Federal Election Polling Thread

[Frequitude]

I agree with rubecube that there certainly is a plausible scenario where a large contingent of "Anyone but Harper" NDPers move en masse to the Liberals and give them the victory. In fact I think it is highly possible. Completely depends on how truly strong this "heave Steve" sentiment is. If it is broad based and sincere then I'd say this outcome is likely. If it is just a very vocal smaller segment, then it is unlikely.

[Firebot]

The problem with strategic voting is that the NDP and Liberal party are different enough that someone will vote for their own party if it's too close to call. Yes someone on the Anyone But Harper kick may want to vote Liberal instead of NDP in a riding that a Liberal may be able to win against a Conservative while the NDP has no chance. But what about the close ridings? Split voting is inevitable if it is a 3 way race. You cannot have everyone vote for one person of an opposite party if you think your party's guy has a shot. These will still go in the Conservative win. Never mind that to be theoretically effective, strategic voting needs very high participation.

Strategic voting is about as effective as Occupy Wall Street was. Both sound great until you realize people are selfish and disorganized.

[PeteMoss]

So.... wonder which polling services are right on this:

Éric Grenier ‏@308dotcom 21m
Leger/Nanos/Ipsos: LPC 32-34, CPC 30-32, NDP 26-27
Forum/ARI/Abacus: CPC 32-34, LPC 27-29, NDP 27-28

[Looch City]

Wow the NDP must be in full on damage control mode by now, they have fallen far.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

So.... wonder which polling services are right on this:

Éric Grenier ‏@308dotcom 21m
Leger/Nanos/Ipsos: LPC 32-34, CPC 30-32, NDP 26-27
Forum/ARI/Abacus: CPC 32-34, LPC 27-29, NDP 27-28

Do any pollsters or newspapers publish assessments of prior elections and how accurate their polls were in the immediate run up to the election?

Would be interesting to see if repeatedly, Nanos ended up 3-4 points too high on LPC and Abacus was too high on CPC.

[PeteMoss]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinio...election,_2011

In 2008 and 2011, pretty much everyone was low on the Conservatives. In 2006, they were all low on the Liberals. Seems in general, they end up high on the NDP and Greens and the others vary.

It tends to get harder for the pollsters to get a good sample as technology moves forward as lots of people don't have landlines anymore.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Do any pollsters or newspapers publish assessments of prior elections and how accurate their polls were in the immediate run up to the election?

Éric Grenier weights his aggregator and projection model on accuracy (amoung other things)... I havn't mined his site enough to know if he publishes those weightings thou.

Based on answers he's given in the comment section of his site I know that Forum is less historically accurate then Nanos but beyond that I don't know.

[Jacks]

I think the pollsters are still pretty much on the money when it comes to a snapshot in time but the voter intention tends to shift much more quickly these days with the 24/7 news cycle, social media, etc. The electorate has been very volatile the last decade.

In 2006 people were sick of the Liberals but there was a shift to the "devil you know" at the very end of the campaign, people weren't quite ready for change yet or had second thoughts in the voting booth. I can't recall the end of the 2008 campaign off hand. I remember in 2011 there was a hardening of support for the Tories near the end, that may have combined with some soft Liberal support just not bothering to vote. It wasn't reported much but a big moment at the end of the 2011 campaign was during the debates Layton, Iggy and Ducepe were yelling at each other and Harper was just standing there. He looked right at the camera and said something like "Is this the coalition you want to vote for?".

I think the pollsters get a bad rap because of the AB and BC elections where they were criticized for being way off but in both of those races but when you dig down they did show large swings at the very end of the campaign that explain the end result.

That being said Abacus tends to poll CPC a bit higher than most IMO. Nanos seems to be pretty accurate most of the time.

[rubecube]

I really like the way Nanos conducts his polls and gets into likely voter intentions. It's interesting to see that the Liberals have spiked in B.C. Trudeau made an ad directly targeting British Columbians that's been playing pretty frequently and I'm wondering if it's been working.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I really like the way Nanos conducts his polls and gets into likely voter intentions. It's interesting to see that the Liberals have spiked in B.C. Trudeau made an ad directly targeting British Columbians that's been playing pretty frequently and I'm wondering if it's been working.

Hammering the fact he has roots here can't hurt. Stockwell Day was the last time a Federal Leader pushed their BC roots and I can't remember how that worked out for him.

Would have preferred that escalator ad.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Hammering the fact he has roots here can't hurt. Stockwell Day was the last time a Federal Leader pushed their BC roots and I can't remember how that worked out for him.

Would have preferred that escalator ad.

I did like how they put his personal best on the Grouse Grind in the ad. That got a good chuckle from me. I actually think it's a super, simple but effective ad. He doesn't go negative and hammers home that he has BC's interests in mind.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Nanos tracking polls now have the Liberals in the lead, nearly 10 points clear of the NDP and with a big edge in Ontario on the CPC (43% to 33%). Has the ABC vote consolidated behind the Liberals?



http://www.nanosresearch.com/library...0TrackingE.pdf

[YYC in LAX]

...and the CBC Poll Tracker via ThreeHundredEight.com has CPC in the lead as of yesterday.

CPC: 32.3%
Lib: 30.4%
NDP: 26.8%

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives...015/index.html

[Caged Great]

It seems like the Conservatives have 30-33% of the vote and will have that amount regardless.

The interesting thing is that the NDP is falling and their support seems to be going directly to the Liberals.

They were all roughly in that 30-33% bracket a few weeks ago, but now if the NDP are falling to 25, those voters are not going conservative. If those NDP numbers continue to fall down to 18-20 % which may happen by election day, the Liberals might win a majority.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

It seems like the Conservatives have 30-33% of the vote and will have that amount regardless.

The interesting thing is that the NDP is falling and their support seems to be going directly to the Liberals.

They were all roughly in that 30-33% bracket a few weeks ago, but now if the NDP are falling to 25, those voters are not going conservative. If those NDP numbers continue to fall down to 18-20 % which may happen by election day, the Liberals might win a majority.

Not entirely true - NDP votes in Quebec are mainly going to the Bloc and CPC. They are getting hammered by the Niqab issue, whereas the Liberals seem to be riding it out despite having the same position. Liberals are picking up in Ontario and BC

[Matty81]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Not entirely true - NDP votes in Quebec are mainly going to the Bloc and CPC. They are getting hammered by the Niqab issue, whereas the Liberals seem to be riding it out despite having the same position. Liberals are picking up in Ontario and BC

I think the niqab issue was a misstep... It's gained a few votes in rural quebec, ridings that were not key battlegrounds.

It also seems to be losing votes in some of the multicultural suburban vancouver and toronto ridings that were actually close.

Unless quebec swings completely over to blue I think this was not a smart move.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by edslunch

They are getting hammered by the Niqab issue, whereas the Liberals seem to be riding it out despite having the same position.

That's because they don't have the same constituencies in Quebec. The Liberal base in Quebec are urban non-francophones AKA the folk who care less about the niqab. It's not a vote driver for them like it is the other three who derive their support from the rural/francophone nationalist segment of the population.

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Nanos tracking polls now have the Liberals in the lead, nearly 10 points clear of the NDP and with a big edge in Ontario on the CPC (43% to 33%). Has the ABC vote consolidated behind the Liberals?



http://www.nanosresearch.com/library...0TrackingE.pdf

It is hard to say if this is where the ABC vote will go. With 17 days left there is still plenty of time for something to happen, but it's really dwindling for the NDP to turn it around. If the polls and narrative still show a two-way race between the Liberals and Conservatives next week and the NDP still far behind, I think we'll see a shift to the Liberals. The last two weeks are when people typically start paying attention to election, so it'll be interesting to see where the narrative is leading into the Thanksgiving day long weekend.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Nanos tracking polls now have the Liberals in the lead, nearly 10 points clear of the NDP and with a big edge in Ontario on the CPC (43% to 33%). Has the ABC vote consolidated behind the Liberals?



http://www.nanosresearch.com/library...0TrackingE.pdf

Also of note that this is the first Nanos poll that shows a party leading outside of the margin of error in quite some time. I think you might be right. Sharp spikes in Ontario and BC for the Liberals, which is exactly where they need the support.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Also of note that this is the first Nanos poll that shows a party leading outside of the margin of error in quite some time. I think you might be right. Sharp spikes in Ontario and BC for the Liberals, which is exactly where they need the support.

Guess you were right about those ads.