I believe the above is realistic, which leads me to the rest of the country. Nanos has the gap at 7% today (up 2% from yesterday), which should surprise no one. The NPD fortunes are up slightly in both the Nanos and Decima offerings, reflecting Layton's strong performance. Decima also shows the Greens up to 13% nationally, but interestingly Nanos shows them down to 8%, some erosion in most parts of the country. Common sense leans towards the Decima trends, May performed well.
What I find encouraging, although the national numbers are still distant, and the Liberals are in serious trouble in the west, supported by everyone, Ontario is showing signs of a shift. Decima now has a tie in Ontario, both at 31%, the NDP showing an uptick. Decima hasn't shown a tie for quite some time, and this finding mirrors what Nanos reports. With Quebec cementing, I still see hope, because I sense a very fluid race in this province, there is a way to bring people back to the Liberal fold. No pollster disputes a very important fact, it is the Liberals that have the room for growth, and some of the findings show a real softness in the Green and NDP voters. It boils down to capitalization, and presenting a compelling reason to buy into the Liberal vision. Couple that with a historic preference for late deciders moving Liberal, and it's not a pipe dream.
Atlantic Canada appears to be firming up for the Liberals, if Nanos is correct. Although Atlantic Canada numbers have a high MOE, he essentially shows the Liberals holding strong at over 40% for three straight nights. The chief problem, which is killing the Liberal national numbers, the party are nowhere in the "west" and this is a real factor. Anything is possible, but we don't appear to be getting any traction in British Columbia, and that is key if we have a chance.
A couple interesting tidbits. Nanos has Dion coming back to earth a bit today, as the English debate is factored in (you will note I expected a "pull back" after yesterday's extraordinary numbers). However, the honeymoon continues in Quebec, where Dion is now tied for FIRST on the best PM score, the party up another 2% in the polls. It is entirely possible that the Liberals could pickup a couple seats in Quebec, a thought almost laughable a week ago.
23 comments:
Some create comments! I agree that things are generally looking better, but I have a hard time believing that the Liberals and NDP are tied as in some polls or as low as 22 as the one suggests...what's with the 15 point spread in the Decima poll?
Part of that is Decima has the Liberals tied for fourth with the Greens in British Columbia, their Atlantic numbers are different and they don't seem to show much of a bounce in Quebec, which is just counter-intuitive.
Nanos 5 day pollhad the Liberals in second place in BC; still well behind the Cons, but they had 27% support. That is a tad different then what Decima shows (I haven't seen other pollsters numbers).
scott
That's true, I'm just looking at all the polls in totality, as a partial explanation why our national numbers are low.
But, if you look, that's just the lower mainland number, we are losing more support in the rest of B.C, down 9% in a week.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing.. I'm ust saying that BC seems to be rather volatile, depending on pollster.
I believe some region-specific ads from the Libs in the last week of the campaign might be in order - specifically BC and Ontario.
There are enough issues in both provinces (particularly Ontario) to justify in my view specific regional ads targeted at only those 2 key provinces (while continuing the national ad buys).
That is where the battle of who forms the government and/or by minority/majority will be decided, so I think the Libs need to be reminding people specifically how many bad policies these folks have made toward these 2 specific provinces.
I'm not sure about BC being volatile at the moment, everyone seems to show us down overall. I'm with you big time in Ontario.
For what it's worth, the Angus Reid poll has finally given up on the ridiculous tie for second thesis, we are up 4%, NDP down 2%. It's still a huge gap, but Dion has moved considerably on every trait measure, we are improving in Ontario and Atlantic Canada. One other tidbit, while Layton scores very well, when the question moves to the economy his support wanes drastically, behind Dion, who has cut into Harper's advantage noticeably.
In retrospect, I think Harper's tactic of doing nothing in the debates has served him well. He was already losing ground in Quebec, and a debate in his second language was probably not likely to bring him back up.
As we all know, he benefits from a split on the left, and thus he needed Layton and May to give a great performance during the English language debate.
Layton continues to provide support for a CPC victory.
Did anyone notice the Globe article suggesting Layton is going to approach Dion to work as a coalition, with Dion as PM and Layton as the Deputy PM? Somehow I have trouble seeing how that will work.
I also listened to the podcast at the Globe site where various people discussed our current economic situation. It appears we are destined to fall into a recession, and the government is going to be forced to run a deficit. Personally, I think I would prefer a minority conservative government forced to make that decision. After a couple of years the LPC can swoop in and clean up the mess again.
So that is where I am leaning. Vote conservative - let Harper wear the recession!
gayle
I think you're right about one thing, whomever forms the next government is in for a tough time, because we are likely headed towards a recession, and there is no fiscal room to stave off a deficit. A fragile minority, one budget and then an election in the spring of 2010. That's my prediction, no matter who is at the helm.
gayle
I don't know if you've read the link Scott provided, but you will note the Libs have narrowed the gap to 41% in Alberta, so something might be afoot in your neck of the woods. Fingers crossed ;)
Steve - I really think Linda Duncan is going to win here in Strathcona. Wachowich may pull it off for the LPC in Edmonton Centre too (I am working on my friends who live there). Edmonton Centre has changed somewhat since the last election as there has been a huge influx of condos in the downtown area, full of 20 somethings. We shall see...
My biggest fear is Stephen Harper going into Quebec and giving away the store to the Quebec Nationalists and Seperatists.
With our MSM giving the Conservatives a pass on almost everything he could probably do it without too much of a murmur outside of Quebec.
I bet the reason for the tanking is clear -- Canadians are having second thoughts. Mr. Harper and his muzzled Conservative Party members run from the media like jackals and many of them won't even participate in many all-candidates meetings. To top that off, he witholds his platform until 7 days before the election -- and want Canadians to trust him!?
It is the pathological behavior of someone with something to hide: a trojan-horse implementation of American Conservative Republicanism here in Canada. People can sense this sort of thing.
ottlib
That's just too cynical a ploy now to be effective.
You could drive a truck through the margins of error on those Decima regional samples, that's all I'll say about that...but back East, the Liberal surge and Con fall in Quebec is interesting, and I'd add this: to win Ontario, you need to show them you're a force in Quebec. That's long been the case. With the Cons losing Quebec, the Ontario numbers may get interesting over the coming days.
Jeff
True enough, except it seems they all show the same trendline. It's still early...
I've been wrong many times before and I hope I'm wrong again, but I'd imagine that the Nanos numbers are going to go the way of Decima and all the other pollsters in the coming days.
Lower Mainland is COMPLETELY different from the Interior of BC. We are in play in a LOT of ridings, and we will hold what we have... Look to the island for some pleasant surprises.
Three stoies to this election that in my mind are anti-democratic are told in these actions:
1. The national media rolled over & asked Popa H to scratch their bellies (who's a good been a boy?) & let Steve & the Ditto heads get away with the Boy in the plastic bubble campaign.
2. A governing party campaigned with NO platform, & folks said "OK whatever."
3. Tory candidates across the country have avoided all candidate debates like they were Maple Leaf packaged meats.
Sleep Well Mr K.
Sounds good grit :)
dan
Actually, last time NANOS was out of whack too, relative too others, it just so happened he was the only one who was right.
I just love how the MSM take the Decima poll and now its back to the Libs and Dips neck and neck for offical opposition. Gimme a break. The political MSM need to go back to journalism school after this election or just get lost, because they have been absolutely horrible in this campaign. How can anyone take them seriously after this election?
In any event, I was worried that Nanos was a one day wonder, so I am glad that its looks stable so far. This is where I was hoping we would be by the end of the week, so hopefully we can make some incremental gains over the next few days and bring us to within a tie by Wed. Rae want to go after the Dips, so lets go after them. I think the Green vote is soft, so I hope they will come over to the Libs in the next few days.
Gayle makes an interesting point that it might be a blessing in disguies for Harper to win a minority as the economy inevitably slows and all the other scandals that he tried to bury come back from the dead. Since Harper has basically limited the spending power of the govt, he will not be able to spend his way out of a downturn and he wont have as much to bribe the voters as he has done in the past. Interesting theory, but can we take ever two more years of this guy?
I think the game within the game is whether Nanos is the outlier or is everyone else? If these pollsters are shown to be out to lunch after the election, then they really need to be called on it bigtime, because they shouldnt be allowed to be published.
lib
Yes, they seem to forgotten that the poll they first used to pump the "neck and neck" now shows no such thing. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I know our media is joke, it really is...
Grit is right, British Columbia is divided in that way. Rural ridings will be mostly the Cons and NDP. The Libs tend to be stronger in wealthier urban and suburban ridings, and the NDP will probably handily win the poorer urban ridings.
Other than the liberal upticks in Quebec and Ontario, one trend line I think is particularly important is the Conservative downward trend.
If Harper keeps going down I think we're really going to start seeing a sense develop that he can be beaten.
The only one party that can beat him is the liberal party, no matter what Jack says.
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