October 15, 2015October 16, 2015 by Rosedeer

Adventures in Strategic Voting in Vancouver-Granville

I was minding my own business on Thursday afternoon when a Vancouver Sun tweet came across my radar screen. It said Leadnow – the ‘strategic voting’ organization was endorsing the NDP candidate in my riding, even though the Liberal candidate has been leading in the polls featured on their own website:

The idea of unaccountable organizations driving strategic voting based on self-interested polling has been grating on me, but the Granville endorsement demonstrated the cynicism of their approach.

The Candidates

Here’s the thing – the candidates for all parties are good candidates. I know Mira Oreck a little – she hosted me when I spoke at the Broadbent Institute in June regarding the Alberta election. I also think it’s great she’s running; if she’s elected, she will be a good MP. She has a solid campaign team of very dedicated friends and followers and I have a lot of respect for them. However, I think the Leadnow tactics will ultimately hurt her, and if her campaign was in cahoots, it was a mistake.

Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Liberal, is also an excellent candidate. She has been a trailblazer as a First Nations leader while having an accomplished career as a lawyer. Like Mira, she’s run a good campaign and running hard. Moreover, she is running for the party that has momentum in a riding where her party has a natural advantage. In the 2011 election when the Liberals were shattered, they almost won the polling areas within the new Vancouver-Granville riding (Conservatives were first) and finished ahead of the NDP. Looking at 2015, it would be highly unusual for the Liberals to finish behind the NDP given the significant increase in Liberal support in BC, and if they win 7 seats in BC, Granville will be one of them.

For Leadnow to intervene against her is frankly all too predictable from a group that is trying to ‘manage’ election results; it’s just surprising they would be so transparently cynical.

This is all welcome noise to Erinn Broshko, the Conservative. Who wouldn’t want a ‘strategic voting group’ to endorse the weaker of two rivals?

My annoyance with Leadnow has nothing to do with these candidates. I will be content with my level of constituency representation from any of them if they are elected as MPs, I’m sure. And, news flash, I’m no NDPer. I’m happy to vote FOR Jody.

Into the Twitterverse

After the tweet from The Great Baldrey™ (“nice hair!”), the debate was joined by David Ball from the Tyee. Admittedly, I’m not a soulmate of the Tyee but I certainly prefer them over the shills at the Observer! I expressed my main beef that Leadnow lured people in through their poll-based approach – that they would poll in the ridings then advise voters on who had the best chance to win.

I expressed my preference that political parties settle these kind of debates without these self-appointed outside groups mucking about with their polls.

Later, the debate was joined by BC Green Party MLA Dr. Andrew Weaver, who retweeted my criticism that the Leadnow endorsement was a disgrace. He went on to add his view:

I took the opportunity to ask Dr Weaver about his view regarding Green prospects on Vancouver Island:

Leadnow poked their head out of their gopher hole:

This issue has now become a FULL BLOWN CONTROVERSY. How so? When the Georgia Straight is quoting my tweets, you know the story is BIG. The Sun and Province both ran pieces this morning highlighting the controversy.

The Uncivil war

What’s the upshot of this? Groups like Leadnow and the Dogwood Initiative have succeeded in dividing like-minded people (I’m excluding myself here – I’m not like-minded). You have all these Green Party supporters who are the tried and true believers of the issues espoused by leading environmental organizations and they are brushed aside by strategic voting groups. It must be very disillusioning, hence Dr. Weaver’s anger.

In my post regarding the Nanaimo-Ladysmith federal race, some of my local correspondents made note of the tensions between the Greens and the NDP. Strategic voting groups exacerbate these tensions. Wouldn’t it be something if Leadnow and Dogwood endorse an NDP candidate and the Green finishes 2nd to the Conservative? Holy cow, that would be an ugly scenario.

Victoria media commentator Adam Stirling has picked up on the vibes:

The Upshot

Voters aren’t stupid. They can see through these stunts and organizations like Leadnow spend a lot of time in their echo chamber and not necessarily engaged with swing voters. My beef is that they presented an approach based on ‘evidence’ and they switched gears with four days to go in the election.

Poll postcript

And about those polls. The level of reporting regarding Leadnow and Dogwood poll results has been very thin. They have not provided detailed cross-tabs and without those, the media should not be reporting results. In Metro Vancouver, I will wager that they are not tracking Chinese-Canadian respondents and in seats like Vancouver-Granville, not accounting for a major sub-population is methodologically dodgy. Overall, these unaccountable organizations have avoided scrutiny. The voters will have the last word.

October 15, 2015October 18, 2015 by Rosedeer

Nanaimo-Ladysmith: the most interesting race in BC

UPDATE: (11pm, October 18) This original post was published on Oct 15. Events continue to evolve, including new national and BC poll results. My take on the Nanaimo-Ladysmith race as of the 15th may have been overtaken by events. Feel free to comment.

UPDATE: (10pm, October 17) Seeing lots of traffic via Facebook to this post. I encourage visitors to leave comments if you agree/disagree with observations and add any ‘colour commentary’.

Nanaimo-Ladysmith is the most interesting race taking place in BC. It has not received as much attention as Vancouver and Victoria area ridings, but it is one of the few ridings that can claim to have a four-way race, with my definition being that four parties are in the 20% territory.

Nanaimo is known for its world-famous bathtub race. These bathtubbers intently discussing strategic boating.

There may be some dispute with the idea of a 4-way race, but let me explain.

It is a new riding with no incumbent
Until this election, the City of Nanaimo was previously split down the middle with the CPC representing the north end and NDP representing the south end
The Green candidate is the son of a former NDP MP and was rejected by the NDP based on his views on Israel-Palestine issues. By many accounts, he is in contention and displayed a show of force when he hosted a September townhall of an estimated 1,000 attendees in Nanaimo
The Liberals have been poor fourths in recent elections and have the weakest organization, but in the not-to-distant-past routinely netted 20% – can Justin’s appeal extend the Liberal brand into a contender? It may only take 26% to win (and in the recent Alberta election, an NDP MLA was elected with 29%).

Where is Nanaimo-Ladysmith?

It’s a new riding formed after the latest redistribution. The City of Nanaimo (pop. 83,000) is included in its entirety along with outlying feeder communities of Lantzville, Ladysmith, Cedar, and Gabriola Island. It’s a cohesive boundary that is a considerable improvement over the split ridings that had been the case for decades.

What’s the local flavour?

Olden days – employer/labour conflict in the coal mines that led to the election of Socialist candidates. Today, the only physical remnants of King Coal are slack piles in the small community of Extension and on Transfer Beach in Ladysmith. Yet a legacy of labour politics persists in South Nanaimo and some surrounding areas and pride remains that Tommy Douglas represented Nanaimo for a time. Unionized forest workers are an important bloc but are not as plentiful today; there is a stronger public sector union base, including the head office of BC Ferry Union.

The labour politics dissipate as one travels north across the Millstone River which bisects Nanaimo – NDP votes evaporate and Conservative votes flourish. North Nanaimo votes BC Liberal provincially and Conservative federally.

Nanaimo also has growing population of retirees; it has a very strong retail and tourism sector, mostly non-unionized; and it has an underrated university – Vancouver Island University – which is a regional hub for employment, research, and a considerable First Nations enrolment.

There’s a lifestyle element with Gabriola Island and rural areas having an eclectic brew of artists, blue collar workers, country squires, and back-to-the-landers living not-quite cheek to jowl on their five-acre lots, but having the common talking point of well water and septic tanks.

The riding is a potpourri.

How did Nanaimo-Ladysmith vote in past elections?

Transposed onto the current boundaries, the results of previous elections were:

	2006	2008	2011
NDP	40	38	45
CPC	34	38	40
LIB	18	14	7
GREEN	5	8	7

Based on electoral history, how can this be a 4-way race?

Good question! Let’s start with the Greens. As stated, the Green candidate Paul Manly is a serious candidate who has mounted a serious campaign. When parties don’t mount serious campaigns, voters will abandon them as they don’t want to waste their vote. This time, the Greens have a candidate who is funded, built a strong campaign team, and has his base excited.

Just so you know I’m not making this up, two strategic voting polls in September and October both have the Greens north of 20%. The strategic voting brain trusts must be wincing that Paul Manly is upsetting their carefully constructed storyline.

What about the Liberal? The Liberals had been in the midst of an inexorable decline on Vancouver Island since 2004. The demographics of Nanaimo-Ladysmith are similar to other ridings in Canada that do elect Liberals but they have barely raised the flag in successive elections. This time, the Liberals have a spring in their step. They have the weakest organization in Nanaimo of the four campaigns but they have Justin Trudeau, and Justin compared to Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion is a major step up on Vancouver Island. It is certainly conceivable that the Liberals could return to their traditional 20% level and possibly higher if voters catch a wave. Those same strategic voting polls had Liberal Tim Tessier lurking at 17-18%, and that was before the latest ‘Liberal surge’. Electoral politics in Canada is certainly chock-a-block full of surprise MPs (see Quebec 2011, Alberta 2015) and the Liberal chance rests on the Leader’s shoulders. In a four-way race, as little as 26% could deliver victory.

The Main Event

NDP candidate Sheila Malcolmson is an experienced local politician, but not particularly high profile. She’s not a City politician – she’s from the islands. She follows popular incumbent NDP MP Jean Crowder who had very high personal support and name recognition. From what I understand, Malcolmson is not a drag on NDP support, but she’s had to establish herself.

Conservative candidate Mark MacDonald is a true blue conservative. He was a longtime publisher of Vancouver Island’s business newspaper and more recently had served as editor of the Nanaimo Daily News. He’s tenacious and straight forward. A majority of voters won’t agree with him, but he’ll be quite happy with 35% thank you very much (or less as long as he’s first). He’s the one candidate in the race that I know and I’m sure he’s working his tail off.

These two parties shared 85% of the vote in Nanaimo-Ladysmith in 2011. This time, they both will see their share of the vote cannibalized.

The Greens will hurt the NDP candidate. This makes sense intuitively and is also what I’m hearing anecdotally. You can see it in the strategic polls too, even if they are only roughly accurate.

The Liberals will hurt the Conservative. The rise in the Liberal vote coincides with drop in Conservative support. The question is – how much?

The Conservative brand does not resonate on Vancouver Island as well as more populist right-wing brands. In 1993, the Reform Party stormed this area and were re-elected in 1997 and 2000 (Canadian Alliance). Clearly, provincial NDP voters were supporting Reform and the Canadian Alliance federally. This type of cross-over appears less frequent now. The Conservatives have retrenched into a narrower base while the NDP have reclaimed most BC NDP voters. (NDP federal candidates do poorly when the BC NDP is in power – ie. 1974, 1993, 1997, 2000 elections; they do better as memories fade)

Strategic Voting

This is one riding where I question the proponents of strategic voting. Yes, I get it, “STOP HARPER”. That’s their point. But here you have a Green candidate who is positioned for an historic breakthrough – isn’t that strategic? Ends-justifying-the-means tactical fights to win a seat in a close election is clearly understood as an objective, but it seems like strategic voting organizations are eating their young. I’m not a Green supporter by any stretch but I relate to their situation – I was a Liberal in the dark days of the 1980s. Manly is running against the odds. If Manly does win, he’s a nationally-significant politician as one of maximum three Greens that get elected.

There’s no question that Manly’s candidacy is a boon to the Conservatives. I don’t think they would have a chance without it. While the Liberal gain is coming at some expense to the Conservatives, those votes were likely lost to the Conservatives anyway in this election. Three parties might be fighting over upwards of 70-75% of the votes while the Conservatives have a hard core. They need that core to be in the high 20s to have a chance and likely over 30%.

The Upshot – my unscientific guess

My sense is that the race today is (1) NDP; (2) CPC; (3) GREEN; (4) LIB but that less than 15% separates 1 to 4. NDP are likely leading at this point and probably a little above 30%; the Liberals are probably pushing 20%, with CPC and Greens in the mid 20s. The Green factor is a huge wildcard. Voters like having MPs and MLAs that are seen to “make a difference” and stand out. Once a tipping point is reached, voters can defy convention as we saw in Oak Bay-Gordon Head and Delta South provincially, and Saanich-Gulf Islands federally. That tipping point would typically be reached late in the campaign, but I’m not sure Manly has reached it.

Feedback from the Street

Don’t take my word for it. I put a request out to friends who live in the riding and asked them to give me their ranking and whatever insights they would like to share. Here are some comments – and of course, my friends are completely unrepresentative of the population, but they follow politics and were giving honest views. Their comments represent a contradictory mix of assessments and judgments, and reflect why I find this the most interesting race in BC.

I have witnessed a tremendous amount of people from across the political spectrum rallying behind the Green banner….with a sizeable portion of what I understood as traditional NDP’s working on the local Green campaign. However, Sheila is doing very well and running a strong campaign with still a large army of volunteers.

None of these parties are taking votes from the CPC, only from each other, and I doubt too many LIBs or GRNs will strategically vote NDP – these people want to vote LIB or GRN. I’m not sure the same is true for N-Dippers – I think they’re more likely to lose votes to Libs and Green, giving the win to CPC.

I think the Green factor is certainly real…they have run an impressive campaign. Paul Manly has been very active and visible. They’ve been everywhere with signs, social media ads and movies theatres – their graphic novel short was hilarious. Not sure this will result in a win, but I think they will be rewarded with support from unlikely corners. Not surprisingly, many NDPers are quite unhappy about this fact – hostile even – as they feel they should easily win the riding. I still think they will prevail at the end of the day but not without bitterness.

None of the candidates appear to have much community profile, the NDP and Greens have had the best sign coverage. The Conservatives are getting a lot of vandalism and they seem slow making repairs.

The Greens appear to have a good candidate and strong appeal in this riding. I have been somewhat surprised by the folks from various backgrounds that have indicated they are voting Green.

I strongly suspect Green rally drew people from all over the Island to show support in a winnable riding. Greens have more lawn signs on private property than NDP. Not the biggest sign war. CPC seeing a lot of sign damage. I haven’t seen a Liberal sign on private property. Some Green supports I think will chicken out at last minute. Conservatives will be quiet until ballot box

All four parties have a strong external presence, however, the NDP seems to have the most yard signs.

I attended the All Candidates Forum last week in Ladysmith. Afterwards I discussed the performance of the various candidates, with others who attended. There seemed to be a consensus… the NDP were first, followed closely by the Green, then followed by the Liberal, and the Conservative was at the bottom.

I attended an all candidates meeting and was really impressed with the Liberal candidate. More than I thought I would be. However, Green and Orange appear to be running neck and neck. Manly has had some impressive public events and very public shows of support, but you can never discount (as you know better than anyone) the Pavlovian response of the dippers on election day.

I have to say that I think the Justin factor is not in play to any extent and I do not see the emergence of a four way race. Nor indeed do I see a three way race.

This election is interesting here in Nanaimo, having a good feel for this town it will be between Paul and Sheila. We all know this is NDP country but the way the NDP handled the Manly nomination, many have jumped ship to Green. Federal Liberals have not appeared to have made much noise and [the Conservative] is guilty by association re to Harper. I have heard more chatter around Sheila and Paul but would say NDP will narrowly defeat Green and distantly followed by Libs then Conservatives.

It is clear that the NDP is clinging with its fingernails to its traditional base with a weak candidate. So I think the battle is between Manly and MacDonald, with MacDonald likely to win because of the Green/NDP split. As per provincial politics, conservative strength lies in North Nanaimo and in Saltair. I think the Liberal candidate is a pleasant guy, and he seems to have more money and organization than previous candidates, but he is ploughing a tough row here. So in summary, my prediction is CPC/Green/NDP/Lib/Leninist Marxist (how could you forget him?)

October 14, 2015 by Rosedeer

Prediction market bearish on NDP, but has been fooled before

The Sauder School of Business is running its prediction market yet again, as it has done in many previous elections. Real people invest real money on the outcome of the election.

It’s a bear market for Les Oranges

In the past day, there has been a run on the market. Investors are scooping up “Liberal majority” government shares. If the Liberals win a majority, one share = $1. If they don’t, the share is worth nothing. The Majority Government Market betting is an all-or-nothing proposition.

Liberal majority government shares have moved from a low of 7 cents on the dollar to 23 cents. Conservative majority shares have declined to 3 cents. NDP majority shares are now at less than half a cent. That’s a pretty good windfall if the Orange ship comes in.

The minority government (“any other outcome”) option has risen from the low 60s a few weeks ago to 82 cents. Still, a decent return of over 20% if that outcome is realized.

The popular vote market shows Liberal shares being traded at 38 cents with the lowest asking price at 42 cents. The market is very bullish for the Liberals; surprising then that the majority government betting for the Liberals isn’t higher. But are bettors getting ahead of themselves ?

I have observed in recent years that this market mirrors media coverage of poll results, though with the added touch that people have to put their money where their mouth is. It’s an interesting social experiment but it doesn’t necessarily predict outcomes. The poll results are likely too dominant a consideration in investors’ behaviour.

Here are the statistics of the last day of trading prior to the BC provincial election in 2013:

In the meantime, you still have time to make some money off of other political junkies. There are doubtlessly some emotional bettors that will part with their hard-earned cash on Tuesday.

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015 by Rosedeer

Reasons to second guess polls

The latest polls give plenty of fodder to suggest that there is a Liberal surge overtaking the race. There are a number of supportable points on this:

Nightly poll tracking by Nanos has been reinforced by Innovative and Ekos. The narrative is that the Liberals are pulling away from the Conservatives with the NDP far behind.
The “not ready” line of attack has been embraced by the Liberals; they have played it differently than “just visiting” and “not a leader” attacks from previous campaigns.
The heat of the anti-Harper passion is far beyond that what has been seen in previous elections. Various poll metrics (eg. “time for a change”) suggest voters are ready for a new government.
Advance voting turnout is high which could mean higher overall turnout favouring the Opposition.

What could possibly go wrong betting on a horse race?

Yet, there is that gnawing feeling that there could be another polling surprise just around the bend.

Look at the UK election last May. The intensity of British media coverage and polling exceeded that of the Canadian election yet no one saw a Conservative majority coming. Even famed predictor Nate Silver blew it badly. When BBC forecasted a majority moments after polls closed – based on results from exit polls – pundits were absolutely gobsmacked. Not only that, two of the party leaders were caught with their pants down by their ankles and resigned by morning. The prime minister (“Bluedini”) was likely as surprised but had the winning strategy on his side. (Exit polls were based on interviews with voters immediately after they voted, not pre-voting surveys)

Yes, there is the litany of Canadian surprises too. Mainly favouring incumbents – Christy Clark, Alison Redford, Greg Selinger, Dalton McGuinty, and Kathleen Wynne to name some plus Jean Charest who just missed re-election when pollsters had him in third. Remember Doug Ford? The final polls in the Toronto mayor’s race had him dead and buried but he only lost by 6.5%. Overall, it’s certainly not a sterling track record. I’m speaking about media polls here. Sure, some parties have got it wrong too, but clearly some (the winners) are getting it right.

But they called it in Alberta, right? A quick check from the 308 poll aggregator site shows that most pollsters (not all) overstated NDP support and understated PC support. It didn’t matter since the NDP won handily. But in a close election, some of the pollsters were off by a considerable margin when you look at the NDP-PC difference. The poll aggregator had that gap at 20 points (it was 13%). That’s a big difference in a close election and an error of similar magnitude in this election would lead to a different outcome.

Three things I’m watching

The engagement level of voters

Last week, I wrote about Greg Lyle’s extensive research. He updated his research this week with a research deck of over 100 pages. There is enough data here to keep Wikileaks busy for a month. Overall, his survey reported a 35-30-24 race (Lib – CPC – NDP).

Greg has built a respondent profile based on consistency versus ambivalence. If the respondents have a consistent pattern to their responses, they are at the ‘consistent’ end of the scale. If they answer “don’t know” to a lot of questions, they are on the ‘ambivalent’ end of the scale. Conflicted respondents are in the middle.

About 15% of respondents are ambivalent. Most will not vote.The ‘perfectly consistent’ are primed to vote.

This week, Greg posted the vote results by each of these clusters. Bearing in mind the Liberals had an overall five-point lead on the CPC, here’s how that broke down among the consistency segmentation:

The race is tied among the ‘perfectly consistent’. I would throw out the 15% of ambivalent respondents, which shaves a fraction off the Liberal lead. Among the 18% of ‘conflicted’ voters, the Liberals have a substantial lead over CPC, which appears to be based on NDP switchers (hence the fact they are ‘conflicted’). These respondents are a lot more likely to vote than ‘ambivalent’ but less likely than consistent voters.

Therefore, the Liberals have more work to do to mobilize this voter group in order to realize a five-point win.

2. Inconsistencies between pollsters in age and gender

There has traditionally been a gender split with the Conservatives doing better among men and the Liberals doing better among women. Ekos, which had the Conservatives ahead two points, shows the Conservatives leading among women.

Meanwhile, Nanos in the field at the same time, has the Liberals with an 11.6% lead among women. That’s a pretty big gap between pollsters.

Is Ekos overestimating CPC support through a blip in female support, or is Nanos overestimating Liberal support among males (below). Nanos has shown a consistent Liberal uptick.

Oh, and did you see the Ekos age split? 48-30 for CPC among seniors. Nanos has the Liberals with a 1.5% lead among plus 60 voters. Again, another big difference. Who’s right? I dunno.

3. Regional races

There is considerable variance in the regional horse race numbers, especially in Ontario and Quebec.

In Ontario, it is either a death-duel between the Blues and the Reds OR it’s the Reds walking away.

In Quebec, it is either a four-way collision or the NDP retain enough support to win the majority of seats, keeping it in national contention. When you see numbers like this, the party above 30% can harvest a lot of seats. The difference in Quebec between 27% and 32% could be 40 seats. The latest poll findings are inconclusive, to say the least.

	308	Leger	Nanos	IRG	Forum	ARI
NDP	30%	28%	33%	29%	25%	31%
LIB	27%	28%	29%	26%	29%	24%
CPC	19%	20%	14%	19%	22%	17%
BLOC	21%	23%	23%	22%	21%	27%

Finally, there are the usual warnings:

10-second Tories (in BC, we called them 10-second Socreds). Voters that decide in the final analysis to hold their nose and vote for the incumbent.
“Cranky won’t says” – the 6-8% of voters who won’t and don’t cooperate on surveys are a statistical wildcard.
The final weekend – voters have a sixth sense that is not entirely detectable. The Redford win in 2012 manifested from an unease about Wildrose in the final week. A combination of not-likely voters, strategic voters, and strange bedfellows changed the game.
Advance and special votes – Perhaps up to 20% of votes are already in the bag. Who do they favour? Will the winner on October 19th lose the overall election?

I’m not forecasting anything here – only caution. It is clear that the Liberals have won the campaign thus far. They started with low expectations and have exceeded them, and have to this point eclipsed the NDP in the ‘primary’ that established which party had the best chance to defeat the Conservatives.

Having said that, if I was a Liberal strategist, I would be tempering my grassroots’ naturally-occurring public-poll-based-optimism with Eeyore-like gloom and insist they are still running from behind. I wouldn’t want to be like the gobsmacked Brit who couldn’t read the tea leaves – even at tea time. If I was a CPC strategist, I wouldn’t assume the poll numbers will necessarily improve – it is going to be a gruelling week but a plurality is very much possible if they have a strong finish, particularly with the likeliest of voters. If I was an NDP strategist, I would move mountains to move vote in Quebec. If they lose Quebec, all is lost.

Ultimately, the great thing about campaigns is that it’s up to the voters. The strategic voting organizations, the media outlets, and the pundits are not inside the voting booth. It’s between the voters and the names on the ballot. And that is the greatest variable – voters just damn well choose who they want to, sometimes with surprising results.

October 9, 2015October 9, 2015 by Rosedeer

ROC looking like 2004 with Quebec as the wildcard

In ROC – the Rest of Canada – this election is beginning to look like 2004, when the Blues and the Reds were in a dead heat outside of Quebec, and the NDP were trailing in third.

The 2015 numbers are taken from today’s Mainstreet poll. There wouldn’t be too much difference from Leger or other recent polls. The trends are similar.

As you recall, 2004 was a Liberal minority. In 2006, the Conservatives started pulling away, ending 13 years of continuous Liberal rule. They built up their margin in ROC in 2008 when they squared off against Stephane Dion and decimated the Ignatieff Liberals in 2011 outside Quebec. Meanwhile Jack Layton had flat support levels in ROC from 2004-2008 and even in 2011, while the rise was significant, it was not as dramatic as Conservative gains. The NDP paradigm shift was in Quebec.

Which brings us to la belle province. A series of polls is showing the NDP in free fall. Since the start of the campaign, various pollsters have shown a drop in the neighbourhood of 20 points. Now, Mainstreet shows them in third. Leger last night showed them tied. Both have them in mid to high 20s.

The chart below shows the volatility in Quebec in federal elections since 2004. (Again, Mainstreet numbers are used for 2015)

While ROC is looking like 2004, Quebec does not offer the same comparable.

The steady decline of the Bloc Quebecois has been apparent and they still remain below 2011 levels when their share of seats collapsed. However, the demise of the NDP creates opportunities for regional gains for the Bloc, CPC, and Liberals. If one party pulls away from the pack, there is potential to win a lot of seats. Or a small NDP uptick to bring the party over 30% could save many or most of their seats. We are in the territory, under a three or four-way first-past-the-post fight, when the difference between 27% and 32% means a pile of seats.

If the dynamic in ROC holds – which is a close two-way race, a shift in Quebec could very well be the difference. Quebec has shown it can move en masse as it did for Diefenbaker in 1958, PET through most of his elections, Mulroney in 1984 and 1988, the Bloc in 1993, and Layton in 2011. Perhaps this time will be different as the Liberals and CPC appear to have regional limitations.

This federal election has become a a two-way race with a big wildcard in Quebec.

October 8, 2015October 8, 2015 by Rosedeer

Wakey wakey. This election may be baked by Monday.

Wakey wakey. It’s almost 10/09… time to vote. Advance polls open October 9-12.

More and more voters are setting their alarm clocks to vote in advance polls.

In BC’s 2013 election, advance voting rose to over 20% of all votes cast. A sharp rise over five successive elections when only 5.74% voted in advance (1996).

In Alberta, advance voting jumped from 14% to 16% from 2012 to 2015. Why are people voting earlier? Convenience? Increased efforts by political parties to lock up the votes?

It’s kind of a thing with older people. Elections Canada also reports a rising trend of advance voting between 2004-2011. Those keenest to vote early are age groups that are the likeliest to vote. Federally, 5% of 18-24s voted early compared to 17% of 65-74s. After that morning coffee at Tim Horton’s, why not round up the pals and go vote?

So, older people are keen to vote early and they are keen to vote often. My estimate – back of envelope – is that over three-fifths of advance voters are beyond age 55.

An interesting strategic issue is at play. If advance voters are disproportionately older – even moreso than overall turnout stats – then the voting population on Election Day (October 19) will be more balanced by age.

The voters heading to the advance voting stations this weekend – once they vote – they are done. The advertising and media that bombards them in next 24-96 hours will have done its work – one way or another – and those votes will be locked up. Maybe it will be 20% of the electorate, like BC, but whatever the amount, it will be well over a million voters.

Of the remaining voters, younger voters will be more important proportionally, so will messaging be tweaked? We’ll have to see.

Political parties are more sophisticated than ever in mobilizing voters. Social media will play an increasing role this time. Canadian political parties are learning from mobilization techniques that have proven highly successful south of the 49th where early voting is an even bigger thing.

The recent polls are unclear who’s really winning this election. Is it a clear Conservative lead as some suggest or a tight Liberal lead as others purport? And what about Quebec voters – will they show up en masse for advance polls or wait and see? The Conservatives will look to put a stranglehold on the race by encouraging the Grey March to the polls. The Liberals will try compete among seniors in the advance poll, thereby undermining what should be a Conservative edge. Either way, the votes cast by turkey time will be a huge advantage for the party with momentum heading into a long, political weekend.

October 6, 2015 by Rosedeer

Polling Pig-a-thon: 4 polls, 4 plots

An abundance of polls were released into the media trough today. Political observers are pigging out. It’s hard to make sense of the numbers amidst the contradictory squeals – so here’s a quick breakdown below.

Four polls, four plots. Different methodologies, sample sizes, and outcomes.

Pollster	Method	CPC	LIB	NDP	CPC Lead
MAINSTREET	IVR, n=5197	37	29	24	8
EKOS	IVR+Live, n=1658	35	31	22	4
IPSOS	Panel, n=1441	33	32	26	1
NANOS	Live, n=1200	31	36	23	-5

Mainstreet was the best for CPC with an 8-point lead. Conducted September 30-October 1 it is arguably a bit stale but does have a very large sample.

Standout stats – Has CPC with a 7-point lead among women. This is very different from Nanos which has a 13-point lead among women for Liberals. Has 10-point CPC lead in Ontario while others have marginal lead for Liberals.

Ekos shows a 4-point CPC lead. In field October 3-5 with combined IVR / live phone methodology (about 2/3 IVR) with second largest sample size.

Standout stats – Conservatives tied for lead in Quebec with NDP at 28%. NDP with 9-point lead in BC. 60% for Libs in Atlantic is highest by 10-points.

IPSOS shows a dead heat. In field October 2-5 with its online panel.

Standout stats – NDP closest to the front of the pack than any other poll – at 7-points. IPSOS has an almost even gender split for CPC and Libs, which is uncommon. Libs tend to do better with women, CPC with men. Lib 17-pt lead among under 35’s would suggest turnout challenge, if accurate.

Finally, Nanos has the Liberals up by almost five points over CPC. A gathering trend over the past few days. Nanos conducts 400 live telephone interviews each day, combining them into a rolling track of a sample size of 1200.

Standout stats – the national race is THE standout stat. In addition, the CPC appear low in BC at 24% compared to 35% for Libs. Libs have an 8-point lead among 50-59 year olds, sandwiched between CPC leads among 60+ and 40-49s.

I analyzed Nanos’s polling in this recent post.

What’s the upshot?

Only one conclusion – the NDP are huffing and puffing but can’t seem to blow down the two-way race (trying to work the pigs back into the story).

The sub-samples are inconsistent between the pollsters, which is commonplace considering the margins-of-error increase when you raise the hood. There are many other sources of potential unreliability that relate to ongoing problems with pollster accuracy.

Here’s two previous posts that should give observers pause for thought:

October 6, 2015 by Rosedeer

Seat models: Moneyball for the peanut gallery

With the the onset of daily polling binges, seat projections are the pundit’s version of ‘Moneyball’, casting aside the political gut much like Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s cast aside the grizzled, old, tobacco chewing baseball scouts.

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) tells the pundits to stop using their guts and start using the darn seat model.

There are a variety of seat predictors such as CBC polltracker via 308 and one from the Sauder School at UBC, which runs a cash-on-the-barrelhead stock market predicting election results. The Globe & Mail seat model is so fanciful that my computer almost overheated from the excitement. It’s a Mac so everything was fine.

In a nutshell, seat models take the national or regional polling numbers and apply them to individual ridings. So, if a party received 30% of the vote last election across Canada or a region, and, this time that party is at 33%, then the results in each riding would be adjusted up by a proportionate amount. That’s the general idea.

Seat models work great! Except when you look at past election results.

In a two-way election where there is not much change between elections, they can be a useful predictor. A party’s strong and weak ridings tend to stay that way in stable political landscapes, allowing parties to focus on their battlegrounds.

Seat models do not account, however, for disruption. I took a look at two recent provincial elections to show just how much disruption actually occurs.

Let’s look at BC in 2009 and 2013. The riding boundaries were unchanged so there is a good apples to apples comparison.

Despite my best efforts, the popular vote for the BC Liberals went down from 45.82% to 44.13%; the NDP vote declined from 42.15% to 39.72%. Therefore, the BC Liberal vote was 96.3% of 2009 and the NDP vote was 94.2% of 2013. That doesn’t seem like a lot of change.

Thus, a seat model would forecast that BC Liberal riding popular support would be about 96.3% of their 2009 levels. My review shows a considerable variance in both parties where about a third of the ridings deviated by a significant amount from the average. One riding (Peace River North) bucked the provincial trend by 17% to the positive for the BC Libs and another trailed the provincial trend by 15% (thanks for that, Andrew Weaver).

Similarly with the NDP, about a third of their ridings were more than 5 points off the provincial trend – some ridings exceeded the provincial trend (Vancouver-False Creek, Penticton though they still lost) while one riding was 25 points below the provincial trend, due to local conditions.

While strong third party candidacies explain some anomalies, there was also a shift in the provincial landscape afoot. The BC Liberal support base consolidated in the suburbs and BC Interior- the party picked up five new seats in these regions. The trade-off was diminished support in the City of Vancouver and South Island, where the NDP picked up 3 of 4 of their gains, along with one Green. Seat models miss this type of dynamic. Things do change over time – California now votes Democrat, Alabama now votes Republican. Seat models freeze the paradigm of the previous election.

BC was a piece of cake compared to the 2015 Alberta election. The NDP zoomed from 9.85% to 40.57% in one single leap. That’s a 411% increase in their support. Their average riding should have increased, according to a seat model, by over 4x based on 2012. Of course, this is silly, because in existing strong seats, they were not going win with 150%. How do the votes disperse then?

Basically, they did do very, very well in their stronghold, Edmonton, sweeping the city with huge margins, but they already had a base there. The biggest NDP gains compared to their provincial average gain were in Calgary.

In the chart above, 100% equals the NDP average increase, which was a 411% increase in vote. That means 350% on the scale is a 14x increase, if you follow.

Here are the five Alberta ridings that doubled the provincial trend, meaning the increase in NDP vote was 8x or more compared to 2012.

Calgary-McCall (from 2.2% to 29.9% and a win)
Calgary-Greenway
Calgary-Hays
Calgary-Northwest
Calgary-Varsity

The five seats that varied the least from the model were all NDP wins – 4 in Edmonton and 1 in Lethbridge. They only went up about 12% to 17% in popular vote, but they simply couldn’t do much more in terms of cleaning up support. The vote was already there.

What’s the point?

This federal election is going to see a lot of volatility compared to 2011. The Liberal vote, for example, looks like its going to be a lot higher than its previous paltry 18%. Does the red tide lift all boats equally? No, to quote a Greek pollster – it will be ‘lumpy’.

There are sub-plots abound, and where parties make big leaps, the math doesn’t work evenly. Seats that show up as wins for some parties according to seat models are very unlikely to happen. And believe it or not, candidates matter too.

You won’t find “Moneyball” voter data through the media polls. It’s held closely in the data rooms and strategy tables of the major parties (not you, Greens) who spend millions contacting voters. Those of us on the outside will have to chew some tobacco, judge the velocity of the pitches, and make our own assessments based on the polling morsels left to us. We will have to use our guts. After all, people cast their votes, not seat models (Thank God). While pollsters and pundits breathlessly predict outcomes, pick up some peanuts and crackerjacks, sit back and enjoy the game.

October 5, 2015October 5, 2015 by Rosedeer

Carving up the Nanos results four ways

Heading into Thanksgiving weekend, Canadians will be carving up poll results.

One pollster in this campaign has provided daily results – Nanos Research. No pollster is infallible – quite the opposite – but Nanos does provide a body of work to observe trends.

I decided to look at four aspects of Nanos’ work: the national race, regional races, age, and gender.

On methodology, unlike a lot of other pollsters, these are live telephone interviews. The sample includes land lines and cell phones. The data is weighted but the weights are not unreasonable. Nanos completes 400 interviews per night and reports a rolling three-day result (n=1200) each day, which smooths out the bumps if there are anomalies. Once you break the data down into subsets, margins of error rise, so bear that in mind. Overall, it’s a robust program. Larger sample sizes would be ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers.

The charts below are from Nanos’ interactive data portal (unless otherwise stated) and each chart represents the last 30-days of polling.

1. National Race – Liberals winning the Anti-Harper Primary

The story of the past week has been that the Liberals are winning the Anti-Harper primary- they are winning the battle as to which opposition party has the best chance of unseating the Conservatives.

The Liberal and NDP votes begun to diverge around September 25, when Nanos reported results at 32% Liberal and 30% NDP. Now, it is 36% Liberal and 23% NDP. That’s an 11-point difference in a week.

Take a look at the 2011 election:

This graph, borrowed from Wikipedia’s 2011 federal election write-up, shows a similar phenomena where the two parties diverged, but that time it was the NDP on the rise and the Ignatieff Liberals in free-fall. That divergence started about 16 days before Election Day.

2. The Regions – Fortress NDP is under attack, Binary race in Ontario

The NDP’s flagging national numbers derive in part from their deterioration in Quebec. The story here is 10-point drop since September 25th, and a fall of 20 points since September 9th. The Liberals are posed to gain seats by simply holding ground, while the Bloc have doubled their vote since September 25th. With 59 of 75 seats in 2011, the NDP is counting on repeating its success and, until recently, it looked like it would, until Prime Minister Harper injected the niqab issue into the campaign.

While Quebec sorts itself out, the NDP are many lengths behind in Ontario:

Where 7 points separated the Liberals and NDP on September 25th, the gap is now 22 points (41 to 19). This is a two-race in Ontario between the Liberals and Conservatives, with Liberal hopes of gaining the keys to 24 Sussex contingent upon pulling away and racking up a major seat differential here.

BC continues to be a key battleground. The BC sample size is smaller and more volatile. With only 180 interviews, the margin-of-error is plus/minus 7.3%, 19 times out of 20. The key takeaway is that there is a three-way battle. My view is that the Conservatives appear low right now and likely have more strength. If the Liberals hang in to garner 30% on Election Day in BC, then they will score a significant increase in seats, from the two they have today to upwards of 10-12. When there is so much volatility, outliers can get elected.

The Prairies continue to look strong for the Conservatives; the Atlantic very strong for the Liberals. The dynamism of the race is in the three largest provinces.

3. Women going Red, Men going Blue, Orange going nowhere

Since September 25th, the Liberals have been gaining among women at the expense of the NDP, doubling their lead over the NDP from 9 points to 18 points. This trend started a week earlier after relative a period of parity between the parties.

Nanos’ numbers indicate that men have been leaving the NDP, bumping up Conservative numbers somewhat. Whether that is a move directly from Orange to Blue, or a bumping effect involving the Liberals and Bloc is hard to say. The Conservatives had a 4-point edge over the NDP among men on September 25th and are now at 11-points.

4. Red-Blue fight among 50 plus voters

I’m less bullish looking at age groups because of sample sizes, but we’ll take a look at the two oldest cohorts.

50-59 year old voters show a decided divergence between Liberal and NDP. We’ll see if this holds up or if it’s an anomaly. Given high turnout of plus 50 voters, this is significant.

And with 60 plus voters, the Conservatives are on top while the NDP are far behind.

And now the caveats

That’s a lot to hang on one pollster’s work. Doubtlessly, other opinions will come forward this week. Only Nanos shows a 5 point Liberal lead and Nanos is only pollster who has reported from the weekend (by the way, weekend results can be a little flakey sometimes, in my opinion). Innovative and Leger showed Liberal leads of two points last week, while Angus Reid Institute and Forum showed clear Conservative leads last week. Different pollsters, different methodologies (Innovative – online, ARI – online; Forum – IVR).

Then there is turnout. That the Liberals are performing well in the polls among 50 plus voters is significant. Turnout increases significantly with age, peaking in the 65-74 year old age group. (See my post on The Grey March). Liberal strength vis a vis the Conservatives in the 50-59 age group is a bit surprising and is a category to watch.

I have also raised the possibility of sample skew given that a proportion of respondents simply won’t say who they will vote for. They could be weighted toward one party, against the grain of the overall results.

This election is far from over. Disruption could occur over the Trans Pacific Partnership or any other issue that comes along. But this is a critical week for a couple of reasons:

Advance voting starts October 9th. Possibly one-fifth of all votes will be in the box by Thanksgiving Monday. The parties that are trending up this week will lock in positive results.
Thanksgiving interregnum. Families are getting together this long weekend where politics may be on the menu. Decisions can be made that will be hard to change in the final week.

The Nanos results speak to a major challenge for the NDP. They will need to rally their own troops while winning back market share. The inevitable grumbling by party activists is likely happening as they watch the daily seepage of their poll numbers. So far, they are keeping a lid on dissent. A lot can change in 24-hours and they need to find an issue that turns the momentum on its head … or hope for a Liberal and/or Conservative gaffe.

The Liberal concern would be that they are peaking and cannot sustain the growth. Justin’s performance on the campaign trail has been lauded, benefiting from the low expectations his rivals created for him. He needs to beat the stuffing out of the NDP heading into Thanksgiving weekend, so to speak, and set up the definitive Red-Blue showdown next week.

Harper is not in a bad place. Ontario is competitive, they may gain ground in Quebec, and may still recover most of their seats in BC. They need to pull away with older voters. What they cannot control are NDP voters deciding to flee to the Liberals to stop them.

October 2, 2015October 5, 2015 by Rosedeer

Orange is the new Third

Three polls are setting a new campaign narrative that Orange is the new Third in the federal race. The NDP, say Nanos, IPSOS, and Leger, are slipping back in the race.

My recent post on polling by Innovative Research Group discussed the “Liberal-NDP primary” taking place with a high number of supporters of each party open to changing their mind. The Liberals are pulling ahead in this primary at a critical stage of the campaign.

Nanos – 7 consecutive days of downward tracking for the NDP opening an 8 pt gap with Liberals.

IPSOS – From first to third in a week

Leger – down 3 nationally and a 4-way race in Quebec with NDP down to 28%. NDP trailing among both francophones (to the Bloc) and among non-francophones (to the Liberals).

The NDP may take comfort that the Angus Reid Institute has the NDP and Liberals tied, but both looking up at 7 point deficit with the Conservatives. And in that case, the NDP shed ten points from August to September while the Liberals are up 3 points and the Conservatives up 4 points.

What now?

The NDP and Liberals are running ads attacking each other. The NDP are trying to stay alive; the Liberals are trying to finish off the NDP . The Conservatives are reclaiming voters from both. But if the primary is settled, and the Liberals pull away, there will be a two-way race down the homestretch. Justin can win if the NDP collapses and Orange voters in Metro Vancouver , Ontario and Quebec move over to the Liberals.

What happened?

The NDP have been flat-footed. They fell into the trap of running a front-runner campaign believing that the Liberals were finished. Instead, Justin’s audacious move to outflank the NDP on deficits shook up the race. The Syria migrant issue did not hurt the Conservatives as some might have thought. Instead, the niqab has turned politics on its head in Quebec putting great pressure on Thomas Mulcair.

Perhaps the ultimate story of this campaign will be the “not ready” advertising. Deemed as brutally effective in July and August, the ads also set a frame of low expectations which Justin has readily exceeded. Now, in the home stretch, Canadians will look at Justin and determine if he is in fact ready. The Conservative ballot question, which the NDP bought into, may rebound back on both of them. Many pundits mocked the Liberals for taking the ballot question head-on, but it may end up working.

There are still 17 days left in this campaign, but only 7 days before Thanksgiving weekend when families talk politics over turkey. Like ‘moving day at the Masters’, this is the time that the final pairing will be decided, and it is shaping up to be an epic battle.

Rosedeer

Viewpoints on politics, and current issues.

Tag / Campaigns

Adventures in Strategic Voting in Vancouver-Granville

Nanaimo-Ladysmith: the most interesting race in BC

Prediction market bearish on NDP, but has been fooled before

Reasons to second guess polls

ROC looking like 2004 with Quebec as the wildcard

Wakey wakey. This election may be baked by Monday.

Polling Pig-a-thon: 4 polls, 4 plots

Seat models: Moneyball for the peanut gallery

Carving up the Nanos results four ways

Orange is the new Third

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