 of voting strategically.
Most Albertan voters have never seen an Alberta election where the result in their riding was in any doubt at all.
The Leftist Albertans have elected the last 2 premiers....Stelmach and Redfern.
Are you suggesting that the Liberal-NDP voters will vote Conservative instead of Liberal/NDP to keep Redfern in power??
As a Right wing voter I have to hold my nose to vote Liberal in BC......
so I can only imagine how difficult it would be to be a NDP supporter and actually mark the ballot Conservative.
How of those Alberta Liberal and NDP voters were just anti-PC voters and not leftists?
Looks like quite a few...
Retired - People have been suggesting changing the BC Liberals' name given that it's mostly made up of federal Conservatives (though with significant numbers of federal Liberals too). I haven't heard a good name to switch to though.
Ryan: How about We Are Going to Lose to NDP in 2013 Party?
Do any other IVR polling firms release this sort of data?
Would the 5% be normal for the IVR response rate?
Would 700 robocalls actually result in 3-4 people actually responding/being influenced?
Maynard of Elections Canada suggested that there were a lot of people that answered the robocalls and didn't complained.
Any more than 3-4 people actually listening to a robo call.... using the Campaign methodology data as baseline, woulkd be a great result of a robocall.
It would seem that all 7 people who would have actually engaged in the Robocall lodged complaints.
How hard it is for pollsters to come up with any significant statistically accurate prediction when you have a 95% rejection rate.
It only takes a slightly different characteristic of a voting base to skew the results. There is likely some possible reason that a WR supporter is more likely to participate in an IVR call than an NDP or Cons supporter.
Perhaps the traditional Alberta Cons supporter does not engage in politics (answer the IVR questions) as the assumption is that no matter what the Cons get elected.
Will the federal March averages be coming soon?
I'm curious to see the effect of those couple polls that showed the NDP tied or ahead of the government. Particularly, will the increase be sufficient to flip seats in the prairies.
Soon, but I have to wait a few more days because sometimes polls are reported when they are a week old.
I'm in Calgary Mountain View and I see an ocean of Liberal red David Swann signs. He's beating the PC candidate (C. Low) 3 to 1 and (10 to 1 in many neighborhoods) - with WR and ND are next to nowhere. If your model says the Libs are shut out of Calgary, then your model is wrong.
Signs can mean little - the Bloc spent $56,000 or so in the riding won by the NDP's Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the federal election. The NDP put up no signs.
The model doesn't say the Liberals are shut out of Calgary, it says they could win as many as two seats in the city, but that zero is a more likely outcome.
Your Bloc example doesn't hold here, as the Liberal's are running a cash-lite/volunteer-heavy campaign. Take a drive along 5 Ave from Parkdale to Hillhurst. These are lawn signs on the real voter's lawns - in fact many of the signs are recycled from 2004 as they say "elect" not "re-elect."
Do you have anyone on the ground here, or are you working from robo-call surveys and clippings from the Calgary Sun?
My site relies upon, as it always has, polling data. I'm sorry that the numbers don't line up with your personal assessment of things.
If both parties are spending to the limit and canvassing, the number of signs does give you an idea of how friendly a response they're getting from canvassing. At the very least that means there are a lot of enthusiastic Liberal supporters in the riding.
Of course that doesn't gauge support accurately if that party's support drops suddenly after the canvassing takes place, or if not all parties are spending equally (both of which were in play for Mme. Brosseau). Still, I don't think either of those factors are at play here.
CrescentHeightsGuy - Models have error. That's inherent to the process of modelling. The fact that Eric's model shows Calgary Mountain View as a possible Liberal win is actually a positive, not a negative. Even if it didn't, how exactly would you accommodate that kind of information into an empirical model? Drive around Alberta and count all the signs?
This is a real problem because polls do become prescriptive rather than descriptive. People see enough crummy polls and they stay at home, or vote strategically based on what they see on their computer screens rather than what’s happening on their block. You are rumouring local campaigns into oblivion.
Provincially the Alberta Liberals are polling roughly half their 2008 vote. All things being equal that would place a usually safe Liberal riding such as Mountain View up for grabs.
Signs mean absolutely nothing. It just means enthusiasm, which can be an inch wide and a mile deep.
South Carolina was filled with Ron Paul and Rick Santorum signs, but look who won the state and how those two did. I have the only sign in my neighborhood, that doesnt mean my candidate will win my neighborhood. Heck, until recently it didnt even mean I would vote!
If these numbers hold, I can see a lot of left-wing people voting PC to keep WR out. I would.
I'm a Wildrose supporter and hardly see any signs for Richard Jones in my area - just on my lawn. Run a better campaign guys!
I am not convinced that Liberal or NDP "leftist" Alberta voters are actually truly leftist. Many of them voted for the Liberals in previous elections because it was the only viable alternative. I know of three people at my work (in Calgary) that voted for the Liberals last election who are seriously leaning Wildrose (this may help explain the polls). Traditional left-right split in Alberta may not apply, especially when you look at strategic voting.
The traditional left-right split has never applied. Its a distracting fabrication that was outdated in 1790.
Some Wildrose supporters just want the PC's out because of corruption and incompetence. It's not even ideological.
I know Liberals that are now Wildrose supporters.
(Shocking to my princpled sensibilities, but true.
Surely the Liberals at least are close to their floor now, though? Considering that pre-WR, they were in the mid-20s, much of that 14% would have to be the die-hards who'd pretty much never switch. As for the NDP, it's always been a third party, so if its supporters were into tactical voting, then they'd have gone Liberal in '08 and before to try and get the PCs out. And then, if the Left went PC en masse, then it might push more people over to WR.
In Alberta, I don't think the Liberals have a floor.
I live in BC now, and once when asked by a phone pollster whether I would consider voting for Christy Clark (I live in her riding) I responded, "I'm Albertan. Voting Liberal is treason."
We really need to change our damned name. Sigh.
The NDP have absolutely not "always been a third party." The Liberals have only been a force in the province since the 90s (since their route way back in the 20s or whatever). Before that the NDP was Opposition, and before that SoCred. Before 1989 you have to go all the way to the 60s to even find a Liberal seat in the legislature.
Considering we're used to 40+ year political dynasties in this province that isn't exactly a long time ago, and certainly not worth of "always".
There's a certain element of 1984 in the way political history is portrayed in Alberta.
The Alberta Liberals got 0.89% of the vote in 1940, 1,01% of the vote in 1971 and 1.81% of the vote in 1982.
I would describe that as the floor.
This is almost matching my prediction made many a long time ago with WRA-47 PC-34 NDP-4 LIB-2 and the Tory numbers only holding in ridings where the candidate is strong or has a vote-split advantage (ie - Morton, Horner, et al. most of Edmonton, etc.) The Alliance is going to take Calgary by force and split much of the rest. Every Wildrose "star" candidate will win, (ie - Byfield, Anglin, Carpay) and they'll take any rural riding that they were at least remotely competitive in last time around. NDP brings Eggen and Martin back again, Libs lucky to hold on to Blakeman and Swann (who arguably should be New Democrats anyway). Raj Sherman loses to Bob Maskell by a mile. As many center-left voters (of that whopping 30 or so percent that they make up) will go for it and vote for the sake of change as those who will try to prevent their "evil empire" from taking its rightful place in government.
I fail to see the logic of "leftwing" Albertan voters "strategically" voting for the PCs to keep Wild Rose from government.
In the first place a hung legislature would give Liberals, NDP, Alberta party members the most influence upon government and policy direction since-well, ever. For once they would be true players.