I don't usually repeat posts, but this election is important, so for any who missed it, here is Contrarian's Guide to Strategic Voting in Nova Scotia. In the latest Angus Reid poll, 49 percent of Liberal voters and 36 percent of NDP voters expressed a willingness to consider voting for a candidate other than their true preferences, in order to “avoid a specific outcome.” If you are one of those Liberal, New Democratic, or erstwhile Progressive Conservative voters, and you want to avoid the specific outcome of a certain authoritarian demagogue getting unfettered control of the House of Commons, you may...

02 May, 2011

CBC Sunday Edition guest host Robert Harris chided Elly Alboim this morning for the national press corps's failure to pick up on the NDP surge until the polls made it obvious. [caption id="attachment_7960" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Alboim"][/caption] Alboim responded, reasonably, that reporters couldn't be expected to pick up on a phenomenon before it existed. (He did credit Chantel Henert for noticing it a week before her colleagues.) Alboim went on to speculate that the NDP's dramatic rise in the polls reflected, not a sudden blooming of love for Layton, but widespread anti-Harper sentiment that coalesced around Layton following his good performance in the debates. If...

01 May, 2011

In the latest Angus Reid poll, 49 percent of Liberal voters and 36 percent of NDP voters expressed a willingness to consider voting for a candidate other than their true preferences, in order to “avoid a specific outcome.” If you are one of those Liberal, New Democratic, or erstwhile Progressive Conservative voters who would like to avoid the specific outcome of a certain dangerous demagogue getting an unfettered majority in the House of Commons, you may be wondering how to vote Monday. This post is for you. Contrarian’s Guide to Strategic Voting in Nova Scotia With three-way races and a still dynamic vote...

01 May, 2011

The unprecedented rise in support for the NDP is provoking a lot of reaction from various thoughtful observers. Here's a compendium. From Frank Graves of Ekos Research, author of yesterday's dramatic poll putting the NDP in second place nationally with a projected 100 seats, in a live chat this morning at ipolitics.ca: Nothing is absolutely ruled out. But I think the public is answering Mr. Harper's request for a majority with a pretty clear "No." The intricacies of vote splitting might confuse this as late campaign shifts, but at slightly under 34 points, the Conservatives are well short of a majority. In...

26 April, 2011

Ekos Research Associates, in a national poll with 2,783 respondents and a sampling error margin of 1.8 percentage points 19 times out of 100, has the NDP in second place nationally, as the Dips' Quebec surge spreads to the rest of the country. The numbers are CPC 33.7; NDP 28.0; Liberal 23.7; Green 7.2; Bloc 6.2. What's more, Ekos projects just 131 CPC seats vs. 100 for the NDP, 62 for the Liberals, and just 14 for the Bloc. Moneyquote: Looking at these seat projections, the NDP and the Liberal Party combined would have a majority and 31 more seats...

26 April, 2011