Earlier this year, during the Quebec provincial election, two internal party polls were released to the media. They were widely reported on as much for their contents as they were for the selective nature of the data released and the motives for releasing the poll. Both internal polls were released by parties that were trailing in several media-sponsored public domain polls. The incumbent Parti Quebecois would be thumped at the polls on election day by Philippe Couillard’s Liberals while the third party Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) pretty much ended up where it started — well back in third.
Every media-sponsored public domain poll showed a steady march during the campaign of increasing voter support for the Liberals and a steady drop by the PQ.
The only late campaign poll to show that the PQ was leading was one the PQ itself released. The CAQ released its internal poll showing that it was closer to the leaders than public domain polls.
It was clear in both cases that the motive for both the PQ and CAQ to release what turned out to be over-optimistic (to put it politely) polls was to boost the morale of campaigns that, at the time of the release of these polls, was flagging. Successful campaigns need volunteers and money and both of those can be harder to come by if polls are showing a campaign is blowing up, as the PQ campaign, as it turned out, was. (Eric Grenier of 308.com does a nice job on the Quebec issue here.)
Which brings us to New Brunswick.
The Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick — the incumbent — has hired NRG Group of Winnipeg to do its polling and this week, the results of its most recent internal poll were leaked to the Telegraph-Journal and we obtained a copy as well.
Unlike in Quebec, there is not much public domain polling available to use as a benchmark for internal polls. Corporate Research Associates of Halifax has been active in Atlantic Canada providing quarterly snapshots of the political tides. For the last 18 months or so, CRA has found Premier David Alward’s PCs in New Brunswick badly trailing the NB Liberals, led by Brian Gallant. CRA will release its latest snapshot of New Brunswick politics after the Labour Day Weekend and that will be the first public poll of the campaign — and, in fact, the first public poll in weeks on New Brunswick.
The case can certainly be made that the poll I’m about to walk through has been leaked precisely to boost the spirits of PC campaign workers and volunteers.. That is definitely some context to keep in mind as as we go through the numbers and methodology.
The Ballot:
The question used by the pollster:
“If a provincial election were held today, to elect Members to the Provincial Legislature to represent you in Fredericton, which party would you vote for? (ROTATE) PC Party/David Alward’s PC Party; Liberal Party/Brian Gallant’s Liberal Party; NDP/Dominic Cardy’s NDP; The Green/David Coon’s Green Party?”
Results:
- Liberals 34%
- PCs 26%
- NDP 13%
- Green 5%
- Undecided: 14%
#nbvotes NRG/PC poll: NB Libs lead among both M and F voter. M: LIB 35, PC 30 NDP 12 | F: LIB 34 PC 22 NDP 13 (n=1,215/live phone, Aug 21)
— David Akin (@davidakin) August 29, 2014
Potential for PC growth?
- No chance: 40%
- Very slight chance: 20%
- Small chance 15%
- Fair chance 17%
- Don’t know 5%
What’s on the voter’s mind?
Results:
- Future of New Brunswick 55%
- Government Record 36%
- Don’t know 8%
- Job/Employment/Unemployment: 39%
- Economy 18%
- Health Care 13%
- Natural Gas development/Fracking: 5%
- Debt/Deficit: 5%
- Wages/cost of living/energy prices 2%
The Fracking Question
- Strongly no urgency: 31% + Somewhat no urgency 17% = not urgent of 48%
- Strongly need to develop now 29% + somewhat need to develop now 16% = 45% develop now
On methodology
NRG says it has done at least four pre-writ polls, in November, March, June and in the three days before the official campaign start on Sept. 22. NRG is doing live telephone polling from its Winnipeg call centre and NRG says, since March, it has made 6,300 phone calls into New Brunswick households.
For the poll we obtained (which, I’m told, is the same one the Telegraph Journal received), the total number surveyed was 1,215. The pollster says the results are accurate to withing 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
We did not receive tables of raw responses or weighting formulas used by the pollster although the pollster does say this: “The data from this study has been moderately weighted to bring up the under 35 year old population, but the sample is still somewhat skewed to an older population then is actually the case in New Brunswick. This distribution is felt to more accurately reflect the population that votes in provincial elections.”
The pollster did, though, provide the following information about those it polled on Aug 18-21
- Male/Female percentage split was 48/52
- Age splits: 13% were 18-34, 37% were 35-54 and 50% were 55+
- Language: 67% spoke English at home; 22% spoke French at home, 10% spoke both at home, 1% spoke other.
- Regional breakdown: 23% each from the Saint John, Moncton and Fredericton areas, 31% from “North”
The Liberals also lead among both English-speaking and French-speaking voters but by different amounts.
Among English voters it’s LIB 31 | PCs 28 | NDP 15
Among French speakers it’s LIB 43 | PCs 22 | NDP 7
Now giving the Liberals just announced to broaden Linguistic responsibilities and enforcing the language commissioners recommendations of course the francophpnes would be higher among Liberals.
I just wanna point out as well that the Liberals policy was not once put in the English Media but was all over french media. I be more curious if the numbers would change if the English actually seen this policy.
http://nbliberal.ca/post-news/liberals-to-broaden-linguistic-responsibilities/
Look, David, if you want to do some real reporting, instead of being an Alward lackey, look into SWN and their EDGAR filings. The reason they couldn’t come back for seismic testing this year is because they’re on the verge of bankruptcy.