The chart below looks like there has been a huge jump up and
down in “no choice” and a corresponding big change in party choice but actually
there is some consistency across the board.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
As SRBP has been saying for a couple of months, the Conservatives
and Liberals have basically been polling in the 20s for the past three
years. These results are within that 10-point
spread, allowing with the odd leap above 30 or below 20. The “no choice” option (green dotted line)
has been consistently above 35 the whole time.
Abacus is an outlier in that sense but, there is an election campaign
underway.
The Abacus poll – conducted between May 2 and May 5 – shows the
Conservatives in the lead with the Liberals trailing., But here’s the thing, the gap, even in the presentation of “decideds”
or “committed” is really inside the bounds of possibilities covered by the
margin of error.
Just to drive the point home. Here is a sample of MQO and Abacus results
over the past year or so.
|
|
Liberal
|
Conservative
|
New Democrat
|
No Choice
|
|
Abacus Feb-18
|
22
|
18
|
12
|
48
|
|
Abacus May-18
|
22
|
24
|
13
|
41
|
|
MQO Apr-19
|
25
|
20
|
06
|
47
|
|
Abacus May-19
|
29
|
33
|
12
|
21
|
Abacus versus MQO
The Abacus result is not outrageously out of line, given
that there *is* an election campaign underway.
The major reason for the difference between Abacus and MQO
is likely timing. Abacus polled after the debate. MQO straddled the debate with most of their
sample collected before the televised event.
There may also be some variation in the sample. Since Abacus didn’t release their data tables
(and SRBP didn’t ask for them) there’s no way of telling if the samples were
weighted the same way even though the two companies say they did.
One plausible reason for the “no choice” discrepancy could
be that Abacus specifically probed the issue of not voting and found a very
high number who admitted they wouldn’t.
That actual intention not to vote is often implicit in the “no choice”
responses to other polling where researchers actually don’t list it as an
option. “Not going to vote” is
frequently an option the respondent has to volunteer rather than be prompted
for it. In other cases, it is a string
of options such that people can pick “undecided” when they want to mask their
true intention. There’s a social value
in voting so not voting may be perceived as a socially unacceptable option.
But to get into the value of the Abacus poll, let’s just go
back and look at the results. Notice
that in both the MQO and Abacus polls the Liberals and Tories are only - respectively
– five and four points apart. That’s
basically the margin of error. The
variation between the Liberal result in both polls is equally small. The only big variation is in the Conservative
number and NDP number between Abacus and MQO.
Different, yes. Not necessarily
wrong in the context of an election.
So, on the whole, the polls have their own internal
integrity and your humble e-scribbler is willing to accept them as reflecting
snapshots of public opinion at two separate times. We can refine our
perspective if we get two more polls by the weekend, as now seems to be the
case.
Big Issues and
Disconnected Parties
The Abacus poll does give us some insight into the public
mood that has produced the very high number of people who are disaffected from
the political parties. These are the folks who likely won’t vote. That’s 44%, which is SRBP’s extrapolation of
MQO’s figures. Abacus asked about the
intention to vote and found 43% would be going to the polls.
Here are the major issues.
The biggest one is jobs and the economy. Second biggest is health care.
Muskrat Falls, taxes, government accountability, and the
cost of living are all less than 10% each.
What are the parties talking about? Dwight and his people have been obsessed with
Muskrat Falls. Ches likes to talk about
high taxes, government accountability and the cost of living (gasoline prices)
Neither party spends much time talking about government spending expect to
suggest there should be a lot more of it. That’s the third biggest issue for
people.
If the parties don’t speak to issues the public are
concerned about, it is hard for people to pick a party. Pretty simple stuff.
All the same, Abacus has a chart that shows how people
connect the parties and the big issues.
On jobs and the economy, the two major parties are not
radically different, and the Conservatives have a slight lead. Health care is a Liberal issue predominantly. Tories get credit on the deficit issue even
though they really want to make the current problem worse through tax cuts and
increased spending. Reality is not as
important as perception in driving votes.
So, Conservatives leading in public perception on two of the
top three issues with Liberals owning the third. Not hard to understand why the Tories would
be ahead, slightly. But since the
parties overall don’t really speak to the big public issues, it is hard for the
public to connect a party with their key issue.
The perception of the two party leaders – neither of them is
perceived well or strongly – also makes it hard for voters to associate a party
with the issue that is of most concern to them.
To put it a bit more colourfully, ground truth the poll result.
Look at the party platforms and messaging. Neither party clear lines up with
the top three issues. Most of the limited time the two major parties have been communicating
with the public, the messages have been negative about the other party: vote for me, one will say, because I am not
him.
Both parties are basically saying "vote for me so I can
win" not "here's how you can best get your needs met". See the
difference? Platform documents don't speak to key public issues clearly.
Campaign of Tim Horton's stops and photo ops are meaningless *to voters*.
Abacus found a very strong desire in the public for
change. The voted strongly for change in
2015. Maybe they don’t feel like they
got it. Even if the Liberals win the election,
as a plurality of MQO and Abacus respondents apparently expect, they will face
an electorate that is unhappy with the course the province is on. They will
have to change or risk serious consequences in the very near future. If the
government ignores that clear public desire – for change – then the next
government will have a lot more to deal with than the provincial government’s
financial mess.
-srbp-