Election Writ 4/14: Don't miss the trend forest for the polling trees
Is there lots of movement happening or none at all?
My apologies that the Election Writ is late today, this morning got away from me!
You know how a duck glides smoothly across the top of the water, but underneath the surface the duck’s little feet are flapping frantically?
The polls are a little bit like that these days.
Just in the 24-36 hours or so, we’ve seen new polls that suggest some big shift might be afoot. Mainstreet Research has a poll out this morning putting the Conservatives ahead for the first time in any survey conducted so far this month. Ipsos shows a significant six-point swing between the Liberals and the Conservatives with a Liberal lead that has been cut in half.
Nanos Research, meanwhile, has the gap widening again to seven points while MQO Research puts the Liberals ahead by nine points, but losing steam in B.C., though Abacus Data has the margin at four points but tightening in British Columbia.
Also in today’s newsletter: A new poll shows Regina and Saskatoon could be unexpectedly close battlegrounds. Plus, we look at how Quebec City could swing.
All the while, the polling average keeps humming along with the Liberals ahead by seven points and still on track for a majority government.
It’s easy to miss the polling-trend forest for the individual-poll trees. The Mainstreet poll, for example, might suggest something is going on, as it found the Liberals down three points and the Conservatives up four points over the last three days. But the Nanos and Liaison Strategies trackers, taken over the exact same period, found the margin between the parties shrinking by one point, not widening by seven.
Ipsos, meanwhile, shows the Liberal lead falling from 12 points to six points. But the previous 12-point lead was on the higher side of what was being published at the time, even if the days Ipsos was previously in the field were among some of the better ones of the campaign for the Liberals. So, not only is Ipsos showing a likely reversion to the mean from what was a better-than-average poll for the Liberals, it’s also a reversion from what was a better-than-average time for the Liberals.
And, in any case, the publication of the MQO Research poll and its nine-point lead for the Liberals has cancelled out the two-point lead for the Conservatives in the Mainstreet poll. The Poll Tracker remains unimpressed and unmoved. The publication of polls by Pollara Strategic Insights and Pallas Data after the update of the Poll Tracker that show Liberal leads of eight points aren’t going to move the dial toward the Conservatives.
So, steady on. The Liberals appear to still hold the same advantage that they’ve held since the end of the first week of this campaign. Things might change between now and April 28, but it doesn’t look like things have changed much between now and a few days ago.