Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Tory Majority?

Maybe, says Ipsos Reid. They're up to 43% nationally, due to inroads in Quebec, thereby "...recreating Mulroney's Western/Quebec alliance."

We shall see.

9 comments:

Michael Fox said...

Yay. :)

Anonymous said...

Don't count on it. The honeymoon is over, and Ipsos is notoriously inaccurate on their political polling.

Assuming that any party which (allegedly) gets 43% of any vote is given a 'majority' mandate is a sad statement of democracy.

Toronto Turd may be happy now, lets see how happy he is on the actual election day.

Anonymous said...

Toronto Tory is informationally-challenged, generally.

Summer is coming and most people are trying very hard not to think about the Harper government (which the Harpies like) and all of their neo-con rot and bafflegab. I take this with a grain of salt.

Michael Fox said...

You people are so immature.

"Toronto Turd"?
"Informationally-challenged"?

Anonymous said...

ya, for sure, no need to worry . . .

May 23, 2006
The Tory Revolution

Stephen Harper has led perhaps the quietest revolution in Anglosphere poliitics. In just four short months, he has vaulted the Conservative Party -- only a couple of years past a difficult merger with Reform -- into a movement that now threatens to swamp even the Bloc Quebecois in the fractious province of Quebec. A new Ipsos poll shows that the Tories now have enough voters to get a majority in Parliament if elections were held today:

According to a new Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of CanWest/Global, the current Conservative Party government is enjoying their highest levels of federal vote support in nearly 20 years, since Brian Mulroney’s majority in November of 1988.

Currently, 43% of federal voters support the Conservative Party (+5 points since a mid-March Ipsos Reid poll), giving them an impressive 18-point lead over their chief federal rival, the Liberal Party (25%, -3 points). The NDP (15%, -4 points) trail the Liberals, while the Green Party (5%, unchanged) remains much further back.

The poll holds bad news for all of the Conservative rivals. Liberals, who held power for the past thirteen years, now trail the Tories by almost twenty points nationally. Part of this may be the extended transition of Liberal leadership, but undoubtedly it has something to do with the exposure of their previous smear jobs on Harper as falsehoods. The Grits under Paul Martin continually painted Harper as an extremist with a "hidden agenda", but Harper has proven them liars with his straightforward, center-right governance.

Nowhere has this phenomenon shone through better than Ontario. The seat of power and a longtime Liberal stronghold, the Tories now lead by four points, just within the margin of error. The gain comes from the Liberals but more from Harper's parliamentary partner, the NDP, which has seen its support halved, losing eleven points to fall to 11%. Considering the usually leftward bent of the government bureaucracy in Ontario, this result should stun politicians in the province.

The Conservatives now lead in every demographic category, including young voters, as well as in every province but Quebec. However, even here the Tories show their strength. BQ had long enjoyed majority support within its home province, which caused worry about separatist intent. Now BQ only leads the Tories 38-33, demonstrating not just Tory momentum but a significant shift in support for the Canadian Union. Liberals, who usually picked up the few remaining non-BQ seats in the province, now have fallen behind the struggling NDP in fourth place.

Harper appears to be uniting Canada behind the Tories and setting a course for long-term center-right rule. The Liberals have only been saved so far by a lack of choices for the thinning ranks of Tory opponents in Canada. If these numbers continue to show this kind of strength, the Tories may want to hold elections soon to get a majority government in Parliament.
Posted by Captain Ed at May 23, 2006 05:31 AM

Anonymous said...

Captain Ed, methinks you need a new compass. Perhaps a new map, too: one of Canada which shows more than Alberta ...

The Ipsos poll should be taken with a grain of salt – especially the feverish hyping that goes with their release!

The SES polls are the ones to watch carefully, as they seem to do the best job of actually measuring voter sentiments which are expressed at the ballot box.

The May 11 2006 SES poll is not that bad for the Liberals or NDP. Put it in context: Harper has:

• enjoyed a honeymoon, traditional for new parties taking power;
• faces the logical party to oust the New Tories of Harper which is leaderless;
• won an election against an ineffectual Prime Minister, who ran an appallingly bad campaign, and with charges of corruption thrown into the air at every turn;
• not won a majority.

Now, in May:

• he is only 5% higher than in February (hitting 38% compared to 33%), having taken that lead mostly from the Liberals (down 5% to 28% nationally).
• In Quebec he has reached 35% (up 11% over February, with that support taken almost in equal measure from the three parties). The Bloc has lost only 2% and stands at 37%. This thin gruel for Harper despite his feverish courting of Quebeckers and Charest ...
• In Ontario the NDP has increased its votes by 3% over February, up to 24%, with the Liberals down 5% to 34% and Harper's New Tories up 5% to 36%.

A surge which guarantees a majority for Harper? Fat chance.

Watch these numbers shrink in every province once the Liberal leader is elected. Watch them really shrink if Bob Rae wins.

It will be Mr. Wood versus Mr. Integrity, with Harper struggling to overcome his lack of charisma and the veteran Rae hitting Harper hard on all the latter's dodging and weaving and hidden agendas.

Gonna be nice to watch.

bigcitylib said...

Do these pollsters put out a calender of their upcoming surveys? Everyone (SES,Ipsos)seems to be doing one a month. But I never know when to expect them.

Don said...

The polling data is usually tagged on by polling organizations when they are polling for clients on product research etc. This means the polling organizations don't foot the bill for obtaining this data. It also means no regular date for reporting data.

http://centreofcanada.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/story.html?id=89eafbaf-ddbe-45b6-aff9-f33ec9cb20a3



Should add a few more points to the polls.