Poll Soup: School's out for the Summer Edition
What has been described as "the least productive session of parliament ever" is stumbling to a close. Looking at what little has been accomplished...well, maybe they should have just stayed prorogued.
But even if there's been little legislative movement in the House, there has been movement in the polls since January. Despite abortion gaffes, a Jaffer side show, and a billion dollar boondogle, the Tories managed to regain much of what they lost from the grassroots fury over the holidays. A 1.7% lead in January has gradually widened to 6.7%.
And, you know what. That's basically the mean Canadian politics has kept regressing to over the last 4 years. Sure, sometimes the Tories inch ahead and we speculate about a majority. Sometimes the Liberals creep up and we start speculating about a Liberal win. But, without fail, two or three months later, we get back to the 6 or 7 point lead.
Ekos (June 9 - 15, n = 2,013 robo called)
CPC 30.5%
Lib 26.3%
NDP 17.4%
BQ 10.5%
Green 12.3%
Other 3.0%
Nanos (May 29 - June 3, n = 1,008 phone)
CPC 35.6%
Lib 29.2%
NDP 20.7%
BQ 9.4%
Green 5.1%
Environics (May 18 - 26, n = 2,064 phone)
CPC 36%
Lib 30%
NDP 15%
BQ 10%
Green 7%
Other 2%
Angus Reid (May 25 - 27, n = 2,022 online)
CPC 35%
Lib 27%
NDP 19%
BQ 9%
Green 8%
Decima (May 13 - 23, n = 2,010 phone)
CPC 36%
Lib 27%
NDP 16%
BQ 8%
Green 11%
AVERAGE (change since April in brackets)
CPC: 34.6% (+1.3%)
Lib: 27.9% (+0.8%)
NDP: 17.6% (-0.9%)
BQ: 9.4% (-0.5%)
Green: 8.7% (-0.9%)
Labels: Polls
posted by calgarygrit at
8:32 a.m.
12 Comments:
Love the poll soup, Dan, but this one seems to have stretched the dates out more than I recall. We are in the second half of June now and only one of those polls covers only a June period and one of them reaches back to the first half of May. So I'm not sure how much the average reflects the current state or direction of things at the end of this session.
The general analysis though is on. The Harper government is getting hammered over the G8/G20 boondoggle pork-barrelling, but I don't see them yet going below the Liberals.
By
Ted Betts, at 9:56 a.m.
Those are all 'yesterday's' polls and it will be 'tomorrow's' poll that will decide the next election.
So, here we have a 15% Ignatieff leading a 28% Liberal party... and a 40% Harper leading the 35% Conservative party.
Now you tell me what's going to happen in any next election .. and please remember Dion's performance last time.
By
Observant, at 10:46 a.m.
Please remember Layton and Broadbent's performances - their personal scores are/were always way above the others. Or we could remember Harper's personal scores just before the 2005 election - he was a drag on his party as well and way way behind Martin.
I believe that Ignatieff's numbers are soft. He's never been in an election with the kind of national exposure that comes with that, and he's never run a national TV ad campaign anything like an election ad campaign or anything like the multi-million dollar ad campaigns run against him. According to several polls I've seen, something like 20% of Canadians haven't made their mind up about him which, for such polls, is quite high.
By contrast, something like 9% of Canadians have made up their minds about Harper suggesting he is where he is and you can't expect much change - those who like him will like him and those who don't won't.
And maybe Harper's hardened numbers and Ignatieff's soft numbers ends up being good for Harper and bad for Ignatieff.
the Liberals have been far worse far closer to an election and pulled off majorities. Which is not to say that there is nothing to worry about, but polling is not one of them.
By
Ted Betts, at 11:05 a.m.
Observant,
Harper's personal popularity is under 30% and has been at that level for a long time. I don't remeber ever seeing his popularity as high as 40%.
By
Jordan, at 11:37 a.m.
Red Tory Liberal;
Various leadership and popularity polls has Harper two to three times more popular than Ignatieff. In fact, Ignatieff ranks dead last amongst all leaders for PM of Canada; even lower than Lizzie May. Now that must sting!
Any way you cut it, Ignatieff has not established any credibility with Canadians, and to suggest he can lead Liberal to victory in any next election is sheer fantasy. Even Kinsella has given up on Ignatieff!
Perhaps the Liberal brand will protect some of the established Liberal MPs, but I wager that most Liberal candidates in any next election will distance themselves from Ignatieff, as they did with Dion.
What Canadians will have is credible political leaders in Harper, Layton and May; while Ignatieff will be labouring to explain his questionable past history. Attack ads will make certain of that.
It doesn't require rocket surgery to figure out how any next election will play out ... Liberals demonizing Harper and Conservatives and NDP discrediting Ignatieff. The guns will be out for Iggy.
In fact the next election campaign has already begun with the non-stop Liberal demonization of Harper. What else can you do if your own leaders are so inadequate?
The next election campaign will be the most acrimonious in living history .. believe it.
By
Observant, at 2:16 p.m.
Observant:
Harper did OK in the 2006 election despite having Ignatieff like numbers a few months prior to the election.
It is curious to me that so many Harpermaniacs mistake Ignatieff's low numbers as meaning Harper is doing well. Harper is not well liked by Canadians at all, and worse for him, far more Canadians have already made up their minds about him so they won't be changing their minds. Whereas far more Canadians are still unsure about Iggy giving him a great opportunity.
The leadership numbers though are somewhat useless. Broadbent always scored highest. Layton scores highest now. Harper scored lowest until during the 2006 election, Martin scored highest. The election results did not follow the leadership numbers.
But what really made me laugh was this comment: "In fact the next election campaign has already begun with the non-stop Liberal demonization of Harper. What else can you do if your own leaders are so inadequate?"
The Conservatives have spent millions and millions and millions of dollars on national ad campaigns attacking Ignatieff personally and not a single penny on promoting Harper. What else can you do if your own leader is so inadequate, indeed.
By
Ted Betts, at 2:45 p.m.
Observant,
I don'tno what polls you're looking at because I follow most polls and am not seeing what you're seeing. Nanos polls show Ignatieff with three times the support of May.
http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-W10-T421E.pdf
http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-W10-T411E.pdf
By
Jordan, at 4:43 p.m.
Okay .. let's just admit that you can't take yesterday's polls and extrapolate them into tomorrow's election results.
Let's look at what is going to happen in the next election. Let's also assume the next election is going to be held this September after Harper pulls the plug on Parliament during the last days of the Summer Recess and plunge the country into an election without even letting the HoCs resume.
Donolo Liberals are planning for that eventuality by forcing Iggy to go on a cross-Canada bus tour to meet with the "little people" and try to rally the troops in the trenches to follow his leadership. I just heard that Liberals are even now shopping for an election jet for September. Hold on to your hats ..!!!!
When we are plunged into an election, all the little nitpicking issues that Liberals are caterwauling about will be swept aside and Canadians will be presented with only one decision:
"Will you elect a Conservative majority gov't and give Canada a strong and secure gov't for the next 4 years to deal with the looming economic threats to our nation ... or ... do you want another minority gov't or even worse a coalition gov't to look after your long term interests???"
Liberals, Dippers, Greeners, will bellyache all they want about insignificant side issues, but any next election will be about the leadership of the nation ... plain and simple ...!!!!
.. and then we'll see how Ignatieff stacks up next to Harper and Layton ... it's going to be a battle of the party leaders ... and it's going to be bloody, vicious and just plain not nice ... believe it.
By
Observant, at 12:18 a.m.
Oh .. and btw ... it's going to be a battle of "character" between the leaders ... All-Canadian Stephen versus "we Americans" Iggy versus devious Dipper Layton.
How do you think Iggy will hold up on character issues where he will be held accountable for his 35 year odyssey away from Canada ..???
Somehow I don't think Canadians will give much credit to Iggy for his academic qualifications gained in the UK and USA .. particularly since his expertise is in history and human rights. I think Canadians will be more concerned about their PM's understanding of economic as they face the threat of more recessionary attacks from offshore and the USA.
Remember when Iggy complained that he would need a doctorate in economics to understand the gov'ts Budget ... get the point ..??!!!
By
Observant, at 12:27 a.m.
So no proof that Canadians think Elizabeth May will make a better Prime Minister?
As for your great scenarios you gave us you forgot one;
Canadians could also elect a Liberal majority gov't and give Canada a strong and secure gov't for the next 4 years to deal with the reckless spending of the Conservatives over the last 4 years and the looming economic threats to our nation.
By
Jordan, at 10:05 a.m.
Anyone else get the feeling Observant is trying to convince himself?
In any event, I agree Ignatieff is an unknown entity to most Canadians, while Harper's identity is well estalished now. It will now be up to Ignatieff to accomplish something on the campaign trail.
I recall when Mandell won the election as mayor of Edmonton. No one really paid any attention to him until the campaign. When people started paying attention they liked what they saw, and now there arre no real challengers for the mayor's seat.
By
Gayle, at 11:03 a.m.
Gayle,
I agree. Most polls I've seen on Ignatieff always show that a large percentage(25%) of people surveyed are undecided or have no opinion of him, while only 10% or less are undecided about Harper and Layton. Ignatieff has room to grow, all he needs to do is be as liked as Harper and that won't be hard.
By
Jordan, at 5:04 p.m.
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