Categories: Capital Read, Inside the Queensway

Harris Decima/CP: … Then again, maybe not.

by kadyomalley on Thursday, October 15, 2009 3:07pm - 36 Comments

Slightly less blue-rose-coloured numbers from Harris Decima, which polled from October 1 to 12 — and wouldn’t you like to see those day-by-day breakdowns? — with a 2.2 margin of error:

Conservatives: 35
Liberals: 28
NDP: 15
Greens: 10
Bloc Quebecois (in Quebec): 41

There’s not much in the way of detailed tables to pore over just yet, alas — the first CP writethru didn’t even give the percentage for the Bloc in Quebec, but left it as a fun little math problem for the readers, not that ITQ is sitting here simmering with resentment at such blatant datahoarding or anything. Oh, wait, yes she is.

Anyway, we know that the Conservatives are up in Ontario, but by just four percent, sitting at 40 percent, compared to 36 percent for the Liberals which is a far cry from the fifteen point lead that has emerged in both EKOS and Ipsos’ findings. The NDP, on the other hand, doesn’t even make it into the standings, but ITQ would guess that they’re somewhere between 12 and 15 percent.

The west is — oh, it’s the west. It never changes, except for those occasional flurries of excitement when the NDP creep past the Liberals in Saskatchewan or British Columbia.

Meanwhile, in the Harris-Decimaverse at least, the Liberals are still ahead in Atlantic Canada, although not by much — a mere three point advantage over the Conservatives, with the NDP nipping at the Tories’ heels, although we don’t know where those three points put either party, since apparently, that just isn’t important enough to include in the story. And why should it be, really? ITQ looks forward to a brave new world of poll reporting where we just come up with new ways to say “ahead” and “behind”, and omit all those ugly numbers.

So, there you have it — not sure how much scope for speculation this provides, but have at it, commenters!

Tags: grumble grumble, Harris-Decima, where'd that majority go? i just put it down ten minutes ago!

More by kadyomalley

http://intensedebate.com/people/psiclone psiclone

I just wonder how much longer the grassroots members of the LPC are going to be able to handle this without their heads exploding? Hey pundits ask some of those trusted insiders you always hear about what say you? – when will the politcial ginzo knives start to be sharpened? come on folks questioning minds want to know?

Michael

I'm VP of my riding association. We're taking it in stride. No heads exploding.
http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

If I were a betting girl, I'd bet my savings that the parties are looking at polls you'll never see in a newspaper, magazine, or online.

Foreigner

Tories plummet 5% in the polls!

Throw some more attacks into the boiler, quick.
hosertohoosier

Sorry, a 12 day sample? That is an extremely bizarre methodology that is likely to produce bad polls, if you figure there have been changes in opinion over the course of those 12 days. On September 29th Ekos had things 36-30, and has registered a 5-point shift since then.
http://intensedebate.com/people/KadyITQ KadyITQ

Harris Decima usually polls for that long, so it's better to stick to comparing one HD poll to the other, rather than to EKOS or Ipsos, which has a three day sample if I recall correctly. That said, I don't think it's that bizarre — it's just a different way of collecting data. Don't make me report you to Dakota for questioning the methodology, now.

Dakota

Ahhh…Taunting me! My father must smell of elderberries!

Another boy who cried outlier!

Look at the trends hosertohoosier, from the last poll by HD it is still an upwards one for the Cons and a downward one for the Libs.

If you look at the history of the HD polls, they tend to lag other polling firms with their numbers.

P.S. – I will actually miss your blog on here Kady, you played a very good referee to my instigator :)

Steve V

Kady

Talk to your CP buddies and ask them why they TEASE us all the time with their poll releases. Would it kill them to release a PDF??
http://intensedebate.com/people/PeteTong PeteTong

Are you going to be all "Kady O'Malley, CBC News, Ottawa"
Dave

Maybe the Bloc should start running Candidates cross country.
Blues Clair

Seems to be a bit of outlier, though I wouldn't be surprised to see the Conservatives big lead shrink in the next few weeks.
http://intensedebate.com/people/tigerinexil1428 tigerinexile

Well, the Tories are up a bit from their last one.

But I remember Harris Decima polls from last election which had the Tories over 40%, so it's not like their methodology is biased against our boys in blue.

Fits with my sense that we should be seeing the Tories up by six to eight points, not fifteen.

But we'll see…
http://kathleenw@execulink.com Mark

since this is another Con- run poll… I”ll add two on the liberals to 30 and take 2 off the crappers..to 33….Ill say that is about right. wanna bet…and add two to NDP as Gregg hates Ndpers.
Anon

HD polls all year long. Their weekly waves are Thu evg, Fri evg, all day Sat & Sun. It's 1000/week, part of an omnibus survey where they'll ask other questions on diff subjects. I wouldn't pay too much attention to their daily tracking because the MOEs will be very high, especially Thu and Fri.

I would start paying attention to the polls as Parliament returns. The Liberals appear to have their War Room fully functional now. Kinsella seems to have moved to Ottawa, at least temporarily.
some thoughts

this poll would better explain the behavior of the Harperites. If they were in fact as far ahead as Ekos and the others indicate the cons would be doing everything possible to provoke an election they could reasonably blame on someone else. That they are not doing so would indicate that their internal tracking polls are giving them more or less the same results as HD. They can therefore only conclude that an election would result in another (possibly weakened) minority. Remember that before the last election they were polling better than the eventual election results. I am pretty sure they remember and it probably tempers their enthusiasm for an election.

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

I feel obligated to add that elections aren't won on a national vote percentage, they're won riding-by-riding. A national poll only gives them a whiff of what might happen.

http://intensedebate.com/people/KadyITQ KadyITQ

That's the sense I get — a seven-ish point spread.
http://intensedebate.com/people/tigerinexil1428 tigerinexile

Which is still quite something.

I mean, had one been able to tell the people at the PMO in June that they'd have a stable seven point lead over Ignatieff come October, they'd have started turning cartwheels and popping champagne bottles. (Hopefully not both at once.)
hosertohoosier

Uh Mark… in Harris-Decima's October 8th poll they had the Tories at 31%, and found that Stephane Dion had a higher favourability rating than Harper (not net favourability, favourability).

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&a…

By October 10th their tracking poll had the Tories and Liberals TIED.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATR…

They were the least accurate pollster in the 2008 election, and over-estimated Conservative support the most. That isn't because of who runs the poll, I should note (it isn't always in a party's interest to inflate its poll numbers anyhow), but because of their methodology.

That isn't just from the 2008 election. Look at ThreeHundredEight's pollster lean calculations (he should focus on how much each pollster over/under-estimated in '08, not how they average, but that is another debate).

http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2009/09/pol…
http://intensedebate.com/people/WDM WDM

I think you need to re-read that article, that or learn basic addition and subtraction. They're saying the Cons/Libs had the same numbers to the Ekos poll, ie. 34-26. You think they'd just say Libs and Cons are tied and not give a value they were both at? Jeez.

"Ekos has the Conservatives winning 34 percent of the popular vote, the Liberals 26 percent, the New Democrats 19 and the Greens 11 percent. A Harris-Decima/Canadian Press survey had identical numbers for the Conservatives and Liberals, and the New Democrats at 18 percent and Greens at 12"
http://intensedebate.com/people/tigerinexil1428 tigerinexile

Sort of. They flew out to a giant lead (15-20 points) early on after the writ was dropped, but by the time the last week rolled around, Dion had cut Harper's lead to under five points.

(That took some doing — Harper lost the debates, he didn't release a platform, he tanked in Quebec, the markets collapsed…)

And the final polls had the gap around eight points.

And the Tories won by double digits.
Foreigner

Man, you're verbose.
jarrid

Kady "gets the sense" the Conservatives are leading the Libs by 7 points. She "gets the sense" the poll which has the narrowest gap between the Libs and the Cons these past two weeks is the right one.

Blog Central readers, I get the sense that the next couple of weeks are going to get very, very interesting.

Best wishes in your new endeavour Kady. I highly doubt I'll be visiting very often but I promise to take a peak. I generally eschew the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation because of its pervasively uniform and stiflingl eft/lib mindset.

Moreover the comment boards there are littered with a coarse, braying smugness that is an unfortunate by-product of people who think they've found the "political truth". Politics, as Bismark correctly maintained, is merely the art of the possible. That's my second favorite Bismark quote, my favorite being " Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.”

http://intensedebate.com/people/KadyITQ KadyITQ

Actually, we've seen the seven point spread show up a couple of times recently, including from Ipsos two weeks back. It's possible that the Liberals are lower, of course, which would broaden the gap. That may well change, of course, depending on how the next few weeks unfold.

jarrid

That's actually quite an informative comprehensive analysis, never to be mistaken for your vapid offerings.

If you're not Ti-G*y sock-puppeting, you've got to be a close relative of his.
David M

" Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.”
No doubt Bismark would have loved "It doesn't have to true, it just has to be plausable."
Yup, lots of coarse, braying smugness to be found.
an online reader

Kady : At least two Commons committees are poised to begin their own investigations of how Canada has handled Afghan prisoners and whether they were knowingly handed over to torture, in apparent violation of international law.

Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae says those investigations are even more important now than when they were proposed a week ago.

"If the government won’t come clean before the (police commission), then it’s up to Parliamentarians to investigate and hold them to account," he said Thursday in Toronto. "

Please will you be live blogging these ?
an online reader

all post a quote from – But Foreign Affairs, Defence officials had all been warned of torture in Afghan prisons
By MURRAY BREWSTER The Canadian Press
Fri. Oct 16 – 4:46 AM
Dakota

Here is the previous Harris/Decima poll;

http://www.decima.ca/sites/default/files/releases…

Conservatives +1
Liberals -2

The trend continues.

Seeing how this poll's data is already 2 weeks old, it doesn't look good for the Liberals.
an online reader

At the beginning of this world crisis Harper did a wonderful job of soothing the publics fears . Canada leads G8 ….etc..

When Harpers economic mismanagement started to become obvious all comparisons turned to the USA the hardest hit of all . Government ads was increased to record levels. All messages on all subjects censored by PMO .

Wake up Liberals ! You have an embarassing amount of talented M.P.s . Check out our world standing now . Check out Australia's handling of stimulus , debt etc . You promised true Opposition alternate ideas . Get busier .