewhere and couldn't be reached.

On the other side, Nick Clegg seemed to be the most popular leader in the recent British elections after a very strong performance in the debates, but the hoped for surge in seats largely vanished on Election Day.

I think Nick Nanos was right. The coming weeks will be a wild ride with no one really sure what is going to happen next.

West Coast Greeny wrote:

If I were a New Democrat right now (I guess I am, I voted for Duncan), I'd really be cooling my jets over making seat projections. The NDP in Quebec has a decent ground game in Quebec, but I don't think they have the ground game of Conservatives or the Bloq in the regions, or even the Liberals in and around Montreal.

If you watched the 2010 UK Election, and Clegg-mania. You can see how surges can wither away at the ballot box.

As it stands (and who knows where this surge goes), the NDP will retain Outremont and win Gatineau, are likely to win a couple other seats in downtown Montreal and Hull, and are a in very good position to snatch a few more seats around the Montreal Metro. That's a gain of at the extreme least of 1, probably at least 4, and if I had to put money on it, around 7.

I've been hearing a lot of this and I'm not sure I buy it. I tend to be cynical about NDP chances and opportunities (tpo many times thwarted at the closing bell), but the suggestion of these kind of numbers meaning only a couple of new seats doesn't make mathematical sense. Taber suggested the same thing on CTV and frankly, if the NDP finish first in the province in the low to mid 30s (and I'm not yet convinced that's where they'll end up, see: aforementioned cynicism), it defies logic it would only net a small handful of seats, ground game aside, concentration aside. We saw with the ADQ, or the NDP in ON, or even to a lesser extent the NDP in NS, momentum is a funny thing and causes unexpected seats to tumble. How does a party finish first in the province and 4th in the seat count? I have never seen anything remotely like that.

Even the wretched FPTP doesn't produce anomalies that extreme. Especially if it's true about the 40% in Montreal. It just defies logic. The long time New Democrat in me says, "of course it will crash back to earth once the attacks come in earnest and they'll at least fall back to the low 20s which absolutely *could* mean 2-7 seats, but if any semblance of the numbers we've seen this week, especially if the party finishes number one in the province it's going to mean seats. It's going to mean 20-30 seats. it's going to mean wins in weird places. It's going to mean some MPs who were students who thought they were names on ballots and had planned to return to school after the election. It's going to mean a significant impact on the electoral landscape...

Anonymouse wrote:

Speaking of polls...how about participating in a real one?

Been there, done that, about 5 hours ago.... there was a line...

CROP Regionals (sample size= 867)

Montreal (437) NDP 40 BQ 28 PLC 17 CPC 12

Quebec (166) BQ 31 CPC 31 NDP 28 PLC 11

ROQ (264) BQ 35 NDP 34 CPC 19 PLC 10

Francophone (754) BQ 38 NDP 34 CPC 15 LPC 11

Non-francophone (113) NDP 45 CPC 26 PLC 20 BQ 4

Alberta Observer wrote:

I agree with Charles. Whenever there is a very large and unexpected change in an election, all kinds of strange things can happen.

When Gordon Wilson suddenly had an upsweep in the British Columbia elections after a strong performance in the debates, there were many big surprises as to who won in the various ridings.

There was one candidate (I think from Chilliwack) who won but was hard to find on election night as he had so little expectation of winning, he had gone off somewhere and couldn't be reached.

Allan Blakeney told the story of election night, 1971.  Federal NDP leader David Lewis called to congraulate him, observing at one point, "I understand you've won Maple Creek."

Allan replied that it simply wasn't possible.  The NDP was too far behind in Maple Creek.  In fact, the leader had not even visited the Maple Creek constituency during the campaign, and had never even met the candidate.

The NDP had won Maple Creek.  Allan finally met the new MLA at the first caucus meeting.

I checked those results, and somehow I don't see the NDP winning 80% of the vote anywhere in Quebec.

It's 7:35am and the latest Nanos Tracking poll still hasn't been released.  Who has the best paranoid/conspiracy explanation?

I saw a couple of front-lawn NDP signs in Etobicoke Centre today.  Wonder what kind of harbinger that is (and no, I'm not expecting the NDP to win there, they were below 10% for three consecutive Layton elections)

CBC checkup website headline:

Do you worry this election will decide nothing? Well, lets see, how do we attack the NDP without naming them. I know, let get people to talk about the need for a majority government, of course it can only be Libs or Tories, and imply people have to ignore the NDP.

I hate the CBC!

adma wrote:

I saw a couple of front-lawn NDP signs in Etobicoke Centre today.  Wonder what kind of harbinger that is (and no, I'm not expecting the NDP to win there, they were below 10% for three consecutive Layton elections)

I am so, so pleased to hear this. My old riding association is making me so, so proud to be a Dipper. I know that Eileen Markwick and the rest have put so much energy and enthusiasm into the riding association, and that Ana Rivero might well get past 15%, come May 2nd. Which would be huge in Etobicoke terms.

Lens Solution wrote:

Unfortunately, this is the dilemma the NDP faces - the higher the NDP vote goes, the more likely it is that there will be a Conservative Majority.  The NDP cannot stop the Conservatives from winning a majority if it surpasses the Liberals in popular vote.  There are many ridings where only the Liberals can stop the Conservatives, and if the Liberal vote goes NDP, that gives those seats to the Cons.

Garbage!  In Western Canada, only New Democrats defeat Conservatives - FULL STOP.  Out here, only super-wealthy ridings will even consider voting Liberal, working people do not.  In Western Canada, there are more NDP/Tory swing voters than NDP/Liberal ones.  That same pattern is largely similar in the Maritimes.  The myth of vote-splitting is a lie propagated by people who have never left the cooridor of Highway 401.  Conservatives will be defeated in Western Canada, unless the Liberal shills an succeed in scaring voters back to the Tories from the NDP.

Lens Solution wrote:

The same thing could happen in Quebec.  I just got back from my family visit to Quebec for the Easter weekend, and the NDP surge is front page news on most of the papers.  Everybody is talking about the NDP surge, but they are also talking about the fact that because of the way our electoral system works, the spread out NDP vote in Quebec probably won't lead to many seats.  What it can do though is help the Conservatives and the Liberals keep seats by taking votes away from the Bloc.  The NDP is taking a lot of votes from the BQ right now.

Garbage again!  Please tell me how voting against the party that is in FIRST PLACE is "strategic"?  The reality is that 36% (NDP numbers) delivers seats; 13% (Liberal numbers) and 17% (Conservative numbers) do not.  The NDP will be taking seats from the Liberals, BQ and Tories on May 2nd - you can take that to the bank.

So let's cut the "strategic" voting bullsh*t and get to work replacing Stephen Harper - THAT MEANS VOTING NDP!