Wildrose Alliance Party has momentum in Calgary Glenmore by-election

[First Lady]

Hey guys and gals,

I know you have missed me terribly... I have been a tad busy, but I wanted to share this exciting news with you.

Wildrose Alliance Party has momentum in Calgary Glenmore by-election.

For Immediate Release

In a Dycap Research poll commissioned by the Paul Hinman campaign, it has been found that voters in Calgary Glenmore are preparing to send Premier Ed Stelmach a message.

When asked on August 26th “If the upcoming provincial by-election in Calgary Glenmore were held today, which provincial party would you vote for?” 19 % of respondents selected the Wildrose Alliance party, a 7% increase from a poll commissioned in late June.

Conversely, Ed Stelmach’s Progressive Conservative Party dropped 12% in voter preference while the number of voters indicating “Undecided” grew from 18% to 23%.

The growth in support for the Wildrose Alliance Party has been most evident at the doors in Calgary Glenmore.

“Every day I am meeting people who were lifelong supporters of the PC party who are now embracing the Wildrose Alliance Party as the common sense alternative to the Stelmach government” said Paul Hinman. “A common message I am hearing while at the doors is people saying “I am not abandoning the PC party, the PC party with Ed at the helm has abandoned me.”.”


With weeks left in the campaign it is clear that voters are ready to Send Ed a Message on voting day Monday, September 14th.

For more info contact the Paul Hinman Campaign:

Phone: 403.252.5550
Fax: 403.252.7750
Email: sendedamessage@gmail.com
www.sendedamessage.ca

[Ozy_Flame]

Sigh....Any Liberal or Green candidates?

[Kjesse]

OK, that's the spin.

How about the raw numbers, and the specific question(s)?

Edit: BTW, I hope WRA wins this one.

2nd Edit: And who is Dycap Research? Never heard of them... and they have no web presence. And apparently no phone number anywhere in Canada.

[doozwimp]

Wait a minute...this is a separatist movement?

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Sigh....Any Liberal or Green candidates?

If I remember correctly the Libs came in at 22%.

The Greens no longer exist in Alberta.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Delgar

OK, that's the spin.

How about the raw numbers, and the specific question(s)?

Edit: BTW, I hope WRA wins this one.

2nd Edit: And who is Dycap Research? Never heard of them... and they have no web presence.

I will see if I can release the numbers. It was pretty high for a limited area.

I haven't seen the question, but I believe it was pretty straight forward, something like; "If an election were held today; who would you vote for?"

We did it in June and again this week and only polled individuals who actually live in Calgary - Glenmore.

Dycap is an independent research firm, I am not sure where they are located. But I should be getting the bill soon....LOL

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by doozwimp

Wait a minute...this is a separatist movement?

[Rifleman]

Is the Wildrose Alliance an actual conservative party? With Stelmach running the deficit so high, it seems we don't have a conservative party here anymore. It would be nice to have one of those.

And by conservative, I mean fiscally conservative. I couldn't care less what gays do to themselves or if they want to get married.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Rifleman

Is the Wildrose Alliance an actual conservative party? With Stelmach running the deficit so high, it seems we don't have a conservative party here anymore. It would be nice to have one of those.

And by conservative, I mean fiscally conservative. I couldn't care less what gays do to themselves or if they want to get married.

Yes, we are fiscally conservative. The PC's have not even been fiscally moderate for over 5 years and of late only been conservative when it comes to social issues; ie Bill 44

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

So, some inferences....

23% undecided, 19% WRA, 22% Liberal.... those numbers add up to 64%. Assuming the PCs get most of the remaining vote (with, let's say, 3% to Green and others), then they're still polling at around 31%.

With only 2 weeks left, that's a pretty healthy lead, actually. The 23% undecided is a little weird, but it probably just means that a lot of voters either haven't heard enough from a compelling alternative or aren't interested in the election--and either way, most of those people are unlikely to vote. Also, history suggests that late deciders break for the party in power.

To be honest, those poll numbers look like good news for the PCs.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

So, some inferences....

23% undecided, 19% WRA, 22% Liberal.... those numbers add up to 64%. Assuming the PCs get most of the remaining vote (with, let's say, 3% to Green and others), then they're still polling at around 31%.

With only 2 weeks left, that's a pretty healthy lead, actually. The 23% undecided is a little weird, but it probably just means that a lot of voters either haven't heard enough from a compelling alternative or aren't interested in the election--and either way, most of those people are unlikely to vote. Also, history suggests that late deciders break for the party in power.

To be honest, those poll numbers look like good news for the PCs.

A 12% drop in 2 months is quite significant and this was done before most became aware of the huge deficit situation.

The undecided going up means they are shifting their thinking.

People are moving their voting intentions; more are undecided and 7% have shifted from the PC's to the WAP.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by First Lady

A 12% drop in 2 months is quite significant and this was done before most became aware of the huge deficit situation.

The undecided going up means they are shifting their thinking.

People are moving their voting intentions; more are undecided and 7% have shifted from the PC's to the WAP.

Could be.... but I think it's awfully hard to make solid inferences about "undecideds" without knowing a little more about the polling methodology. It can mean a lot of different things.

Were undecideds pressed on their preference--or were no "leaners" included in this poll at all? If that's the case, it indicates that the 19%, 22% and 29% are all very solid baseline numbers--and we don't have any information at all about where the 23% undecided are going.

On the other hand, if they were pressed, but remained undecided after being asked a second time, most of them will probably not vote at all--which is bad news for the Liberals AND the WRA.

I would also point out that the Liberals could easily interpret these numbers as positive for them--but that would be equally premature. We just don't know what 23% undecided means, other than it's a surprisingly high number. Anything else is just over-interpreting the results.

But maybe you could release the full data from the poll so that we could really analyze it? Otherwise this is mostly just guesswork. I'd like to know the questions asked, the number of people polled, whether any distinction was made between respondents based on their reported likelihood of voting at all, etc.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

But maybe you could release the full data from the poll so that we could really analyze it? Otherwise this is mostly just guesswork. I'd like to know the questions asked, the number of people polled, whether any distinction was made between respondents based on their reported likelihood of voting at all, etc.

I believe it was just the one question as mentioned in the release, in June it was;

“If the upcoming provincial by-election in Calgary Glenmore were held today, which provincial party would you vote for?”

Obviously the one this week would have send in the "current by-election".
I will see if I can give you any further numbers. It will likely be late tomorrow.... I better get my ass to bed.

[Ducay]

I stopped reading at

poll commissioned by the Paul Hinman campaign

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Rifleman

Is the Wildrose Alliance an actual conservative party? With Stelmach running the deficit so high, it seems we don't have a conservative party here anymore. It would be nice to have one of those.

And by conservative, I mean fiscally conservative. I couldn't care less what gays do to themselves or if they want to get married.

Originally Posted by First Lady

Yes, we are fiscally conservative. The PC's have not even been fiscally moderate for over 5 years and of late only been conservative when it comes to social issues; ie Bill 44

Well one of the WRA leadership candidates (Danielle Smith) has indicated that the Liberals are more fiscally conservative than the current PC's, so indeed these are interesting times in Alberta.

The WRA might be more fiscally conservative (although this term is more and more misleading because no one thinks that they are fiscally unrestrained, especially in times of recession and credit crisi, but they are also more socially conservative.

On this riding I see more signs on front lawns for the PC's than anyone else by a long shot. I don't think that the other parties are going to mount enough of a challenge there and I specifically don't think that Hinman will win. He is simply not charismatic enough, right First Lady?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I stopped reading at

Good to know your brain is still working.

[REDVAN]

I have been driving around in that area (maybe I get to vote, I just moved so hmm...)

and I see a lot of WRA signs, as well as PC and Liberal signs. A few thoughts from me on this are:

- WRA seems to have a lot more support than ever before. Getting more into the spotlight and pointing out to Albertans that the "Progressive Conservatives" aren't really progressive, nor conservative any longer, is really working for them. The thing I personally don't like, is the "send Ed a message" campaign that Hinman is running. I personally would have preferred to "send the PCs a message" because I don't blame all of the problems on Ed Stelmach (I dislike him, but he's just one man). Plus, Ed isn't running in this election. Another thing that irks me is this: doesn't Hinman already have a position as MLA for another riding? Why switch? There's got to be more than ONE strong candidate in the party, otherwise it's never going to gain legitimacy. Is his current riding so WRA positive that another candidate can get elected there if he leaves? Or is WRA trying to trade a rural seat for an urban one?

- PC Candidate, Dianne Colley-Urquart, although I don't really like her as an alderman, she will probably win this election. Good for her, I had a feeling she wanted to take a step up from being an alderman, and for whatever reason Calgary seems to be in love with a Liberal mayor... too bad she couldn't be mayor. She's a bad alderman (IMO... but she would have made a decent mayor, maybe), and unfortunately she'll keep the provincial status quo with Steady Eddie.

- When will "Dr. Avalon" ROBERTS stop advertising the Dr. part? She runs in every election... I'm sure she means well, but how will she connect to the common person if she keeps telling everyone she is a prominent psychiatrist in the community? Good candidate? I won't give my opinion on that, but the marketing is brutal.

Oh, and apparently there is someone else running too, but since I've never even heard of them, I doubt they'll have a chance at my vote.

[Slava]

Hinman lost his riding last election around and has since stepped down as leader of the WRA. First Lady was in the paper saying that he was not charismatic enough which was where that comment came from in case you were curious.

[mariners_fever]

while hinman probably isn't the best to lead a party, he's a darn good MLA and works incredibly hard for his constituents.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by peter12

Good to know your brain is still working.

To be honest, I'm not so worried that the poll was commissioned by the WRA. Partisan polls can definitely yield solid results; in the 2008 US election, the partisan pollsters were if anything more reliable than the independent research and polling firms.

But in this case, I'm a little more curious about the methodology. Obviously we can't make solid inferences unless we get to see the data--but if only one question was asked, that gives us just top line numbers, and pretty much makes the results very questionable. That's not to say they're wrong, just that I hope the WRA didn't pay very much for a poll that was just a straight-up call people, ask one question and then hang up survey.

Polling a single riding is very tricky anyway. Two things are important. In byelections, turnout tends to be low, so a high number of undecideds is not surprising. My suspicion, based on nothing other than having been paying attention to politics for longer than I care to reveal, is that the lion's share of that 23% undecided are actually nonvoters. I base this partly on FL's admission that the poll was just one question, meaning that there was no "likely voter" screen of any kind.

In that context, this poll isn't very good news for the Liberals OR the WRA, though it's marginally better for the Liberals if you want to squint and turn your head sideways. Here's why this poll isn't good news for Paul Hinman, based on my best inferences without seeing the raw data.
1. The "12% drop" for the Tories is not meaningful at all unless you do an apples-to-apples comparison. Unless this same polling company asked the same question to a similar sample at a prior date, that kind of variation in what I assume is a very small sample size means exactly nothing. The same may be said for the WRA's supposed "rise" of 7%. Therefore, the poll must be taken as a "snapshot"--not as part of a trend.
2. Considered as a snapshot, it's very revealing--but not in the way that the WRA thinks: The WRA polls in third place behind the liberals, who are about as popular in Calgary-Glenmore as a Skunk at a garden party.
3. The WRA trails "Undecided" by 4 percentage points--which is probably around the margin of error if I had to guess. Being less popular than no vote at all is NEVER a good sign.
4. Ridings are tricky because the sample sizes are SO small, randomized samples are VERY hard to generate, and timelines are very short. Only 12,701 people even voted in Calgary-Glenmore in 2008. Can you generate a randomized sample of likely voters in this riding that is larger than, say, 200? If not--then is the margin of error 8% or something crazy like that?
5. Actual voter turnout on Sept. 14th is likely to be MUCH lower than 12,000 in any case, and unless you can determine which voters are likely to vote, your poll results are very suspect. Avalon Roberts got 33% of the vote in 2008--if her voters are more motivated, she might come up the middle. It's likelier that the PCs will stay above 40% and keep the riding in my view. The WRA is still not on the map--they have to rise a little more before they can even play spoiler.