NDP Honeymoon

The latest Harris Decima poll is being reported as a "surge" in publications, which may be a bit of an overstate, at least in a truly national sense. I don’t like comparing pollsters, but I think it quite instructive to compare poll to poll within a particular outfit. In this way you best ascertain true trends, rather than chasing various methodologies and continually being pulled in conflicting directions. Harris Decima had a poll out two weeks ago, so using that offering as the baseline we had:

Nationally, the Conservatives lead by 3 points. Over the last two weeks the Conservatives stand at 31%, the NDP 28%, the Liberals 24%, the BQ 8%, and the Greens 7%.

• The BQ are in front in the province of Quebec. Here, they stand at 34%, to 26% for the NDP, 21% for the Liberals, 11% for the Conservatives, and 6% for the Greens.

Today’s release:

Interesting, all the talk is of the NDP surge and yet the Conservatives are up 3% poll to poll, barely eclipsed by the NDP’s 4% gain. In other words, a 3% national lead for the Conservatives is now a 2% edge, statistically irrelevant. However, that doesn’t distract from NDP gains, particularly regional, nor does it mask a significant drop for the Liberals. I guess the relevancy, we see support for the opposition moving around-as used to see in reverse with the Liberals and NDP- but electorally the shift is less pronounced from the Conservative perspective.

We do see a pronounced uptick for the NDP in Quebec, which isn’t surprising, Mulcair has rekindled fortunes. The NDP do surge past the Bloc, up a full 13% poll to poll, back in Layton terrority. Here as well, we see the cost to the Liberals.

Interesting, not only is there no NDP bounce in vote rich Ontario, their number is actually down poll to poll. Here, the Conservatives are well up and this is noteworthy, because one does expect a NDP uptick with their new shiny leader. Hard to find the Mulcair "honeymoon" in Ontario.

We see a healthy rise for the NDP in British Columbia, but there is a high MOE and we’ve seen previous strength prior to Mulcair. Still, we can concede a traditional bounce for the NDP here.

All in all, Mulcair is riding a nice wave in Quebec which presents as a decent national rise for the NDP. Elsewhere, I would describe the bounce as non-existent to nothing remarkable (as an aside HD had the NDP in first in Atlantic Canada prior to Mulcair winning, no noteworthy move post), which is something to watch moving forward. I recall the Liberals leading after Dion, tied/leading after Ignatieff, so I’m putting Mulcair in that context. Mulcair is firming up Quebec for the NDP- a fear I’ve had for sometime from the Liberal perspective- time will tell if it holds, but he is not an unknown quantity which bodes well.

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