Bond Papers has raised questions before about CRA's quarterly omnibus polls.
At the time of writing, there's no link to the official release.
The graph at left is a reminder of the gap between the actual vote result last fall and CRA poll results.
The blue line is the CRA PC support for "decided" voters".
The red line is the CRA result as a percent of all respondents.
The orange line is the CRA category for "undecided", "no answer", and "will not vote."
The election results are represented by dots. The brownish one is the PC popular, that is the share of people who actually voted. The blue triangle is the share of all eligible voters and the green circle is the actual percentage of eligible voters who didn't vote.
Take a hard look at the image.
Get a ruler if you have to and measure the gaps.
They're big. The gap between CRA's Tory vote, as a share of all respondents, matched to its correct October comparison - the actual vote as a percentage of all voters - and you'll find a different of 20 percentage points.
CRA consistently inflates the level of Tory support in the province and, while the figures aren't shown here, they consistent deflate the support for the other two political parties. It doesn't matter why; the most likely reason is the way CRA conducts the poll. The fact that the numbers are off by a wide margin is undeniable.
-srbp-
Related posts: (Some links may not work due to URL changes at source.)
- Shaggin' polls - a discussion of poll results and the New Brunswick election.
- Playing the numbers - part of a series on poll goosing.
- Polls and the stuff they tell you - discusses poll results in 2005 with a reference to party support over time. be wary of the statements about records you may read in news accounts. They sometimes confuse poll questions.
- Pull the other one - from September 2007 and comments by CRA president Don Mills about the timing of certain government announcements.
- Williams PCs only 3 points ahead of Rideout's PCs 17 years later - From 2006, comparing CRA and Telelink poll results.
- The secret of their success: Roger Grimes - an interpretation of CRA polling data that might surprise some people.
- The answer is simple: it's polling time - the most likely reason for the sudden resurgence of the ABC campaign.
- Andy, Danny, the PUB and the polls - why did Danny Williams suddenly change his mind about Andy Wells? As we know now and the Premier knew at the time, CRA started polling on 12 February. Check the date of the post.
- First poll results. From the 2007 general election campaign.