19 May Throwing the rascals out?

If you believe governments get defeated, as opposed to opposition parties getting elected, then the satisfied/dissatisfied question in today’s CRA poll poses an ominous portent for Rodney MacDonald.

Satisfaction with MacDonald’s government fell from 54% in February to 45% over the weekend. Rodney’s personal popularity as leader also fell to third place at 20%, behind Dexter at 30% and McNeil at 24%.

CRA was lamentably thin on details. The news release lists the leading party in each region, (Metro: NDP 44%; Rural Mainland: PC 35%; Cape Breton: Liberal 39%), but the tables give no regional  breakdown. In any case, the sample size, 627, was small, and if the regions each had one-third of that total, the sampling error would be nearly 7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Regional breakdowns are important in Nova Scotia, because party strength varies so much from one place to another. In our first-past-the-post system, a minority party can increase the efficiency of its vote by concentrating its strength in one region. The Bloc Quebecois, running only in Quebec, gathered 1.4 million votes and 49 seats. The relatively dispersed Green Party attracted 940,000 votes and no seats.

There may not be much polling in this election. The death of the Daily News relieves the struggling Herald of any competitive pressure to produce polls. With ATV and CBC likewise crying poor-mouth, who’s going pay for more polls? Gosh, maybe we’ll have to talk about… issues!