Fluid voter loyalty: Who benefits? The NDP!

There have been a host of polls out recently that have examined shifting voter preferences in light of the recent election of Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. While specific numbers have varied from poll to poll, a common theme to emerge is that Trudeau’s arrival on the scene is very bad for the NDP and  that the Conservatives will laugh their way to a majority with this split on the left.

Really?

The way I read it from one recent poll, if an election were held today, Harper would lead minority government with a strengthened NDP Official Opposition and a slightly strengthened third party led by Trudeau. I come to that conclusion using numbers from Election Canada  in the second column below and then doing my own calcluations for the third column below using some data provided by a recent Ekos against Elections Canada numbers.

Party	2011 Pop Vote	Pop Vote Now
CPC	39.4	35.6
NDP	30.4	32.2
LPC	18.8	20.1

Compare that chart above with “Likely Voter Model” voter preference data that EKOS reported earlier this week:

Party	2011 Pop Vote	EKOS “Likely Voter Model”
CPC	39.6	33.8
NDP	30.6	26.2
LPC	25.7	25.7

Here’s the  research published April 16 by Ekos . (I’m not singling out EKOS here but I am going to use some of the data published there to make a point here. )

Now, lots of pollsters — Abacus, Ipsos Reid, Forum — have found a newly shaken up federal voter preference environment though each pollsters’ numbers are a little difference. Some pollsters have the Trudeau Liberals on top of the Harper Conservatives; some have it the other way around. But a whole lot (though not this particular EKOS poll) have the Mulcair NDP in third place.

And yet, it’s hard to square that broad trend — the NDP drooping into the third — with the data many pollsters are also now collecting using this question: How did you vote in 2011 and how would you vote now?

Let’s take a closer look at the math on that question using EKOS’ own results.

In 2011, Elections Canada reports that 5.83 million people voted Conservative. That represented 39.6 per cent of all votes cast in 2011. This figure of 39.6 is what you see in column 2 in the tables above.

In its April 16 report, EKOS reports that 74.5 per cent of those who voted Conservative in the 2011 election would vote Conservative again today. That’s the highest “loyalty ratio” of any major party. Now, I realize that some who told EKOS they voted Conservative in 2011 may have got that answer wrong or have forgotten how they voted, but assuming that’s close to right and looking back to the number who voted Conservative in 2011, we can do the math and figure out that if 5.83 million Canadians voted for Harper in 2011 and EKOS says 74.5 per cent would vote for Harper today, then that adds up to  4.35 million votes for the blue team right now.

But, of course, there’d be more votes for the Tories than just that.

EKOS also found that 8.5% of those who voted for Michael Ignatieff in 2011 would now vote for Harper. Based on the Liberal vote totals in 2011, that translates into 495,754 more votes for Conservatives. Similarly, EKOS found that 7.5% of all those who voted for Jack Layton in 2011 would not vote for Harper. Based on the NDP vote total in 2011, that adds up to 437,430 voters for the Tories.

Now we can add up the actual number of people who would vote Harper today. The answer is:  5.23 million votes, a decrease of 554,078  compared to the number who voted for Harper in 2011.

OK: So if you’ve bought my math to this point, we now have 5.23 million votes for Harper. How would that translate in popular vote? Well, in the last election, 14.82 million Canadians cast a ballot. With 24.26 million Canadians eligible to vote, that represents a voter turnout rate of 61.1 per cent, a bit better than the 2008 voter turnout rate of 58.8 per cent but still near historical lows for Canadian federal elections. In fact we haven’t seen voter turnout above 70 per cent in a general election since 1988. I think it’s fair to say that voter turnout today if we had an election would be roughly equal to the 2011 voter turnout and, if you look at the historical trend, possibly a little less. So with that explanation, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we would probably hve about 14.82 million Canadians casting a ballot now if we had a general election. Well, if we agree there are about 5.23 million Canadians ready to vote for Harper, that’s a 35.6 per cent popular vote for the Tories.  Lo and behold, look back up in the first table I presented in the third column and you will see 35.6 % popular vote for the Conservatives. 

We can go through the  same math for the the other parties.

The Liberals are holding onto 70% of their 2011 voters; snatching 13.4% of those who voted Conservative and 23.5% of those who voted NDP. Based on the 2011 numbers that would give the Liberals 2.98 million votes right now, an improvement of 200,389 voters over 2011 and, by my calcluation, a popular vote of 20.1%

The NDP are doing the worst holding on to their 2011 voters with EKOS finding that just 60.5% of those who voted for Layton voting for Mulcair. But 7.5% of 2011 Harper voters now prefer Mulcair and nearly 14% of Liberal 2011 voters are going Orange. That translates into 4.77 million votes for the NDP if an election were held tomorrow or, based on 2011 voter turnout, a popular vote of 32.2 per cent.

The bottom line, as you may have figured out: The number of voters who have deserted the Tories exceeds the total they have poached from other parties. Conversely, both the NDP and the Liberals have 5.8% and 7.2% more voters now than they did in the 2011 election — if you believe my math.

That doesn’t sound like Trudeau’s arrival has been bad news for anyone but Harper.