Booyah! New Ipsos Poll Shows PCPO Collapse!

To watch Darrell Bricker, Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs,  strut about twitter today, you'd've thought Hudak's PCPO had a strangle-hold on the Ontario provincial election.  But really their vote is imploding! According to his own damn polling agency:

Ontario Race Tightens: Hudak PCs Slip (35%, -4), Horwath NDP Gain (28%, +4) and Wynne Liberals Stall (31%, +1) among Decided Voters

Im...Fucking...ploding.  Darrell doesn't see this, cuz he's invested in some theory about "Laurentian Elites", where nine-toothed goobers from the West and the rural areas are taking over the political realm and us losers from the big cities, with our intellectuals and manufacturing and uppity multicult ways are doomed to be replaced by a bunch of  corn-pones who shovel pigshit and mine bitumen for a living.  But it looks like he's missing the BIG SHIFT, at least as it applies to Ontario.  Hudak's million pink-slip plan has laid an egg among the populace, and the soufflé of discontent he was hoping to ride into office is in the process of falling into a dump cake made entirely of electoral  crap!!!  BOOYAH!!! BOOYAH!!! ONWARD OLP SOLDIERS!  VICTORY OR VALHALLA!!!!

Even Newer Ontario Poll: Does The NDP Have The GUTZZ?

If a provincial election were held tomorrow, the Progressive Conservatives under Tim Hudak would receive 37% support among decided voters (up 3 points), while Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals would receive 32% of the vote (up 1 point). Andrea Horwath and her NDP are very much in the hunt at 27% support (down 4 points), while some other party (including the Green Party) would receive 5% of the vote (up 1 point). Two in ten (20%) Ontarians remain undecided, which is a very high percentage.

Well, first thing to note is the NDP's marked lack of momentum.  Or more precisely, its surfeit of negative momentum.  It reminds me of this:

The second thing is that, should an election call come in the next month or so, the OLP is in way better position than in 2011.  Especially when you consider all the polls in their entirety.  Note that this Meta approach reveals the most evident trend even more clearly.  Andrea Horwath's NDP are currently sucking monkeys.  Discretion is the better part of valor, Andrea.  Think of that.  There's a time for retreat, and then there's a time to bust a shit-flyin'-out-yer-pantleg-running-away-like-crazy move.  Maybe now is that time, hmm?

They Get By With A Little Help From their Friends

The pollster nobody believes in the papers nobody reads.

We all know how Ipsos-Reid works--CanWest's paid samplers, hence the CPoC's paid samplers.

Just ignore them

New Harris Decima Poll Shows New Ipsos Poll At Least 100% Bullshit

When it comes to polls, Steve V. Sees All, Knows All

The latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey finds the Conservatives maintaining a slight lead in popular support, with 34 per cent to the Liberals' 30 per cent. The NDP are at 15 per cent, the Bloc Quebecois at nine and the Greens at 10.

A little worse that last week's version for the Libs, but certainly nothing to suggest (as Ipsos does) that NDP support is cratering.

Heads Up! Another Bogus Ipsos Poll!

The pollsters nobody trusts in the paper nobody reads!

Here's what people said last time an Ipsos poll came out.

As Don Martin

...speaks, so too is Don Martin refuted:

Asked which party they would vote for were a federal election held tomorrow, 32.6 per cent of respondents said they would cast their ballots for Stephen Harper's Tories, while the same percentage opted for Michael Ignatieff's Liberals, EKOS said.

[...]

The Liberals have erased a small but persistent lead enjoyed by the Tories throughout most of the summer by improving their fortunes in the battleground province of Ontario, EKOS said.

Maybe Mr. Martin is waiting on one of those "special" Ipsos polls exclusive to CanWest media.

Latest Ekos Poll

proves previous Ipsos poll crap.

An Ekos poll showed the Conservatives at 32.6 percent of decided voters and the Liberals at 30.9 percent, roughly the same as a week earlier. The two parties tied at 37 percent in Ontario, Canada's most populous province.

"This weeks's national sample of vote intention...suggests they (the Liberals) may want to think twice," Ekos said on Thursday in releasing the results.

But why? Given the efficiency of the Lib. vote etc. etc., these numbers look like a thin Lib. Minority. And, at the very least, the Ont. figure would be a marked improvement over 2008.

Go for it, sez I!

More details at Ms. O'Malley 's.

Ipsos Poll Inspired Universal Mistrust

But there was deep skepticism around the poll. Even Harper Tories questioned it, sending out “talking points” to their MPs, noting the poll is not consistent with other polling. A Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll released yesterday afternoon put the two parties in a statistical tie, where they have been all summer.

The release date of this ill-fated survey was supposed to be Monday. In fact though it appeared Sunday evening, ignominiously, on the National Post/Canwest website. Kudos to Don Martin for stepping on the story in his Friday column and thus ruining Canwest's scoop. And kudos to everyone who wrote about it over the weekend. I think this probably did force Canwest's hand towards a Sunday reveal and helped to lessen the story's impact yesterday morning.

Note The Wording Of The Headline.

""X", poll says". Not "X".

CanWest doubts the validity of its own poll.

I say lets throw down in Sept. electionwise and Ignore anything out of CanWest or Ipsos. Its just another poll that nobody trusts from newspapers nobody reads.

Steve V thinks its nutz too.

Rumour: Ipsos Mystery Poll To Appear Monday

Reported in my comments here. As has been pointed out by several readers, Ipsos Reid--which will apparently claim that the Tories are "flirting with 40%"(so what really--about 38% or 39%?) and therefore flirting with a majority --1) skews Tory, very Tory, 2) polls for CanWest, publisher of Canada's most crazy-assed Tory newspapers, and 3) is following upon a Tory plea to its supporters Canada-wide to talk up its need for a "stable majority".

Given the explanation for the figure noted above here, we can probably rewrite tomorrows Natty Post headline as "No Movement Noted!"

WTF Is Don Martin On About?

Yes, avoiding an election based on the men's hockey team landing gold is a tad odd, but so were reports Prime Minister Stephen Harper will base his campaign on seeking a majority mandate, at least until a new Ipsos-Reid poll came out yesterday that showed the Conservatives surging ahead and flirting with 40% voter support.

Nothing on the Ipsos website, and it includes polls up to the 21st.

The Poll By The Pollster Nobody Believes, For the Newspaper Nobody Reads

Looks like CanWest has quit trying to stuff their latest Federal Poll:

"The poll said that the Tories had dropped to 39 per cent support - a decline of three percentage points - while the Liberals had been bumped up one point to 29 per cent of decided voters. The NDP held steady at 15 per cent support while the Green Party went up slightly by one point to eight per cent of the vote."

Of course the support levels here are freakish, not supported by any of the respectable polling companies (which put the Libs higher and the Cons lower), and most likely a result of Ipsos being paid monkey-boys for the Natty Post.. But the Conservative plunge in support is significant. Read how Ipsos claims it has nothing to do with Mulroney crawling out of the sewer, waving his dirt stained dick at the nation, and implicating Harper.

(Update: Steve V thinks the decline is a simple function of Ipsos having readjusted its assumptions so as not to appear too far out of line with the other pollsters. He may be right. In any case, he explains his reasoning here.)