All three parties in NL gain in polls #nlpoli

The latest poll from Narrative Research shows the distorting effective of disregarding the "undecideds".

The number of people who didn't pick a political party dropped seven percentages points compared to August (35 to 28).

The Liberals and Conservatives picked up three points each and the New Democrats picked up a couple of points.  The changes don't add up exactly due to rounding and the slight inexactness of recalculating the original distribution from the numbers released by Narrative.

In the Narrative version, support for the parties stayed the same among "decided" respondents.

The pretty chart shows polling four the last four years all presented as a share of all responses. You can see the undecideds have been on an obvious and steady downward trend since earlier in 2019.  If you toss out the March UND number as an outlier,  there's still a drop from the time of the election. 

The fact that all three parties grew in the last quarter by the same amount  - more or less - is curious.  Choice for Premier has remained roughly the same for the past year as has satisfaction with government's performance.

-srbp-

Dippers go home #nlpoli

The latest quarterly poll from Narrative Research shows that a gaggle of folks who were likely New Democratic Party supporters returned to the fold in the past quarter and are now happy to identify as New Democrats once more.

So while this is good news for Alison Coffin and the NDP,  it really puts everything back in the space the parties occupied before February 2019.  That's when things were decidedly beige.

You can see this in the chart at right by looking at the orange line (NDP party support) and the green line (undecided, no choice, refused to answer, will not vote).  What you also see there is that generally polling from other firms has picked up the same basic pattern.

The Abacus Poll for Election 2019 #nlpoli

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

Everyone loses: new MQO poll for NTV #nlpoli

On the eve of an anticipated election call, voters in Newfoundland and Labrador turn up their noses at everyone currently on the field.

The latest MQO poll for NTV shows why no one should discard the people who don;t pick a party when asked who they would vote for.

When asked which party, they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow,  a majority - 56%  - said either that they would not vote,  refused to answer, or said they were undecided.

Liberal support dropped five points from the previous MQO poll, going from 26 to 21.  PC Support dropped from 25% to 18% and NDP support sank to four percent.  The party defectors all went into the bag of supposedly undecided voters.  It looks much more like they were opting for "none of the above."

Napalm sticks... #nlpoli

The latest poll from MQO is being reported as a statistical tie by NTV , while CBC says it shows a "neck and neck" race between the PCs and Liberals.

That's not really the story of the polls, though and what they might mean.

Here's the pretty chart showing every party choice poll result since 2015 (except for Mainstreet*).

Click to enlarge

Now here's what it shows.

A spring election now seems more likely #nlpoli

Here's the local poll tracker, now that the final party choice poll of the year is in.  (CRA Q4 Omnibus)

It's every party choice poll by any firm (less a couple of outliers)  all converted, where necessary, to show the results as a share of all choice.

Undecideds are a valid option in the SRBP world.

You can see that the Liberals are still roughly where they were in the middle of the year:  hovering just under 30%.  In this latest poll they are about seven points ahead of the Progressive Conservatives, which is to say they are really not in a very comfortable spot.   They are a minor swing away from being in a bad spot.

The PCs, meanwhile, have been on a slide since the first of the year and they just rebounded slightly.  But given that the rebound is less than the margin of error for all these polls,  they really haven't to any amount worth speaking of.
The NDP are a dismal, distant, and decidedly irrelevant third.

The MQO poll and Party Choice #nlpoli

MQO's quarterly omnibus poll shows some curious changes in public opinion about provincial political parties.  The province-wide numbers are not curious:  the changes in a couple of the regions are.

Let's take a look first at the provincial numbers.  As usual, SRBP presents the results as a share of all responses, including the refused/undecided/no answer folks.  That's why the numbers here are different from the ones used by MQO in its own release and reported by local news media.  Go to the end of the post for a brief discussion about the way the data is presented.

MQO kindly provided the data tables for this analysis free of charge.  The data collection methodology is theirs.  Interpretation of the data here is solely SRBP.  There is no business or other relationship between SRBP  and MQO to create a conflict of interest.

Contrary to media reports, support overall in the province for the governing Liberals didn't change in the last two quarters of 2018.  The Liberals had the support of 29 percent of respondents in Q3 and 28 percent in Q4.  Support for the Progressive Conservatives declined by four points - 25 to 21 - while support for the NDP went from 11 percent to nine percent.  The number of respondent who refused to answer,  were undecided, or planned not to vote grew by five points (from 36 to 41 percent of responses).

The Windsor Lake By-Election and polling #nlpoli

Market research firm MQO released a poll on September 10 about the Windsor Lake by-election.

They'd surveyed 300 people about how they would likely vote and about who they thought would make the best Premier from among the provincial party leaders.

On their choice among the candidates, MQO reported that 41% of decided and leaning voters favoured Paul Antle,  37% favoured Ches Crosbie, and 22% favoured Kerri Claire Neil.

The result on September 20 saw Crosbie win with 43% of votes cast.  Antle got 38% and Neil garnered 19% of votes.

Pretty much the opposite of what MQO said.

So MQO got it wrong,  some will say.

Others will think that Antle's campaign collapsed and Crosbie surged ahead based on whatever factors they might like to pick.

Well, there are a few problems with either of those scenarios.

The Doldrums #nlpoli

MQO conducted a little poll in late January and found the party standings among voters remains where it was in November.

No surprise.

Nothing has happened in the past few months to move support for either of the three parties in the province up or down.  We are in the lull before the provincial budget coming in March or April. That lull isn't happening by accident.  The Liberals retreated last summer in the face of massive public rejection of their spring budget.  Since then the ruling Liberals have been virtually silent, cancelling planned budget cuts and other measures to cope with the government's financial crisis.

That silence resulted in a very slow climb in Liberal support from a low of 17% in May 2016 to about 27% of all respondents by the fall.  But look at the Conservative number.  It's basically the same as the Liberal one, given that the margin of error for the poll is plus or minus four percentage points.

Brutal #nlpoli

Any Liberals who thought they were out of the political woods got a harsh reminder of the truth on Tuesday.

Their leader remains as unpopular as ever.

According to Angus Reid, only 20% of respondents to their recent poll thought Premier Dwight Ball was doing a good job. That's scarcely changed since last spring.

75% disapprove of the job Ball is doing.

Corporate Research Associates showed a curious 10 point jump in its leader-choice question last time around.  Bit of a different question, to be sure, but folks might want to notice that CRA winds up being a bit of an outlier in this respect. Other pollsters had results for party choice through October and November that were all pretty much the same. Seems odd that everything else would track but that something like support for party leader would be well outside the margin of error of the polls.

Maybe CRA was little bit high.

Maybe.

-srbp-

The polls remain discouraging for Liberals #nlpoli

Heading into their convention this weekend,  the provincial Liberals have another poll that confirms what all the other polls have said for the past six months or so.

For those misled by reports about the MQO poll like CBC's initial one, see the bit down below.

Here's what you get when you take all the polls over the past six months together,  and make allowances for variations like the margin of error.

Three points:

• Only about 16% of respondents think Dwight Ball is the best choice for leader.
• If an election were held tomorrow,  somewhere between 20% and 25% of voters would pick the Liberal.  
•  About 60% of people think the government is headed in the wrong direction.

Not good.

All the reboots and changes and visions have done precisely nothing to change public attitudes about the Liberals and their leader.

Best Choice for Premier #nlpoli

Premier Dwight Ball has the lowest leader choice numbers of any Premier in Newfoundland and Labrador since November 2000.

The chart shows the Corporate Research Associates numbers in every quarter for every Premier in that period.

To help situate you in the long sequence,  there are a couple of points marked out.  That first peak is November 2003.  There was a big drop right after as Danny Williams and the Conservatives tried to trim spending.

Notice that next higher peak.  It was February 2005, right after Williams left Ottawa with a cheque for $2.0 billion.

A clear course to dangerous political shoals #nlpoli

Lots of political activists are looking at the latest CRA quarterly poll.  The Liberals think it is great that they are rebounding so quickly.  Supporters of the other two parties think it is wonderful the three parties are tied and Paul Davis thinks it is great he is doubling Dwight Ball in popularity.

And sure, you can see that if you look at the numbers.  Here's the usual SRBP chart, updated to include these figures.  Bear in mind,  we've given the party choice here as a share of all respondents.  That puts the Grits at 23 with the Dippers and Cons tied at 22.

Reporters have been talking up the Liberal numbers, saying the party has rebounded.  And Paul Davis is vowing to stay on and fight the next general election based on this poll.

All lovely stuff and all of it really superficial.

The Unhappy Gang #nlpoli

The provincial cabinet ended a "retreat" at The Rooms by holding a news conference on Thursday using as a backdrop posters commemorating the slaughter of the Newfoundland regiment at Beaumont Hamel a century ago.

Not exactly the kind of image you want to have but at least it fit with a new poll from MQO that shows the Liberals are now in third place behind the provincial New Democrats with the Conservatives on top.

You can see the party choice numbers in the table, below.  April and July are MQO.  May is Corporate Research Associates.  Compare the MQO numbers:  the Conservatives have grown eight points since April and are now in first place.  The Liberals have dropped five points and are in third place.

Turning Point #nlpoli

The Great Filibuster of 2016 came to an abrupt end on Thursday afternoon as the two opposition parties decided to pack it in, having gaining precisely nothing of any substance.

The filibuster confirmed the NDP are as politically impotent as they have always been.  Meanwhile, the Conservatives lack punch, depth, and direction.  The Liberals left themselves vulnerable and rather than do them lasting damage,  the opposition parties flinched at the crucial moment.  The result is that the Liberals now get to regroup and come back stronger, having learned powerful lessons out of the spring.

To give a sense of how ineffective the filibuster was, consider that on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Liberals were able to get two crucial pieces of legislation through the House.  In both the school boards election bill and the new greenhouse gas emissions bill, the Liberals got to calmly and rationally lay out the arguments in favour of their position.  The opposition meekly listened.

Environment minister Perry Trimper came away stronger in the public eye as a result.  Education minister Dale Kirby can be abrasive when riled but on this occasion he spoke eloquently about the bill the NDp had spent the earlier part of the session hammering him over.  Kirby also got to explain why full-day kindergarten was so important as part of the government's agenda.

Now with that in mind take a look at the CRA poll released on Thursday.

MQO poll shows big Liberal slide #nlpoli

Just for the fun of comparison, here's the CRA polling results for a year covering the last time the provincial government saw a change of party and the new crowd introduced a killer budget no one expected.

The Conservatives dropped from 55 points in November 2003 to 33 points in May of the next year.

They only climbed out of the hole by abandoning their austerity program and launching a costly jihad against Ottawa.

Delivering a bad budget is one thing.  Delivering a bad budget very badly is something else entirely.

That's why, As bad as the polling numbers are for the Liberals in MQO's April 2016 poll, there is nothing in it that's surprising to anyone paying attention to local politics.

Trump the unpopular... maybe not #nlpoli

Apparently, Donald Trump is the most unpopular American presidential candidate since 1992.

The Toronto Star's American correspondent produced a lovely article on Friday.  It started with the results of a couple of recent comparisons showing how unpopular Donald Trump is in survey research conducted during the current primaries compared to every candidate going back to 1992.

Then Daniel Dale tells us what will happen when this trainwreck gets to the general election November.

If you've already decided Trump is the antiChrist - that is, if you are a regular Star reader - you will skim this confirmation of what you already knew.

But you might want to look more closely at this piece to see a couple of really glaring - and really obvious mistakes - it makes.

No change in party support numbers #nlpoli

Despite delivering bad news about the provincial government's finances since taking office,  the provincial Liberals continue to hold strong public support, according to the most recent poll by Corporate Research Associates.

Support for all three parties remains essentially at the same level it was in the fourth quarter of 2015.

In the chart below, the Liberals are at 48% of respondents (red line),  the Conservatives are at 17% (blue), and the NDP are at eight percent (orange).  Undecided,  no answer, would not vote combined is at 27%, shown by the dotted light blue line.

CRA reports its party support as a shared of decided respondents.  SRBP adjusts the figures to show party choice as a share of all respondents.

-arbp-

Polls and Projections #nlpoli

If you want to get a sense of how accurate polls were in the last federal election take a look at the ones we have in public and compare those to the actual result on polling day.

In each of the tables below,  we are using the official vote for each party as a share of eligible vote.  Basically, that’s what the pollsters surveyed.  They asked people who were eligible to vote what they would do.

The polls must be wrong #nlpoli

Over the past couple of weeks,  some people have been questioning the accuracy of public opinion polls.

People have questioned the polls in the federal election, especially after the defeat of two candidates in metro St. John’s a lot of people thought would win.  The two polls released last week show the Liberals with such a commanding lead that some people – especially Conservative and New Democrat supporters are doubting the accuracy of the polls.

If you are a Conservative and think the Conservatives should be doing better, then you may be disappointed by what follows.  But if you are interested in a better understanding of polls and what you are seeing in public, then read on. You should always look closely at public opinion polls to make sure you understand what you are looking at.