Latest Federal Election Opinion Polls

[Goldie]

NO, NO, NO,

You view The NDP's % wrongly as it will spread thinly through the country and concentrate in urban centers.

This will play well for the Conservatives if they can retain more of the red tory vote. The NDP will not gain so many seats to be the Official Opposition, sorry sticky and pelly.

[maplesyrup]

theWatcher....you may be onto something there.

'Poll gives PM little reason to cheer'

by L. Ian Macdonald

http://www.canada.com/search/story.aspx?id...17-085b2fde7527

'It is no surprise Paul Martin would be flying high in the polls after only four weeks in office, which is precisely why the numbers in yesterday's Environics poll are meaningless.'

'One of the reasons for the Liberal surge in Ontario and the West is a Martin-led Liberal Party has long been the second choice of Red Tories, many of whom feel betrayed by the merger on the right.

Whether they have found a home or a parking space with Martin will be determined by the nature of the Conservative leadership debate on social issues. If the Conservatives carve out a moderate profile, they will be able to move to the centre and grow their vote into the 30s. If not, they will be stuck on the right, where they already have all the votes they're going to get.

And on the left, completely vacated by Martin, there's a wealth of opportunities for Layton, on everything from opposing Canada joining U.S. missile defence to portraying himself as the champion of Main St. vs. Bay St.

And in the context of left-right vote splits, the NDP and Conservatives are objective allies. They are not looking for votes from each other, only from the Liberals. Every vote for one or the other is one less for the Grits. At 40 per cent for the Liberals, 30 per cent for the Conservatives and 20 per cent for the NDP - very achievable numbers from here - it's a very different game, one that might even be called minority government.'

[maplesyrup]

NDP at 17% pulls even with Conservatives at 19% within margin of error.

Poll points to Liberal landslide

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpos...81-88981a2f3f5e

'The biggest gainers appear to be Mr. Layton's New Democrats, who have posted increases in a number of recent opinion polls.

"The growth is all NDP," Mr. Winn said. "They're almost certainly heading to increase their seats in the next election."'

Bloc ?

Cons 19%

Lib 49%

NDP 17%

I must admit to being a bit confused by the interpretation of some of these results.

Quebec for example, just doesn't make sense to me.

If Liberals only have a 5% lead over the Bloc, that liberals will make a sweep here is confusing, because of the demographics..

However I'm not the expert, Mr Winn is.

[theWatcher]

Here's the kicker with the NDP.

The stronger the Conservative vote gets the weaker the NDP votes will be as many of their members tend to vote for the Liberals strategically in order to block them.

Many of the people I work with are high level NDPers (in Alberta of all places) and they haven't voted NDP in the past 3 elections.

With the new party funding formula they might change their strategy but I doubt it. My boss still crows all the time about being one of the ones who got Anne Mclellan elected as she has won by as little as 7 or 8 votes in past elections.

The NDP has quite a bit of support with Younger voters who tend to not reliably show up at the polling stations on voting day.

But who knows what the biggest issue will be in this next election.

The social issues could still be a large determining factor here. Abortion, Pot Laws, same sex marriage are all issues that have the electorate split at about 50/50.

The Liberal side (Bloc, NDP, and Liberal) have to share that 50%, and the Conservatives have the remaining 50% to themselves.

Of course there are more factors than these issues but for people that feel strongly about them there isn't very much choice.

[Pellaken]

Here's the kicker with the NDP.

The stronger the Conservative vote gets the weaker the NDP votes will be as many of their members tend to vote for the Liberals strategically  in order to block them.

wrong

the stronger the tories get, the more to the center they need to move

the farther to the center they are, the more chance you'll risk voting NDP

remember, the NDP did their 2 best electons while Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister

[theWatcher]

Pellaken wrote:

wrong

the stronger the tories get, the more to the center they need to move

the farther to the center they are, the more chance you'll risk voting NDP

remember, the NDP did their 2 best electons while Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister

Strategic Voting in Canada: A Cross Time Analysis

Table 2: Percentage of Respondent’s who did not intend to Vote for Their Favorite Candidate over Time and by one’s First Preference

_____________1988_____1993_____1997_____2000

All Voters______12.6%____7.7%____15.5%____24.7%

NDP Supporters_19.9%____1.2%____16.4%____46.2%

PC Supporters___9.4%___16.9%____17%______49.6%

Liberal Supporters_8.6%___.98%____15.9%____12.3%

Reform/CA Supporters-------1.4%_____10.3%____22.1%

The percentage of voters who intended to vote for their favorite party is lower for the NDP (with the exception of 1993) and the PC (post 1988), than for the Liberal and Reform parties.  Also, as would be expected due to the location of the parties, we see more defections by NDP supporters to the Liberal party.  Since the PC supporters are located between the Liberals and the Reform Party (post 1988), we see a significant number of defections to both parties, though more defections to the Liberals than to the Reform party.  We also find some defections by major party supporters, and this might be due to either the party not being competitive in the riding or to protest voting.

Here's where the NDP vote went to:

Table 3: Vote Intentions by First Preference, 1988-2000

First Preference NDP

________1988____1993____1997____2000

NDP_____69.4%_92.8%____67.5%___35.4%

Liberals__19.3%__5.1%____14.4%___25.2%

PC______11.3%__1.7%____10.7%____6.7%

Reform__------_____.4%_____7.4%____4.1%

25.2% of the NDP vote went to the Liberals in 2000, I wonder why? Stockwell Day perhaps?

PC's had pretty bad strategic voting too:

________First Preference PC

________1988____1993____1997____2000

NDP______5.2%____.45%___7.6%_____5%

Liberals__10.8%___17.5%___15.9%___19%

PC______84%_____66.9%___68.2%___34.2%

Reform__-------_____15.1%____8.4%___10%

They lost a combined 29% of the vote to the Liberals and Alliance in 2000.

Summary

While the PC party still claims to be a viable election choice, it appears that there is little hope for a right-wing party governing Canada unless PC supporters defect as a group to support the Canadian Alliance.   This might only be possible if the Canadian Alliance becomes more moderate and moves closer to the center to draw in these voters. This strategy may be thwarted, however, as the Liberals can also move their platform closer to the preferences of PC voters, especially because they have no competition for strategic NDP supporters (there is no more extreme left-wing party).  Regardless, it may make sense for conservative elites to advertise the importance of casting a strategic vote from the very beginning of a campaign period.

Pre merger document, but it states strategies for the parties in more of a mathemtical nature.

Interesting how Martin is following this to a tee.

[maplesyrup]

theWatcher......fascinating research, thanks.

If the Liberals were that concerned about the Conservatives, Martin would not have pulled that fake left with the throne speech.

The Liberals are looking over their left shoulder.

[Pellaken]

PCers will turn Liberal in general

but

due to strategic voting

"In general" will mean, for the most part, the ridings the new tory party wont win anyways. You will not see many 35%-25% ridings for the new tory party.

There are some ridings, about 15-20 in ontario, where PC voters will vote for the new party in enough numbers to win.

The NDP will gain. there is no longer the fear of the conservative party, and if they keep doing these numbers in the polls (between 25% and 15%) that would be great

the "dream" situation for us is a Conservative party with between 25% and 30% of the vote. Why? simple. this is enough votes to stop the Liberals, but not enough to win, and hence, not enough to scare New Democrats.

rather

New Democrats will see this happening, and vote NDP for 2 reasons that are similar, yet different

A- the tories will not do well against the liberals

and

B- the NDP might win official opposition.

This is great for us. the only thing better for us would be for this merger to not have happened.

Things will become clear as time drags on.

[maplesyrup]

Have the Tories jumping ship impacted things in the Maritimes for the Conservatives?

The reason I ask is that the Cons have gone from 37% support to 24% support there.

[maplesyrup]

The Compas/National Post latest opinion poll that was released yesterday is bizarre in more ways than one:

Survey taken Jan 26-28, 2004 with 500 Canadian citizens.

National

Bloc ?

Con 19%

Lib 49%

NDP 17%

BC

Con 18%

Lib 27%

NDP 17%

AB

Con 42%

Lib 16%

NDP 11%

SK/MA

Con 17%

Lib 26%

NDP 26%

ON

Con 15%

Lib 46%

NDP 13%

QC

Blo 36%

Con 3%

Lib 41%

NDP 6%

AT

Con 24%

Lib 56%

NDP 10%

For example Compas shows the Maritimes with only 24% support for the Conservatives, while the Ipsos-Reid poll released not that long ago showed 37% support for the Conservatives. That's quite a difference. Could the Conservative support have dropped that much so quckly?

[maplesyrup]

Money is going to have an impact as well on election results as well.

Won't the NDP have a reasonable amount of money for this election campaign for once, because of the new government political party financing law?

Strategic voting might not be such a good idea any more, especially if it going to cost the party you really support funds from the governemnt, which is now going to be based on each party's percentage of the popular vote.

[Pellaken]

the numbers for the new conservative party range from 17% to 25%

I think part of the issue is how the question is asked.