A possible clue to why Forum had NDP, Libs closest. And other notes.
By Tom Barrett
TheTyee.ca

Some random thoughts on a flurry of election polls…

Five of the six polls that were released last week suggest the gap between the New Democratic Party and the BC Liberals has narrowed substantially. At the end of the week, B.C.’s two biggest pollsters, Angus Reid and Ipsos Reid, weighed in. Ipsos found a 10-point gap, Angus Reid found a seven-point gap.

As you can see from the chart here, Reid shows the BC Liberals up three points from the beginning of the campaign and the NDP down four points. Ipsos shows the Liberals up six points from their start-of-the-campaign poll and the NDP down three points. Even that six-point Liberal jump from Ipsos is within the poll’s combined stated margins of error — although it’s near the outside edge.

But a trend is apparent. The polls are tightening — just as pretty much everyone predicted at the beginning of the campaign.

Is the shift due to last week’s televised leaders debate? Could be. Or it could be a result of negative Liberal ads or the relentless, if fanciful, Liberal focus on debt, the deficit and the economy during the first two weeks. Or the media’s focus on the same topics and on NDP leader Adrian Dix’s Kinder Morgan switch.

Or, quite likely, a lot of potential voters are just starting to pay attention to politics for the first time in four years.

We’ll never know the real reason because there isn’t enough information available.

Forum’s four point gap: sample skewed?

Not that there’s a shortage of facts and figures flying around from the week’s polls. Take the Forum poll that suggested the gap between the NDP and the Liberals had fallen to four points.

Here’s something interesting about that poll that my colleague Andrew MacLeod pointed out: out of 1,009 respondents, 459 said they voted for the Liberals in the last provincial election. Another 290 said they voted for the NDP, 78 said they voted BC Conservative, 79 said they voted Green, 49 said they voted for other parties and 54 said they didn’t vote.

Forum is to be commended for publicizing this much detail about their poll; not all pollsters do.

But among those respondents who say they voted in 2009, 48 per cent say they voted for the Liberals, 30 per cent for the NDP, eight per cent for the Conservatives, eight per cent for the Greens and five per cent for other parties. Five per cent of the total sample say they didn’t vote.

Here are the results from the 2009 election: Liberal, 46 per cent; NDP, 42 per cent; Conservative, two per cent, Green, eight per cent; others, two per cent.

And an estimated 49 per cent of all eligible voters didn’t vote in 2009.

Questions like this rely on sometimes faulty memories. Respondents who didn’t vote may feel pressured to lie; saying you voted is the socially acceptable answer, after all. And pollsters who discover their sample doesn’t look like the population use weighting techniques to make up for the difference.

Still, on the face of it, this sample doesn’t look much like the real world of B.C. voters.

Gender gap trap?

One interesting difference between the Ipsos and Reid polls involves the gender gap. Ipsos suggests women favour the NDP by a 20-point margin, 50 per cent to the 30 per cent who would vote Liberal. But Reid suggests the gap is eight points, 43 per cent NDP to 35 per cent Liberal. That’s a pretty big difference, but it’s worth remembering that the margin of error goes up as the sample size goes down. Continue reading →

By Tom Barrett
TheTyee.ca

A week full of election polls has ended with a survey from Ipsos Reid that indicates the NDP holding a 10-point lead.

Earlier this week, various pollsters gave the NDP leads ranging between 22 percentage points and four points.

The Ipsos poll, conducted online for Global BC, indicates the NDP’s lead has been cut in half since the last Ipsos poll, taken March 8-12, which put the New Democrats out ahead by 19 points.

The new Ipsos poll found 45 per cent support for the New Democrats among decided voters, down three points from the last Ipsos poll. The governing BC Liberals are at 35 per cent, up six points from the start of the campaign.

The BC Conservatives are at seven per cent, down four points, and the Green party is at 10 per cent, up one point. Other parties, including independents, were at three per cent.

The poll was released a day after three pollsters weighed in on the May 14 campaign. Forum Research suggested the New Democrats lead is four points, Insights West suggested the NDP leads by eight points and Angus Reid suggested a seven-point gap.

In the Ipsos poll, 13 per cent of respondents said they were undecided or stated no preference.

Among decided voters, few –- 15 per cent –- said they think they might change their mind by election day.

Premier Christy Clark still trails NDP leader Adrian Dix on the question of who would make the best premier, but she has jumped a significant eight points since the campaign began. Clark was named by 31 per cent as best premier, compared to 34 per cent who named Dix. Dix’s best premier rating was stable, dropping two points since the campaign began.

Read more…

One put the NDP 22 points ahead, another only four. What’s going on?
By Tom Barrett
TheTyee.ca

At the beginning of this week, a poll suggested the NDP was leading the BC Liberals by 22 points. Then another poll suggested a 10-point NDP lead. Then a third poll suggested four points. Then another suggested eight points. Then another one suggested seven.

Given that information, which of the following statements best matches your view:

I believe all these results.
I believe none of these results.
There’s too damn many polls.

On Thursday, Forum Research released a poll that suggested the New Democrats’ lead over the governing BC Liberals has fallen to four points. The Forum poll was followed later in the day by one from Insights West that suggested the NDP leads by eight points among decided voters. Then Angus Reid weighed in with a poll that suggested a seven-point NDP lead.

So what’s a voter to think?

For a start, most of these results fall within the range of the polls’ margins of error. The one outlier is the 22-point Justason poll, which was conducted April 15-23 — about a week before the other results. Things can change quickly during an election campaign; the dates a poll was taken are a key factor.

To see the Tyee’s table showing 17 polls going back to mid-January of this year, click on this Election Hook item published late last evening.

Next time you read a poll, arm yourself

Everyone has their own poll, it seems, and there often seems to be precious little agreement among them. Here are some resources that can help the average political junkie make sense out of all these numbers. Continue reading →

By Tom Barrett
TheTyee.ca

Some new polls suggest the B.C. election has suddenly become a lot tighter.

At the beginning of the week, Justason Market Intelligence released a poll indicating a 22-point lead for the NDP. At around the same time, an Abacus poll indicated a 10-point NDP lead.

Then, on Thursday, a poll from Forum Research suggested the New Democrats’ lead over the governing BC Liberals has fallen to four points.

Then a poll from Insights West suggested the NDP leads by eight points among decided voters.

A few hours later, an Angus Reid poll suggested a seven-point gap.

One more poll is expected from Ipsos this evening.

The Forum poll reports 39 per cent support for the NDP, 35 per cent for the Liberals, 12 per cent for the Green party, nine per cent for the BC Conservatives, and three per cent for others. (Those numbers don’t add up to 100, presumably because of rounding.)

The poll was sponsored by the National Post and based on a sample of 1,055 adult British Columbians. It was taken Tuesday, April 30, the day after the leaders TV debate. It was conducted by Interactive Voice Response and states a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Forum was off the mark in the Quebec and Alberta provincial elections, but they weren’t the only ones. During the 2011 Vancouver civic election, Forum released a much publicized poll that indicated Mayor Gregor Robertson held a six-point lead over NPA challenger Suzanne Anton. Robertson won by 13 points.

The Insights West poll gives the NDP 41 per cent among decided voters, the Liberals 33 per cent, the Green party 14 per cent and the Conservatives 11 per cent and others one per cent.

When the undecideds are included in the total, the Insights West numbers get much closer. The undecideds have dropped to 15 per cent from 20 per cent in the last Insights West poll, conducted in March. When the undecideds are factored in, the numbers become: NDP 33 per cent, Liberal 27 per cent, undecided 15 per cent, Greens 11 per cent, Conservative nine per cent and others one per cent. Five per cent said they will not vote.

The Insights West poll was conducted online from Monday, April 29 to Thursday, May 2 among 855 B.C. adults. The pollster states: “While statistical margins of error are arguably not applicable to online panels/online studies of this nature, we have assumed that the same margins of error apply as if it were a true unweighted random probability sample with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.” (See this story for more on this issue.)

The Angus Reid poll showed 41 per cent support for the NDP and 34 per cent for the Liberals. The Conservatives were at 10 per cent, the Greens at 12 per cent and others at three per cent.

The online poll, conducted for CTV and the Globe and Mail, was conducted Wednesday, May 1 and Thursday, May 2 among 808 B.C. adults. It claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Read more…