Albertans are voting on the province’s future today. While it might take some time before we know how they voted on nine of the questions being asked, it is pretty clear that Albertans will soundly reject the option to begin the process of holding a binding referendum on independence.
The Writ’s Alberta Referendum Poll Tracker, a weighted average of all the polls published on the independence question, has not shifted much over the last few months. On average, 69% of Albertans have told pollsters they intend to vote for Alberta to remain a province of Canada, while only 25% have said they will vote to begin the process toward independence. Just under 6% of Albertans have said they are undecided.
After the removal of undecideds, the tally for remaining in Canada comes to 73.5%, with 26.5% voting to leave.
The consensus that the Remain side will win has been very broad. After a relatively lightly-polled referendum campaign, seven pollsters put out new data in the last few days. We got numbers from Léger, Ipsos-Global News, Mainstreet Research, Research Co., Abacus Data, Pollara Strategic Insights and the Angus Reid Institute.
While there has been some variation between pollsters, the tightest set of numbers still puts the Remain side ahead by 32 points. The widest margin has been clocked in at 56 points. The chart below shows the final polls for each of the pollsters who put out numbers in this final week, after the removal of undecideds (which some pollsters did themselves; where they didn’t, I have done the calculation).
Five of the pollsters show support for Remain at between 74% and 78%, with support for Independence at between 22% or 26%. The two other pollsters, the Angus Reid Institute and Mainstreet, have Remain at 66% against 34% for separation.
It should be pointed out that the ARI has routinely had higher support levels for separation than have other pollsters. Mainstreet, however, hasn’t been in the field as frequently so we can’t say whether this is a ‘house effect’ or not. We’ll see tonight (or tomorrow morning) which portrait is more accurate, but pollsters have generally struggled to assess the level of support for right-wing parties in Alberta so it would not but surprising if the ARI and Mainstreet end up closer to the mark.
But it would be perhaps the biggest failure of polling — anywhere, ever — if the Remain side did not prevail in this campaign, and handily. There has been some hand-wringing about the potential for a surprise, with the case of the 2016 Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom cited as an example. But the polls at the end of that campaign gave the Remain side a lead of about two-to-four points — not 32-to-56 points. Polling can be imperfect, but it cannot miss by that much.
If the outcome is predictable enough, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things to watch in the numbers.