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| BC NDP leader John Horgan - Bill Tieleman photo |
If results prove true, next year's election won't be
anything like 2013.
Bill Tieleman’s
24 Hours Vancouver / The
Tyee column
Tuesday May 17, 2016
By Bill Tieleman
''Politicians,
like generals, have a tendency to fight the last war.''
- John Bolton,
ex-American Ambassador to the United Nations
The last war
politically in British Columbia was the 2013 election, with Premier Christy
Clark pulling off an upset victory after starting considerably behind.
With a year
till 2017's election, it appears Clark and her generals want to fight the same
campaign with the same strategy.
But two new
polls show this will be a different war -- and could have different results.
Political
strategists try to shape the ballot question in each election -- that single
crystallized issue that voters eventually find the most important in deciding
who would form the best government.
In 2013, the
BC Liberals and the BC New Democrats fought over the economy and employment,
with the hard-hat-wearing and gobs-of-liquefied-natural-gas-promising Premier
winning.
The BC
Liberals would dearly love a re-run and are positioning themselves to roll out
the same campaign, but there's a big hitch.
According to
an Insights West poll
released last week, the number one issue in B.C. is housing, poverty, and
homelessness -- likely due to foreign ownership driving prices sky high -- at
22 per cent.
The economy
and jobs rate second at 20 per cent, followed closely by health care at 17 per
cent, and government accountability at 12 per cent.
What's still
more concerning to Clark's generals is that even on their preferred issue of
the economy and jobs, the Insights West poll found that 46 per cent say she's
done a bad job versus 39 per cent who say it's been a good job. And that's the
Premier's best result.
Clark
performs worst on the top issue of housing, poverty, and homelessness, with a
whopping 71 percent saying she's done a bad job and only 15 per cent liking
what they've seen.
And on
health care, 60 per cent give Clark a bad job rating versus just 26 per cent
saying well done, while 67 per cent have negative views on government
accountability versus 21 per cent who see positive.
That means
the BC Liberals fighting the last war all over again in 2017 could be a losing
strategy.
But it's
still too early to tell.
Overall
results
Overall,
Insights West puts the BC NDP under leader John Horgan at 40 per cent, the BC
Liberals at 34 per cent, the BC Greens at 14 per cent, and the BC Conservatives
at 10 per cent.
But a new Ipsos poll
also out last week has different horserace numbers, with the BC Liberals at 42
per cent, the BC NDP at 36 per cent, the BC Conservatives at 11 per cent, and
the BC Greens at 10 per cent among decided voters.
The
different numbers in the two polls don't matter much this far out, as 2013 proved
in spades.
Overall, 59
per cent of those polled by Insights West disapprove of Clark's performance,
while 34 per cent approve and seven per cent are not sure. While those numbers
can change, voters have no difficulty making up their minds -- and most right
now don't like what they see in Clark.
Horgan has a
40 per cent approval rating, with 29 per cent disapproving, and a big 31 per
cent not sure. Horgan's task is to get better known in the next 12 months and
hope that the more voters see him, the more they really like him.
Housing a
'vulnerability'?
The Tyee
contacted both polling firms to discuss the differing results and what the
election campaign focus may be.
Mario
Canseco of Insights West sees the housing issue as a problem for the BC
Liberals, especially in Metro Vancouver.
''There is
definitely a vulnerability issue, but it needs to be exploited properly by the
opposition in order to work. I've never seen 'housing, poverty and
homelessness' as high as it is now in B.C. Ever. Most of the concern is coming
from Metro Vancouver, home to more than half of all voters,'' Canseco said in
an email interview Sunday.
''It will
definitely be one of the key issues in the campaign, but I think it's too early
to see if it will become the ballot question,'' he added.
But Kyle
Braid of Ipsos said he doubts housing will decide the election.
''Housing
affordability, along with cost of living in general, is without a doubt the
number one issue in Metro Vancouver (and has been for some time), but that
doesn't mean it is a vote issue,'' Braid said by email Sunday.
''I've done
lots of research on this topic in the region, and while many people would like
it if government could make things better, very few think government has the
power to make a significant difference,'' Braid said. ''And even if they
thought government could make a real difference, that doesn't mean they trust
one party over the other on the issue.''
Candidates
must 'connect': pollster
I also asked
each veteran pollster if politicians could overcome high disapproval ratings
and negative impressions on key issues.
Canseco
pointed to the recent victory of Manitoba Conservative Premier Brian Pallister,
who ousted the ruling New Democrats in April 2016 despite a personal approval rating
that remained a ''stagnant 45 per cent'' throughout the campaign.
''The
'sentiment for change' was more powerful than Pallister's personal appeal,''
Canseco said.
Alternatively,
the Alberta election in 2015 showed what can happen when a party aligns the
planets, Canseco said.
''This was
not the case in Alberta, where Rachel Notley had the trifecta: 'Time for
change' at 82 per cent, NDP vote at 42 per cent, and her own approval as leader
at 62 per cent, she gained 21 points on approval
during the campaign. Twenty-one!'' Canseco says.
''And
Alberta provides a cautionary tale about government arrogance and how
perceptions can shift. Jim Prentice's approval
was at 52 per cent in December 2014 after the PCs poached the Wildrose
members,'' Canseco said.
''The day
before the election, Prentice's rating
had dropped to 25 per cent. If you don't connect on the campaign, everything
you did before matters little. Half of the people who said Prentice was doing a
great job in December abandoned him and the party,'' he concluded.
Braid agreed
that leaders can overcome bad reviews, noting that former BC Liberal Premier
Gordon Campbell did and so did Christy Clark last time around. ''It depends
heavily on who they are up against in the election,'' Braid said. ''They don't
need to be perfect, just better than the alternative.''
The
millennial mystery
Both
pollsters are well respected -- and I have worked with both of them and their
firms on projects for my own clients -- so I had to ask why their horserace
polling results were so different.
They both
identified one anomaly: the millennials' voting choices in the Ipsos poll.
Ipsos had
18- to 34-year-olds supporting
the BC Liberals at 46 per cent versus the BC NDP at 29 per cent, but Insights
West had it
quite differently, with the BC NDP leading with 33 per cent versus the BC
Liberals at 19 per cent.
To his
credit, Braid said the party preference of millennials was ''not consistent
with past voting for this group'' and is likely an odd result, something Canseco
also observed.
That
question and others will only be answered in the next set of polling from both
firms as we head into a year of heightened anxiety for political parties and
pollsters alike.
But one thing
is sure: the 2017 battlefield will not look the same as the one where the
parties fought in 2013, and the winning strategy has not yet been found.
.
