The federal Conservatives headed into the Christmas break as the preferred ballot choice of nearly two of every five voters, pollster Nik Nanos says.
Despite potentially explosive allegations that surfaced as the parliamentary season ended that Afghan insurgents captured by Canadian Forces in 2006 were handed over Afghan authorities where they faced certain torture — a war crime if, in fact, Canadians knew the detaineess were likely to be tortured — the Conservatives remain the top choice among decided voters although both the Liberals and the NDP are edging higher as well.
Nanos surveyed 1,003 Canadians by telephone between Dec. 10 and 13 and asked:
For those parties you would consider voting for federally, could you please rank your top two current local preferences?
Here is the breakdown for the first choices: (The numbers in parenthesis denote the change from the last Nanos National Omnibus survey completed between November 7th and November 10th, 2009.)
National Decided Voters Only (n=745)
Conservative 39.5% (-0.3)
Liberal 30.2% (+0.2)
NDP 18.7% (+2.1)
BQ 7.7% (-1.2)
Green 4.0% (NC)
Undecided 25.7% (+8.2) of all voters surveyed
Nanos also surveyed the opinions of Canadians on who they think the most competent political leader is; the most trustworthy; and leader with the best vision. You can read the exact results here [PDF] but the bottom line is Canadians rank Harper highest on all those categories (by a long shot) while the opinion Canadians have of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff continues to decline sharply — and NDP Leader Jack Layton improves a bit.
Tags: politics, conservatives, liberals, NDP, Jack Layton, Stephen Harper, MIchael Ignatieff, polls
I was struck by the high undecided rate in this sample, and the similarly high undecided rate in Nanos' Aug-Sep sample as well. This made me wonder how the unadjusted vote changed over the period of time, so I converted his reported percents of decided into percents of the entire sample, with the following findings:
Prty | _Aug_ | _Oct_ | _Nov_ | _Dec_ | _chg_
_______________________________________
Lib | 25.2 | 24.8 | 23.4 | 22.4 | -2.8
NDP | 11.2 | 13.7 | 14.5 | 13.9 | +2.7
Grn | 3.5 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 3.0 | -0.5
BQ | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.6 | 5.7 | -1.6
Cons | 28.2 | 32.8 | 30.7 | 29.3 | +1.1
UND | 24.6 | 17.5 | 19.0 | 25.7 | +1.1
Switches:
* Cons and NDP up Aug-Oct (4.6 & 2.5), mainly from UND and a few Lib (-4.1 & -0.4)
* UND, Grn and NDP up Oct-Nov (1.5, 1.0 & 0.8), mainly from Cons and Lib (-2.1 & -1.4)
* UND up Nov-Dec (6.7), mainly from BQ, Grn, Cons, Lib and a few NDP (-1.9, -1.8, -1.4, -1.0, -0.6)
Over the 3 1/2 month period:
* NDP up +2.7 from 11.2 to 13.9, with high of 14.5 and low of 11.2
* Cons up +1.1 from 28.2 to 29.3, with high of 32.8 and low of 28.2
* UND up +1.1 from 24.6 to 25.7, with high of 25.7 and low of 17.5
* Grn down -0.5 from 3.5 to 3.0, with high of 4.8 and low of 3.0
* BQ down -1.6 from 7.3 to 5.7, with high of 7.6 and low of 5.7
* Lib down -2.8 from 25.2 to 22.4, with high of 25.2 and low of 22.4
In other words, the Aug-Sept undecided broke towards the Conservatives and NDP in October, and the December undecided are coming from the Bloc and Greens, and to a lesser extent from the 3 traditional parties.
With so much variability in the undecided rates over the period, I find this approach gives a completely different view of things.