Tuesday, March 27, 2007

New Poll

I consider this poll the first one of any consequence in the budget aftermath:
The Decima survey, provided to The Canadian Press, puts the Tories at 35 per cent support nationally, with the Liberals at 31 per cent. The Conservatives would likely need at least 40 per cent support to secure a majority. The results, gathered Thursday through Sunday, indicate no bump for the party in the wake of last week's federal budget.

In Quebec, the Tories finished ahead of the Liberals for the first time in five months with 25 per cent support.

The Liberals were at 20 per cent, while the Bloc Quebecois led with 34 per cent.

But in Ontario, the Liberals held a commanding eight-point lead, with 41 per cent backing compared to 33 per cent for the Conservatives.

The two polls that were taken in the afterglow of the budget showed a moderate Tory bounce. This poll has results up until March 25, so it provides a better read budget reaction, allowing for some digestion. Initial press coverage was decidedly favorable, but my reading was the budget reaction turned in the following days. This poll would support the argument that the budget did little for Harper.

The Quebec numbers are encouraging for Harper, but those Ontario numbers certainly rain on the parade. Whatever Harper hoped to gain with his Quebec windfall may have backfired, as the perception of unfair allotment took hold. Having said that, Ontario numbers do appear to be all over the place, depending on the poll.

Decima has the Conservatives with the same result as they did at the beginning of the month, with the Liberals up slightly. No momentum, fragile minority terrority, no bounce, according to Decima.

9 comments:

kenchapman said...

I have a blog based survey on my site and just posted the unscientific but parallel results from my readers.

Decima reinforces what people are saying on my little survey about the impact of the Budget.

The Budget was a successful media event not a positive political event for the Harper-Cons.

We still do not know Harper even after 5 year in federal political leadership roles. We now see him with a mean streak and a tendancy to bully too.

Michael Fox said...

The forgot to include a bunch of meaningless commentary about the "margin of error"...

Karen said...

Patience is a virtue. The Leadership run gave us a boost and the con's will get the occasional boost with announcements and of course a budget. Those numbers will change and to bet the farm on any of them, is foolish, imo.

I'm heartened by the Ontario number, confused a bit by the Quebec one. It would be easy to say that it reflects the mood, pre-election in Quebec, but the PQ number does not sugget that, nor are Quebec voters that un-savvy.

It's wait and see at this point I think.

Steve V said...

Decima is usually 3.1%, but typically the MOE in Quebec is higher, so it may overstate the Tories numbers in the province. Is that what you meant TT? ;)

Steve V said...

knb

The Quebec numbers are quite different from the last Decima finding, at the beginning of the month:

"Bloc was at 31 per cent in the province, while the Liberals were at 29 and the Tories were well back at 17."

I think we need to take the Quebec numbers with a grain of salt, given the volatility of the election. Having said that, you would expect some brighter prospects in the budget aftermath, given the warped emphasis on Quebec.


As an aside, Duceppe was hilarious today complaining about the fiscal imbalance.

bigcitylib said...

I think alot of the provincial numbers are just interpreting random twitches.

Karen said...

As an aside, Duceppe was hilarious today complaining about the fiscal imbalance.

Indeed, but don't count the old boy out. This all has an odd feel to me. Dumont, scary. Dumont/Harper scarier. Quebece seeing that for what it is...enter Duceppe.

ottlib said...

Steve:

It is interesting that Decima did not conduct a poll in the immediate aftermath of the budget.

It does not take a rocket scientist doing brain surgery to figure out that there would be a post-budget bump so they did not bother.

Instead they waited until the hoopla died down and took the poll.

Their stock just went up in my books. Or more accurately the stock of CP went up because they are the ones that sponsor Decima polls.

With regard to the poll itself we find ourselves back to where were were before the budget and before the Liberal leadership convention. When there is nothing that really grabs Canadians' attention their opinions have been rather static.

I also would not take any of the regional numbers too seriously. Their small samples make any inferenences based on them problematic at best.

Steve V said...

"It does not take a rocket scientist doing brain surgery to figure out that there would be a post-budget bump so they did not bother."

It will be interesting to see the next couple poll results. The good news, the irrelevant bump polls could create the impression of subsequent erosion.