Monday, October 29, 2007

The Lost Poll Of Ipsos Reid

Remember on Saturday I asked what had happened to the latest Ipsos Reid poll? Two weeks in a row, each Friday, a poll from Ipos had come out showing the Tories "surging" towards Majority territory...and then nothing! I wondered if the Natty Post hadn't stuffed the poll because it didn't fit their narrative of imminent Conservative Dominance.

Well, Ipsos has finally released the thing via their website and, guess what?

Ottawa, ON – In a week where the House of Commons voted on the Throne Speech and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty met with retailers and, ‘standing up for consumers’, announced that Canadians ‘deserve to pay a price [for goods] that reflects the strength of the Canadian Dollar’, it appears that the Conservatives are finding it hard to break through the elusive 40% majority-territory barrier.

Since last week, the Conservatives have dropped one point nationally and now sit at 39% support of Canadian decided voters, but they still maintain a twelve-point lead over the Liberals at 27% support. The NDP has rebounded three points and now sits at 17% support, while the Green Party holds steady at 8% support, nationally.

This one has appeared nowhere in the MSM as far as I know. More evidence, if anyone needed any; don't trust the Natty Post. Killing their own poll when it gave them an inconvenient truth!

Update: Canada.Com finally publishes something about an hour ago (about 6:00 pm). Pretty unusual that a major news organization should let a blog break news of their poll. I'm feeling like Matt Drudge here at the moment.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL... I would have thought the 27% was more of an inconvienient truth...

LoB

Matt said...

Let me get this right. You're accusing the Nat Post of hiding a poll because it doesn't show Conservative "dominance", as you put it. However, said poll shows the Conservatives just shy of a majority and the Liberals at historic popularity lows.

I'm sorry, I don't see your logic.

bigcitylib said...

Polls start coming out every Friday with Tories at 40%. Last Friday some Quebec results appear from what the Gazette says is a National poll to be released Friday/Saturday. Date on poll at Ipsos site, 27th. The part of the poll concerning retailers and the dollar all comes out Friday/Sat. The Federal election stuff, that shows the Tories OUT OF RANGE OF A MAJORITY, never sees the light of day.

2+2, Matt 2+2.

Anonymous said...

39-27% is dominance...
and definitely Majority territory

I am wondering why the National Post didn't show it. It sure isn't some vast Right-Wing Conspiracy...or is it???

Matt said...

Oh, I see. You're triumphantly celebrating a 1% drop to 39%, which is still within majority territory, historically speaking

Whatever floats your boat, I guess. I still fail to see why you think any CPC supporter would want to hide this poll. maybe 2+2 equals something different for you but I see a very likely majority and a horribly humiliated Liberal Party.

In fact, I think I will write about this poll tonight, considering the gap between the two parties is now equal to 42% of the Liberal Party's support. I'm glad you pointed it out.

bigcitylib said...

"...which is still within majority territory, historically speaking."

Not according to the first paragraph of the IPSOS poll itself.

And yes please do write about it. Explain why The Post stuffed the wonderful news that the Tories are falling out of Majority territory.

Anonymous said...

the 'truthiness' of the matter, BCLib is that the Conservatives 'falling' from 40 to 39% is not news, its simply within the error range of the poll, thus status quo. But keep looking for VRW Media conspiracy stories, its noble work.

bigcitylib said...

Anon 7:05,

Two weeks of "majority, majority" and the next week "no majority". Of course its news, just the wrong kind for the Natty Post.

Anonymous said...

pssst, BCL.

39% is majority territory. Same story in the news paper 3 weeks in a row isn't gonna sell papers is it.

If those polling results were indicative of an election, the Tories would have a majority.

Anonymous said...

Let me further clarify....

"Under Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system, a party needs to win around 40 percent of the vote to stand a chance of taking a majority of the 308 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives currently have 126 seats."

39% is "around" 40% :D Not only that though, but behind the numbers you'll find a drop in Alberta & Maritime support and a rise in Quebec support. That 39% is more effectively spread than their 36% minority win of Jan '06.

Look at the Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean riding by-election. They made rural Quebec look like rural Alberta.

bigcitylib said...

Lore wrote,

"39% is majority territory."

Once again, you vs. IPSOS, darling.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of the leadup to the last election, when the Globe and Mail failed to publish a poll that was favourable to the Conservatives...except that one was far more than the tiny, 1%, well within the margin of error, change mentioned here.

By the way, I recall Chretien got at least one of his three majorities with 38% of the vote.

Steve V said...

BCL has a point, for sure. Normally, the Ipsos poll is released the media first, then the full poll appears on the website a few days later. This poll is dated Oct 27, which means that outlets have had it available for 2 days and yet nothing. It begs the question why, because this circumstance is an anomaly.

BCL, I read your post the other day, and actually had waited all weekend for it to be posted. Sometimes, the National Post is late to pick it up, but you will see it on a satellite (i.e Citizen, Gazette, Province) first. All weekend nothing, and I didn't even think to check the website, because they never put up the full results until their media master has had a full crack. I'm pretty sure this is a rolling average, so the drop for the one week might be bigger than the overall numbers suggest. Anyways, this is strange, for anyone who follows the normal flow of information. While the numbers are still good for the Cons, the narrative of "it appears that the Conservatives are finding it hard to break through the elusive 40% majority-territory barrier" might have been enough for the NP to bury the poll, for fear that the perception of momentum would end.

One more point, TV Ontario told viewers to visit their website to see the latest poll last week, and it was the Ipsos one, as though the only statement. This in a week, when we had four other polls that didn't replicate Ipsos results. I thought that was quite strange, especially for public media, which is supposed to be left-wing biased ;)

ottlib said...

Yes, Mr. Chretien did get a majority with just 38% of the vote and that was the result of an unprecedented number of favourable splits in Ontario. You see the conservative vote split between the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives.

Such is not going to happen again as the differential between the Liberals and other progressive parties is too wide. In the election just mentioned Reform and the PCs each managed to pull in about 15% of the vote a piece.

As for the poll, it is the third week in a row that has shown none of the parties have anything regarding momentum. They are all stuck and BCL has a point that such a fact is news.

After all, the Liberals are supposed to be tanking and the Conservatives are supposed to be surging unstoppably to a majority government.

That is not happening and this poll demonstrates that and that fact could certainly be one reason why Ipsos quietly released the poll almost a week after it was taken and why the National Post never released it.

Steve V said...

"The poll was issued on Saturday but Ipsos-Reid did not send out advisories to the media until Monday."

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=9aeefb14-959d-4ef6-8055-45e1a84b0a84&k=25070

Steve V said...

"In Ontario, the race tightens. The Tories have dropped from 42% to 37% within this seat-rich province, while the Liberals are only two points behind at 35% support, an increase of 1 point since last week."

The race tightens, LOL. Every other polling outfit has the Liberals in the lead, and then Ipsos suddenly starts to fall in line the next week. What a coincidence.

I guess this week, the big laugher is the BC results, with the 9.1% MOE. Cons up a full 15%, cough, hack. Why even bother posting such wild nonsense?

Michael Fox said...

This is hilarious. I LOVE that the Liberals are getting so desperate that they are trying to spin a poll that has them behind 39% to 27% as some kind of "good news".

I feel pretty good about this poll. I'm also confident that Harper can gain 2 to 3% over the course of an election campaign.

James Curran said...

It's Okay BCL. These trolls will disappear just before the House breaks for Christmas as the Libs pull to into an almost virtual tie in the polls.

Canadian Sentinel said...

Much ado about nothing.

But it's good to see Liberals having fun despite their self-inflicted, continuing misfortunes... Better they have fun this way, than with the Peoples' money... in Costa Rica, in limos and in fancy French hotels, buying gum, beer and popcorn with other peoples' money!

Heh!

Anonymous said...

ti-guy is defending Blair Wilson? Why am I not surprised.

Anonymous said...

ti-guy is defending Blair Wilson? Why am I not surprised.

Ti-Guy said...

ti-guy is defending Blair Wilson? Why am I not surprised.

What the fuck are you going on about, Cuntservative? I'd never even heard of Blair Wilson until this morning, and the whole thing is dull.

By the way, do connies have little orgasms whenever they use the expression "polling in majority territory?"

But it's good to see Liberals having fun despite their self-inflicted, continuing misfortunes... Better they have fun this way, than with the Peoples' money... in Costa Rica, in limos and in fancy French hotels, buying gum, beer and popcorn with other peoples' money!

Heh!


Back in your cage, psycho.

James Curran said...

Limo rides? Like Bev Oda's $7500 limo ride to the Juno awards? Like Cannon's $38,000 domestic charter flight? Those weren't a waste of taxpayers' money.

Anonymous said...

"What the f*** are you going on about, C***servative? I'd never even heard of Blair Wilson until this morning, and the whole thing is dull."

Now it's just dull? I guess for Liberals paying cash to get around the Canada Elections Act is somewhat old hat, dull is one word for it. Plus here we don't know if it's stolen taxpayer's money if that's what you mean by dull. Liberals think it's dull. Canadians think it's nauseating and disgusting. You've no shame. Mind your language as well, cretin.

wilson said...

What hasn't happened is Canadians running for cover with the words 'majority' and 'Harper' in the same sentence.

Many weeks of the media warning of a Harper majority, and Cons numbers did not fall and Libs numbers did not get over 30%.

It appears the spell is broken.
Canadians are ok with a Harper majority...there was a poll on that too.

Anonymous said...

Ti-Guy said...
Suck it, Cunty.


Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ti-Guy, valedictorian of the left.

Canadian Sentinel said...

Ti-Guy... ever the polite, civil, articulate, urbane, sophisitcated, metrosexual liberal-leftist hater of anyone who has a different point of view.

Make a little light of the Liberals' plight... get slurred by a hard-left moonbat as a psycho for doing so...

So much for freedom of expression in Canada... speak one's mind, one's a psycho if anyone doesn't agree...

Possibly, however, a classic case of projection...

After all, the Hard, Far Left does a lot of projecting...

Mike said...

"Many weeks of the media warning of a Harper majority, and Cons numbers did not fall and Libs numbers did not get over 30%.

It appears the spell is broken.
Canadians are ok with a Harper majority...there was a poll on that too."

Well, let be honest, this is a poll by a single company not polls. None of the other polling companies, conducting surveys at the same time report anything different than we have seen for months - Cons at about 35%, and the other parties trading points almost weekly.

So until these numbers are replicated by other national pollsters (especially SES) and remain steady, they are interesting aberrations that talk more of IPSOS quality than facts.

As for that poll showing people comfortable with a Harper majority, that poll showed 58% of the 58% of those that wanted a majority, liked Harper. That works out to 34% of voters - almost exactly the CPC's consistent poll numbers.

In short, nothing to see here except more wishful thinking and propaganda on the part of CPC fanboys (and girls)

Anonymous said...

Ti-guy = moonbat.

Ti-Guy said...

Ouch!