Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

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New poll! New confusion!! Every sentence in this headline has an added exclamation point!!! Really!!!!

by Paul Wells on Friday, September 12, 2008 11:36am - 62 Comments

CBC Newsworld is on air right now with a new Harris/Decima poll: Conservatives 41%, Liberals 26%, NDP 14%, Greens 9%. Link when it becomes available.

This poll rather profoundly contradicts yesterday’s Nanos numbers. Commenters should feel free to indulge the most convoluted conspiracy theories to explain the divergent results, because offhand I can’t think of any rational explanation.

Tags: Election Watch, Harris-Decima, polls are for dogs and people who always use the "polls, that's majority territory or Fantasyland but I'm not su

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hazzard

Where’s Kody? It’s obvious that the liberal MSM is conspiring to promote the Conservatives potential for a majority early enought that Canadians can be scared into changing their minds! Somebody do something!!
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http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com bigcitylib

Ekos is also out and tells of a Conservative vote that has declined every day this week. Go figger.
Brett

Hey Mike, are you going to cover the bit where Robert thibault called the PM a pig in a sweater?
finn

By “1984 all over again,” do you mean Orwell’s 1984 or Brian Mulroney’s? It’s hard to tell where Harper’s concerned.
PolPundit

Let’s hope big Mike reveals the results of all the recent polls and has someone comment on them all in an intelligent manner!

If CTV becomes too partisan it will loose the trust of a majority of its viewers. This would not be good for CTV stockholders
Darren Trent

Ekos is also out and tells of a Conservative vote that has declined every day this week.

Silver lining I guess, but the Conservatives are still up by ten points in that poll!
mecheng

Been over a decade since my last stats course, but IIRC…

Chris B.

The sample size is fine. 1000 will give the +/-3% 19 times out of 20, which is considered adequate and affordable. I believe that the sample size would have to go up SUBSTANTIALLY in order to significantly increase either accuracy or confidence.

Fun little factoid for all of you.

The margin of error is only as stated when the a result polls 50%. Margin of error decreases as you trend towards 0% and 100%

For example, if a party polls at 4%, and the MOE is 5%, is it possible for the party to have -1% support? Obviously not. (Bad analogy, sometimes I think that is possible)

So on the polls to date, the “leader” (CPC) actually has a MOE a little less than that reported by the poll, because. The second place party has a MOE less than the CPC, and so on.
mecheng

bigcitylib…

it’s a little dangerous to take the smaller sample of a rolling poll, look at daily results, and then state that a party’s numbers are dropping…

the daily polls have a small sample size, and hence, a much larger margin of error.

if this happened over a significant period of time such that there started to be a separation between the polling on day one, minus the daily margin of error, and the polling on day X, plus the margin of error, I would give it more weight.

did the polling company actually give that interpretation, or was it a party spindoctor, media analyst, etc.? I would be surprised if a polling company would make that statement.
Ken

It’s said in some circles that P. Donolo is a Liberal. Don’t believe it. There are far too many CPC-hanger-oners in all these polling companies (excluding Nik) and especially in their umbrella organization, Hill and Knowlton. There was absolutely nothing in the pre-election dynamic that could have foreseen this spate of polls all pro CPC and pro NDP. And gee, Strategic Council has contracts with the federal government. Figure it out.
Muriel

Is this the whole PC Ndp campaign?

The ad’s are not negative they are vicious and malicious,a new low in politics, and the press is party to it.
catherine

Ken, I thought Nik was a Conservative too. Isn’t that correct?

Nik’s polling numbers have been good in past elections, but his side questions about “leadership” stuff just seem to me to be Conservative agenda fluff. I like the guy, but am disappointed on the mindlessness of the extra questions he asks.