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With barely more than two months left before the May 12 British Columbia provincial election, party officials and observers are eagerly awaiting the latest instalment in what is known as the "coin of the realm" in politics - polling results.
They won't have long to wait.
Ipsos-Canada will have a new province-wide horserace poll released on March 18 or 19, Vice-President Kyle Braid told me this week, with the firm in the field from March 9 to 16.
POLLING UPDATE - Ipsos-Canada's BC election poll will now be release on Monday March 23 I understand.
The Mustel Group will be in the field with a BC poll in April, firm owner Evi Mustel told me by email.
And Angus Reid Strategies will be doing one, two or even more polls before the May 12 vote that shows us the real results, says ARS Senior Vice-President Mike Rodenburgh.
There are some real gaps not only between the governing BC Liberal Party and the opposition New Democratic Party but also between the results the various pollster have found in their research.
In November 2008 Ipsos Canada put the BC Liberals at 44%, the NDP at 35% and the Green Party at 16% in a poll released November 18.
But in its own survey released November 15 2008 , Angus Reid Strategies, which uses online instead of telephone polling, had the New Democrats ahead of the BC Liberals by a score of 44% to 39% while the Greens trailed at 11%.
To make it all crystal clear, the Mustel Group's November 25, 2008 poll put the BC Liberals narrowly ahead of the NDP by a 44% to 42% - well within the margin of error of 4.4% - with the Greens at 12%.
Are any of them right? Are all of them wrong? Who knows? They could all be absolutely correct depending on methodology, timing and a whole range of complicating factors.
Since then, only Mustel has been in the field in BC and the results were a dramatic change from November. In a poll released February 13, 2009 Mustel said the gap had significantly widened to 16% in favour of the BC Liberal, who at 52% were far ahead of the NDP at 36% and the Greens at 12%.
A rumour previously reported to this blog by a reliable source before the February Mustel poll was released said that BC Liberal internal polling showed them in trouble.
But regardless of discrepancies, all eyes will be on the new polling and all knowledgable political observers understand that BC elections tighten up considerably in the 28-day campaign.
Stay posted here for continuing coverage.
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7 comments:
as someone who has worked in the trenches in many of an election campaign, i have come to the realization that polls leave many things to be desired. many people (particularly the under 35) don't have landlines anymore, so those people aren't taken into consideration when traditional phone polling takes place. internet polling is open to spam programing and can be raken over by the party that has the best programers.
it gives a good feeling at first to those that give their blood, sweat and tears to the party of their choice, but once you get into the guts if the demographics of a particular poll, you have to take them with a grain of salt.
If you want to know what is going to happen,one must look at other recent elections.
A sweep in burnaby for Corrigan and council,Almost a sweep in Vancouver with Gregor and council and
2 rookie NDP candidates Herbert Spencer and Jenn McGinn wiped the floor with 2 bc liberal STAR candidates.
So if one looks at those results and considers that Gordon Campbell has had a non-stop 100 million dollar ad campaign running since june/2008, the airwaves were flooded with Liberal ads.
Not only the liberals ads,but Campbell,one week before the bi-elections had a prime time 15 minute news/press conference at 6.00 pm on all the major bc news channels,a press conference disguised as breaking news!
A week later Campbell`s stars got pummeled!
I believe Campbell is finished,people are tired of seeing his face,as a matter of fact, I hide my camera in fear that Gordon Campbell will show up to get his picture taken!
I know of at least of many ridings where incumbents are going to lose, Delta,Surrey,all 4 Burnaby ridings just to name a few,apparently in Burnaby thousands of Chinese have signed petitions against the prison,too many fires for Campbell to put out,and no matters what Campbell promises,no-one believes him,he breaks his word over and over again.
4 more years of bc liberals and there will be nothing left of this province!
You can also do a quick poll on March 16th at the up coming Supreme Court trial for compensation for Canada Line destruction. Susan Heyes' case has finally made it to court after 3 years on the road to justice and compensation. Have you driven the length of Cambie lately? It's still a mess. How on earth could any of those family run shops have survived that?
Ask these merchants, and others who are along Broadway what Campbell's word is worth.
The swagger - the arrogance - the secrecy - the selling off of all our resources, especially water rights and rivers - the blatant disregard for the health of our citizens and of our environment - NO MORE FISH FARMS! - just continued contempt for citizens.
Campbully and his pals have got to go.
What people forget is that many pollsters not only utilize traditional random landline "telephone" contacts within their surveys but also:
1. Cell phones;
2. VOIP;
It's all part of the mix.
And with polling it's not necessarily the actual numbers but the trend lines that count.
Excellent points. If you actually average out the trend line though, you will see a flat line across both Liberal and NDP fortunes. They've in a dead heat.
What concerns me more is this INSANITY with respect to STV. It must be stopped. It's a system supported by kooks for kooks.
A. G. Tsakumis said in part...STV, It must be stopped. It's a system supported by kooks for kooks.
One has to agree, they are kooks,
and those kooks are, Drum roll please,Trummmmmmmmmmmmp, "THE GREEN Party",they gave birth to this ill conceived idea from artificial insemination donated by Gordon Gamble.
The BC Liberals have now adopted this illegitimate idea.
Seeing though,STV is a miscarriage of representation, it will duly be buried on may 12/09, by those who will prevail, the sane voters.
The people of BC can not be fooled by once again election the NDP.
Campbell and the BC Liberals have brought BC back from the depths of despair that the NDP left it in, Campbell will easily be re-elected.
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