Canada 2011 Official Thread

[Hatman 🍁]

25%

[Antonio the Sixth]

25%

Hoping it's true...

Also, great maps !

[Hatman 🍁]

Meanwhile, Nanos has us down at 17%. So, I don't know what to believe.

[Hash]

Probably an outlier like that COMPAS junk earlier, albeit it one which will make for some good headlines to give the stupid media some money.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've added some insets. Here is the 2008 map:



As always, bigger version in the gallery, including a blank map.

That's all really, really nice work

[The Vorlon]

Probably an outlier like that COMPAS junk earlier, albeit it one which will make for some good headlines to give the stupid media some money.

I will say this one more time...

The regional breakouts on these polls are JUNK.

Lets look at NANOS...

The topline horserace number has been amazingly stable.. The Tories have a 10% lead give or take a bit of statistical noise..

Yet the regional samples have shown the Tories anywhere from up 18 to down 10 in Atlantic Canada..

In Ontario the Grits have led by 7 and trailed by 18...

The list of huge and irrational swings goes on and on..

What seems more likely to you... That we actually do have all these huge regional swings that all magically exactly cancel each other out at the National level, so that the national numbers remain stable, or that these regional "swings" are simple the outcome of pushing a too small (and unbalanced) regional sample to places it statisically has no place going?

Bad Journalism combined with stupid readers (if you ask me)

[cinyc]

And today, Nanos taketh away from the Bloc, while the Dippers dip, too:

Conservative	39.8%	+0.8
Liberal	29.8%	+1.5
NDP	17.4%	-1.0
BQ	8.6%	-1.0
Green	3.4%	-0.2

(3 days ending April 17)

[cinyc]

I will say this one more time...

The regional breakouts on these polls are JUNK.

I agree with you, with a few exceptions.  Some of the Quebec-only polling by the likes of Leger is usually reliable, as are the Ontario subsamples if they are large and balanced enough.  All the rest, especially subsamples of Atlantic Canada and Alberta and/or the Prairies, often have very high MoEs, sometimes double-digits.

[The Vorlon]

I will say this one more time...

The regional breakouts on these polls are JUNK.

I agree with you, with a few exceptions.  Some of the Quebec-only polling by the likes of Leger is usually reliable, as are the Ontario subsamples if they are large and balanced enough.  All the rest, especially subsamples of Atlantic Canada and Alberta and/or the Prairies, often have very high MoEs, sometimes double-digits.

I agree that the Quebec only polling is ok, because the design their entire sample design to sample, well, Quebec....

The problems with the regional subsamples goes beyond mere margin of error...

For a poll to even have a chance to be right (other than by pure luck) it needs to be demographically balanced so the makeup by age, gender, education, income, race, etc matches the target population...

The nightly subsample in the Atlantic provinces is what... 30-35 people... you just simply cannot balance all the above factors in a 35 person sample.. it's just impossible...

In Ontartio where your subsamble is 300 ish over 3 nights you have a bit of a chance, but unless you specifically stratify within the subsample (which NANOS does not) your regionals are gibberish..

Again.. even taking MOE into account, can the Tories going from 12 up to 8 down to 8 up in a period of 2 weeks be explained?

There is more than MOE here at work.

CTV must love this poll.. it gives believable top line numbers and a regional story (real or imagined) ever night....

[Hatman 🍁]

the NDP is 2nd place in Quebec in every recent poll.

EKOS now has the NDP at 20%, and it hasn't been a "pro-NDP" pollster. Abacus also had us at 20%, Forum Research and Leger both have us over 20%, and while it's not on Wikipedia, according to threehundredeight, Environics has us at 20% too, but maybe they got it confused with EKOS.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Quick question: why didn't the NDP surge much further in 2008 when there was a lot of anger towards Harper from the left and with the Liberals having such of a weak/unappealing leader and campaign message? Is it possible that many possible Liberal to NDP vote switchers voted for the Greens instead or were NDP ads and messaging just not as good as they are now?

It's just that in retrospect, 2008 strikes me as the perfect opportunity for the NDP to become or come close to becoming the chief opposition party and it seems weird to me that the NDP would be doing better now with a stronger Liberal leader in Ignatieff.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

the NDP is 2nd place in Quebec in every recent poll.

EKOS now has the NDP at 20%, and it hasn't been a "pro-NDP" pollster. Abacus also had us at 20%, Forum Research and Leger both have us over 20%, and while it's not on Wikipedia, according to threehundredeight, Environics has us at 20% too, but maybe they got it confused with EKOS.

Environics have the poll on their website: Con 39, Lib 24, NDP 22, BQ 9, Green 6

Separate figures are given for Ontario and Quebec, but not elsewhere. Ontario: Con 39, Lib 33, NDP 23, Greens 6. Quebec: BQ 37, NDP 26, Con 18, Lib 14.

[Hatman 🍁]

It would be really weird if the NDP got a better result in Quebec than Ontario.

[The Vorlon]

the NDP is 2nd place in Quebec in every recent poll.

EKOS now has the NDP at 20%, and it hasn't been a "pro-NDP" pollster. Abacus also had us at 20%, Forum Research and Leger both have us over 20%, and while it's not on Wikipedia, according to threehundredeight, Environics has us at 20% too, but maybe they got it confused with EKOS.

Environics have the poll on their website: Con 39, Lib 24, NDP 22, BQ 9, Green 6

Separate figures are given for Ontario and Quebec, but not elsewhere. Ontario: Con 39, Lib 33, NDP 23, Greens 6. Quebec: BQ 37, NDP 26, Con 18, Lib 14.

Environics Poll

http://www.environics.ca/news-and-insights?news_id=61

thx

Abacus - Internet Poll

Tories by 8

http://abacusdata.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Ballot-April-18-2011.pdf

[Smid]

That's all really, really nice work

Thanks, Al! Glad you appreciate it!

It would be really weird if the NDP got a better result in Quebec than Ontario.

I think the NDP would have done substantially better in Quebec last election, had the Liberal leader not been from there. It's merely an outsider's perspective, but it really seemed to me that Dion was more uninspiring outside of Quebec, and that he probably partially led to some of the NDP gains in Northern Ontario, etc, but may have helped prevent some of the Liberal decline in Quebec/Montreal. Perhaps with Ignatieff, the NDP may be able to make further gains in Quebec (while hopefully consolidating their gains in the rest of Canada).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Test run, using the 2008 results.

Edit: now with added inset.

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, the NDP making 2nd place in Quebec made the abbreviated 5 minute "the National" broadcast on CBC between playoff hockey games. Good news!

[MaxQue]

Who is Abacus?
A new pollster?
A pollster who changed his name?

[Smid]

Test run, using the 2008 results.

Looking good!

Longueuil and Terrebonne is a bit hard to see, I note. I'm presently preparing I've just finished another inset.

[Bacon King]

Who is Abacus?
A new pollster?
A pollster who changed his name?

They've been around for a while, with the same name, polling both the US and Canada. Historically though they've mostly done policy/issue polling for interested groups rather than election polls.

[Hatman 🍁]

Who is Abacus?
A new pollster?
A pollster who changed his name?

They've been around for a while, with the same name, polling both the US and Canada. Historically though they've mostly done policy/issue polling for interested groups rather than election polls.

Actually, they are brand new. I sort of know their CEO, David Colletto. He's in his late 20s. I met him at a party once for an NDP candidate he was friends with, and he bragged that he was working for Nanos research and helped them get such a good result for the 2006 election. I was surprised to see that he had started his own company. His numbers have appeared in the Sun a lot. He claims to have a huge online research panel of like 100,000 people, but I have no idea how it got that big, considering I hadn't heard of them until recently, and the EKOS panel isn't even that big and we've been recruiting for years.

[Holmes]

It amuses me how much of an impact people think the gun registry issue will have in northern Ontario. It'll probably be a bigger issue in the rural areas of Ontario that already are held by Conservatives, so whatever.

Also. I've been seeing more ads on TV. I like the NDP ads, although they have creepy animation. And is it just the ones I've seen, or are the Conservative ads the only ones without Harper talking to the camera? They just show the same clip of him talking to a group of people.

[minionofmidas]

Quick question: why didn't the NDP surge much further in 2008 when there was a lot of anger towards Harper from the left and with the Liberals having such of a weak/unappealing leader and campaign message?

He wasn't as unappealing as his immediate successor and predecessor... to those inclined to support Dippers, that is. Though it was hard to imagine him as Prime Minister.

[cinyc]

Today's Nanos - pretty much flat, except for a small swing from Greens to Grits:

Conservative	39.8%	NC    -
Liberal	30.2%	+0.4
NDP	17.3%	-0.1
BQ	8.6%	NC    -
Green	3.1%	-0.3

(3 days ending April 18)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Fwiw, Election Prediction Project is currently guessing 114 Tory seats, 63 Liberal seats, 37 BQ seats and 27 NDP seats with 67 seats too close to call. Some of the Liberal calls seem a little questionable given current polling, but who knows.