UPDATED: Strategic Counsel – The sun's gone dim, the moon's turned black …

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 8:15 AM - 102 Comments

… for Ignatieff loved Quebec, and it didn’t love back*.

Or so says the latest Strategic Counsel poll for the Globe and Mail (and huge ITQudos to the Globe, by the way, for giving us all the background data), which pegs the spread between Team Red and Team Blue at five points.

Conservatives: 35 (+1)
Liberals: 30 (-2)
NDP: 14 (-1)
Bloc Quebecois: 12 (+2)
Greens: 9 (+1)

That works out to a three point jump for the Conservatives — which, we’re told, is largely due to a nasty tumble for the Liberals in Quebec, where the party has shed a staggering seven points, from 30% in July and August to just 23% now. Which puts it more than twenty points behind the Bloc Quebecois at 49%, the highest that party has polled since 2004 — and, if Norm Spector is right, those numbers could become even bleaker if the Bloc’s long-awaited ad campaign hits its mark.

The NDP’s national numbers, meanwhile, may have slid by only one percent, but the party’s slump in Ontario — from 14% to just 11% — really should be keeping Jack Layton up at night.

(Yes, ITQ is well aware that, with the exception of the national results,  all of the numbers hmmed over in the preceding paragraphs are within the margin of error. Hush.)

Meanwhile, did y’all see that the government seems to be ready to reform the employment insurance system after all? Quick, New Democrats, grab that life preserver and cling to it like a barnacle! That is, if there’s anything in the promised package that goes beyond the Conservative campaign pledge to extend buy-in privileges to the self-employed.  This could be your last chance to stave off potential electoral disaster Make Parliament Work! That is, as long as an actual piece of legislation — one that we can see and touch and FEEL — hits the House before that first non-confidence motion. Otherwise, it might look a little desperate to offer up your party’s unwavering support before you’ve even had the chance to read it. Although that didn’t stop you from doing the opposite with the budget, come to think of it.

Okay, commenters, it’s your turn now! What does it all mean?

*Apologies, of course, to Mrs. Parker.

UPDATE: Yikes, I completely forgot to mention the following (blame it on the morning grogs): Does anyone else find it a little bit … discomfiting when a respected pollster comes out with something like, “The NDP support is close to what it was in the last election. It’s 14,” when even in your post-waking haze, you immediately think to yourself, wait, that’s not right — that’s not even even close to being right! The NDP got, what, 18 percent last time around, didn’t they?

Especially when he then goes on to suggest that the Liberals “need to decrease that number to 10”? Because as far as ITQ knows, even in their most wild electoral fantasies, most of the Liberals that she knows harbour no secret hope of pushing the NDP vote below, say, 12 percent under fairy-tale perfect conditions. If they can pick up two points from the Dips and another two from the Greens, that would be cause to break out the champagne.

You know what we need around here? A fresh opinion poll to dissect!

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 8:34 AM - 71 Comments

Thank you, Globe and Mail/Strategic Counsel! Without your timely intervention, ITQ readers might have been forced to go an entire day — or possibly even two days, since Ekos doesn’t come out until Thursday — without being reminded that, yes, it’s still a “dead heat”/stalemate/gridlock/virtual tie:

Conservatives: 34 (-)

Liberals: 32 (-1)

NDP: 15 (-)

Bloc Quebecois:  10 (-1)

Green: 8 (+1)

ITQ was, alas, forced to dock both of you ten points for failing to put the full details up in conveniently overanalysable PDF format, although the Globe managed to get some of that back for sensibly deciding to ignore the BQ’s all but meaningless national standing in its intro, substituting instead the Quebec number — 44% —  which is far more informative.

Other than that, there’s … just not that much going on here, is there? I mean, that we didn’t already know, that is, from the trickle of nearly identical polls over the last few days, and with a 3.1% margin of error, it seems distinctly possible that even the slight fluctuations – the Liberals down a point, the Greens up one – are merely statistical noise. Without full regional numbers (hint, hint) it’s tough to tell what’s changed since last time around, although Peter Donolo hints that the full survey shows some not uninteresting trends as far as the demographic breakdown: apparently, one in three chicks dig the Conservatives — although that’s still not quite as much as the Liberals, within the margin of error that it may be — and both the NDP and the Tories are leaving the Liberals in the dust when it comes to the much-coveted 18-29 vote.

Anyway, have at it. Maybe y’all can find something more insightful to say about these results than ITQ, who is pretty much ready to go on a pollfast until Parliament resumes. Or something actually changes, of course — which means that she’ll have to keep paying attention, because otherwise, how will she know?

The bravest of talking points

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 17, 2009 at 1:22 AM - 29 Comments

Reacting on CBC this afternoon to the latest polling from Ekos, Conservative Jaime Watt offers offered an altogether profound spin.

So obviously these aren’t numbers that we’d be hoping to see. I think there’s a few explanations for why they are the way they are. First of all, we’ve got an almost three-point margin of error, which would possibly bring those numbers a bit closer.

Indeed. Or, by the very same logic, the gap might be even wider.

Better still, if a poll with a +/- 2.5 percentage point margin of error isn’t to be entirely trusted, perhaps all political polling is to be disqualified. The last similar surveys published, for instance, by Nanos, Ipsos Reid and the Strategic Counsel had margins of 3.3, 2.2 and 3.1 respectively.

This is a remarkable position for a political commentator to take publicly and Watt is surely to be commended on his bravery in doing so. May his rational and reasoned approach to politics be an example to us all.

Strategically, this is clear as mud. Seek counsel. (35/28/19/9 – Quebec 37/25/23)

By kadyomalley - Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 10:16 PM - 0 Comments

No EKOS tonight, so we’ll have to make do with the latest national numbers from Strategic Counsel:

Conservatives: 35 (-4)

Liberals: 28 (+4)

NDP: 19 (-)

Greens: 9 (-1)

Quebec numbers:

Bloc Quebecois: 37 (-5)

Conservatives: 25 (?)

Liberals: 23 (+5)

The detailed tables don’t seem to be up yet, and I’m not completely sure whether these changes are from last week, or the beginning of the campaign, so if I’ve gotten something wrong, please let me know in the comments.