With two days left in the campaign the latest CPAC Nanos tracking shows the Conservatives with a six point lead over the Liberals nationally (33% to 27%). Support for the NDP, after trending up for a few days has held steady at twenty two percent nationally. In battleground Ontario the Tories and Liberals remain in a tight race with only two points separating them in our latest tracking (Conservatives - 34% ; Liberals - 32%) with the NDP trending up to one in four (26%) in the province.
On the CPAC Nanos Leadership Index Stephen Harper has bounced back from the declines earlier this week and now holds a 30 point lead on Stephane Dion, with Jack Layton a further one point back (Harper - 87; Dion - 57; Layton - 56). On the best PM front, Harper (30%) is ten points ahead of Layton (20%) with Dion close behind at 17%).
With Thanksgiving upon us, today will be our final day in the field prior to the election with our last set of tracking numbers released Monday at 2 pm.
Tune in to Goldhawk Live with Dale Goldhawk tonight night at 7 pm (EST) on CPAC for a discussion of our latest polling results. For more detailed information on the methodology and the statistical results visit the Nanos Research website.
Methodology and Results
A national random telephone survey is conducted nightly by Nanos Research throughout the campaign. Each evening a new group of 500 eligible voters is interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprised of 1,404 interviews. To update the tracking, a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of accuracy is ±2.6%, 19 times out of 20 for 1,404 random interviews.
Note: for the final three days of the tracking Nanos Research will be interviewing 500 eligible voters per evening (up from 400 per evening). As a result the margin of accuracy for the final three-day rolling sample of 1,500 eligible voters will be ±2.5%, 19 times out of 20.
The numbers in parenthesis denote the change from the previous Nanos Research Survey completed on October 10, 2008.
Question: If a FEDERAL election were held today, could you please rank your top two current local voting preferences? (First ranked reported)
Committed Voters - Canada (N=1,161, MoE ± 2.9%, 19 times out of 20)
- Conservative Party 33 (+1)
- Liberal Party 27 (-1)
- NDP 22 (NC)
- BQ 10% (NC)
- Green Party 9% (+1)
- Undecided 17% (-1)
Question: Of the following individuals, who do you think would make the best Prime Minister? [Rotate] (N=1,404 MoE ± 2.6%, 19 times out of 20)
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper 30% (+1)
- NDP leader Jack Layton 20% (-1)
- Liberal leader Stephane Dion 17% (-1)
- Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe 6% (+1)
- Green Party leader Elizabeth May 4% (NC)
- None of them 8% (NC)
- Unsure 15% (-1)
Question: Which of the federal leaders would you best describe as:
- The most trustworthy leader
- The most competent leader
- The leader with the best vision for Canada’s future
[Leadership Index Score - Daily roll-up of all three measures]
- Stephen Harper 87 (+2)
- Stephane Dion 57 (+9)
- Jack Layton 56 (-5)
- Elizabeth May 18 (+3)
- Gilles Duceppe 12 (+1)
What do you think?
Cheers, NJN
Remember to rate the views of others - to allow us to recognize the opinion leaders in our national conversation.
Individuals with the top ratings make it to Nik’s Leaderboard
Most Read Comments
Highest Rated Comments
More excellent results for the CPC with these numbers. The Ontario lead is holdi... more
Darryl (Ontario) 12 Oct 14:00
Trend is for a widening gap between Libs and Cons. Two days to election lib mom... more
fortescue (Ontario) 12 Oct 14:09
Merde Time for the NDP & Greens to move their vote to the Liberal Camp We... more
John B (Ontario) 12 Oct 14:50
I have always been very clear that I feel very strongly that people should vote ... more
HC in AB (Alberta) 12 Oct 17:58
Hey Merde: If you want a carbon tax that badly, you can pay mine for me.... more
eveable (Ontario) 12 Oct 18:57
In fairness - i think layton has been pretty true to his platform. He's held the... more
Foxer (British Columbia) 13 Oct 01:40
Comments
Darryl
More excellent results for the CPC with these numbers. The Ontario lead is holding and the NDP is edging up on the liberals.
The latest liberal hidden agenda smear campaign isn't working so far.
[updated Sun Oct 12 14:00:30 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 14:00
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fortescue
Trend is for a widening gap between Libs and Cons. Two days to election lib momentum definately gone. Strong Canadian economic news combined with the dion Gaffe may be the turning point in this election. We will see Monday. Happy Thanksgiving
[updated Sun Oct 12 14:09:23 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 14:09
8 replies so far. Join this conversationHide this conversation.
Foxer
Tuesday bud :) it's thanksgiving monday. I know that's probably what you meant, but just a reminder.
[updated Sun Oct 12 15:48:27 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 15:48
Stopthespin
Not sure why Libs -1 and Cons +1, with a 2.9% margin of error constitutes momentum. I think it constitutes your wishful thinking!
[updated Sun Oct 12 17:29:25 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 17:29
Foxer
well if it were just one poll that'd tend to be true. Or if just the libs had lost one or the cpc had gained one.
But with all the polls suggesting a cpc resurgence, and with the libs and cpc both changing, it does indicate movement towards the CPC away from the libs. The ndp are holding and most polls reflect that too.
There's always a bit of a momentum shift at the last hour, or has been for the last few campaigns, so this wasn't unexpected. What was unsure was if it would be an exodus from the ndp into the libs, or the soft libs moving to the cpc or ndp.
Polling results seem to indicate that the movement is going to the cpc. Which is good news for harper, that tends to pick up speed after a day or two and there's a good chance we'll see the cpc pick up 3 or so points before election day.
Dion's kind of run his course, and things like 'finance minister bob rae' are being kicked around. I've also seen a little more attention paid back to the green plan which everyone hated but everyone kind of forgot about. And people are looking at it again and saying "ohhhhh yeaaaahhh. THIS is why we didn't like that guy..."
The numbers aren't BRILLIANT news for the cpc or anything - looks like they'll pick up the win and maybe walk away with a few more seats than last time. But there's little chance of that majority he wanted. But for dion - he could be looking at a pretty severe loss. 27 percent (5 down from last election) is not good at all at the best of times, and if he slips a point or two more that's going to hurt like heck. He will beat the ndp but i think it'll be not by that much and that will put the ndp in a new light for a lot of people.
[updated Sun Oct 12 17:37:26 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 17:37
gohabs1 (Suspended for inappropriate post)
You call Harpercrite throwing in the towel if he loses momentum.......I think he knows he's toast. The strategic voting patterns will only emerge on Tuesday night when we say our fondest adieus to Harper.
What happened to the 150 or so seats you forecast for the cons? You must remember that I told you weeks ago your party would get slammed in Que. I also told you the NDP vote would slip back and it is. Ontario is going to stay liberal and the cons will win fewer seats.
In any event who can believe your trash politics and phony forecasting. Harper is about to drop a $300MM stink bomb on us.
DION will be the PM late Tuesday night west coast time
[updated Mon Oct 13 05:42:43 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 05:42
Foxer
You know - i think you actually get MORE rabidly insane in direct proportion to how badly your party is doing - i think we could just about call the election based on how psychotic your responses are.
Judging by the one above - maybe a majority ISN'T out of reach after all :)
And i said i expected harper to get 144 seats. I love how you keep trying to bump it up :)
What happened to the 80 seats you thought the cpc would get? :) Doesn't look like that liberal victory is going to happen does it.
Dion will be fighting for his political life in a leadership race that starts late tuesday nite :)_ In fact it has already really started. You didn't think bob rae and Iggy were campaigning for DION did you? They were showcasing for the next leadership race.
[updated Mon Oct 13 14:52:39 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 14:52
Tory minority expected in campaign of 'failure'
http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/LAC.20081013.ELECTIONPOLLS13/TPStory/National/
"What is of more significance is that a substantial chunk of Green Party supporters told the pollsters that their second party of choice would be the NDP, not the Liberals, indicating they preferred NDP Leader Jack Layton to Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.
The Liberals need to attract NDP and Green voters to hold on to a number of seats they won in close contests in the last election."
[updated Mon Oct 13 11:12:54 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 11:12
wyly
a campaign of failure for both cons and libs...Dion if he doesn't become PM, Harper for not producing a majority vs. a weak "Dion, not a leader", 3 elections and still no majority ...as the knives are being sharpened in the backrooms of both parties there's good chance neither will be around to lead another election....
[updated Tue Oct 14 13:01:35 EDT 2008]
14 Oct 13:01
Not correct.
Liberals claim CPC have no bench etc so Harper is safe unless his gov't. loses.
Dion has bet the farm on the Green Shaft -Liberals eat their young unless he wins gov't.
The CPC did not spend the 2.5 years in building the party in Quebec/Maritimes and if they grow it will be the benefit of the Carbon Tax out East.
Quebec candidates need to have been on the ground for the last 2.5 years building their organization, volunteers etc. They did not.
The Liberal have a worse track record, the finances of the party,volunteers, the plane etc.
[updated Tue Oct 14 13:17:07 EDT 2008]
14 Oct 13:17
Mike Stokes
it's the weekend and the CP are going up what, a change. Good to see Canadians are coming to their senses. 6 point spread could yield more seats for the CP as the Libs are below their 06 number.
Jack for opposition divide the left!
[updated Sun Oct 12 14:19:01 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 14:19
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Merde
Time for the NDP & Greens to move their vote to the Liberal Camp
We simply can't afford Steve 'Herbert Hoover' Harper Govt, minority or majority
Vote for a real Team
Vote Liberal
.
[updated Sun Oct 12 14:50:27 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 14:50
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suedo
Undecided is still way up there...
I wonder will they vote?
[updated Sun Oct 12 16:04:48 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 16:04
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suedo
Just curious - how many conservatives hang out here?
[updated Sun Oct 12 16:05:40 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 16:05
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Virginia Peartree
How accurate will the polling be?
The polling firms generally do a pretty good job on election forecasting, Nik especially, but I'm wondering if circumstances and trends now in play might make their task particularly challenging now, leading to surprises on election night. Three things:
First, and most important, there seems to be an extraordinary interest in strategic voting against the Tories. My guess is that someone who supports, for example, the NDP but is contemplating voting Liberal based on a more competitive candidate in their riding would probably tell the pollster they would support the NDP, but end up voting Liberal. For the NDP and Liberals the results would probably wash, although the regional allocation may end up a bit skewed. If there actually were a distortion I would expect the prairie NDP vote to exceed the polls at the expense of the Liberals, but in Ontario the Liberals would gain against the NDP. However, nation wide we would see the Green party getting lower vote totals than projected and the Liberals and NDP would both gain.
Second, increasing cell phone use has got to be making polling more challenging. I have two twenty something nephews, living on their own, and neither has ever had a landline and therefore will never get polled. And both of them will be voting. Maybe it doesn't matter in that the profile of exclusively cell phone users who vote is no different than the general public who vote, but I have my suspicions.
And finally, also related to phones, call display is now almost universal, and it must be making it more challenging for pollsters to get anyone to answer the phone. I know many people who now leave it to their answering machines to deal with phone calls unless they know who is calling. Again, perhaps this doesn't matter if the voting profile of this cohort is the same as the general public's, but I suspect it isn't.
Nik, I would really like to know your thoughts on this.
[updated Sun Oct 12 16:15:36 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 16:15
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This election is no horse race between the Conservatives and the Liberals or NDP, it`s a desparate race for second place, thats for sure.
As a given, most voters are resistant to wholesale government change, but in todays climate of foreboding, the drastic changes Dion and Layton are proposing don't quite add up, even with a calculator.
This perfect economic storm will compel voters to hold pat and dance with the one that brung them at the ballot box.
In light of the impending storm most pragmatic and concerned Canadians have started to batten down the hatches because nobody wants the ship to go down, nobody still breathing air, that is.
[updated Sun Oct 12 21:48:09 EDT 2008]
12 Oct 21:48
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Its nice to see that Canada is waking up after the turkey dinner and realizing that Layton and Dion are nothing but power hungry. Harper is at most dilligant in his platform and hasnt flip flopped like the Liberals. Layton has a platform that will spend us into oblivion. Nice to see the polls not so reactive to the stock market and more to the Parties platforms and leaders.
[updated Mon Oct 13 00:48:48 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 00:48
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I've met Dion twice, below is an exerpt from my letter to a friend:
"Letter to a friend: First hand impressions of Stéphane ~ Substance over style
Hi Joan,
Saw Stéphane and Michael Ignatieff in Stoney Creek again on Saturday Morning (27Sept) - have uploaded the You Tube of Michael's speech.
Unfortunately, Stéphane's speech was too big a file to upload here as we recorded it. CPAC has it, but you'll need to wade through Harper's speech too
http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&lang=e&clipID=1959
Stéphane starts at 23:18 into the program - you might need to copy and paste the link. You can drag the scroll bar to 23:18 to save time (Watch for the press conference after the speech)
They were great speeches - Stéphane raised Income Trusts and that he would fix the mess of Harper & Flaherty's broken promise. He spoke of the need for infrastructure renewal, partnerships with municipalities, child care, seniors issues, manufacturing, the state of the economy, the Liberal record on solving the Federal Deficits, on youth sentencing and civility.
Spoke to Stéphane for about a minute or so, a long time given the press and number of people and timelines.
One, my impression is he is the genuine article, sincere, intelligent, strong and honourable with a firm and viable vision for this country. A person I have no problem supporting.
Second impression, I believe his hearing is far worse than even he believes it to be, for whenever I spoke his eyes would break from mine and he would read my lips before looking back into my eyes to answer. That easily explains his somewhat mangled English - he can't hear tonal inflections. He has a bit of a disability in hearing, tragically, because he really has a great message. A disability that, if he were in a wheelchair, no one would dare to mock him over. And remember, one of the greatest Presidents the US ever had was in a wheel chair (FDR).
Despite his difficulty with the english language, which is improving, his thinking and reasoning on his platform is sound and a lot of non Liberal Economists agree with him. He is the genuine article.
His first focus is on the economy and keeping it strong while harmonizing it with a lower energy consuming, more efficient and sustainable environmental plan.
This plan is far from radical and has been practiced by many Northern European Countries with success. There is so much disinformation planted by Tubby's gang of thugs. But the fact is, he is not reinventing the wheel - it is doable and necessary.
In fact Layton's Cap & Trade is exactly the kind of job destroying plan Dion is opposed to. Layton's soaking the Corps Tax plans - my god, what a disaster to employment that would be.
And what other leader would be so selfless as to share the stage and limelight at a rally with his past leadership rival Michael Ignatieff. And how well Stéphane and Michael work together to not upstage or outshine each other - this whole thing is a class act.
Michael's speech being shorter is on my You Tube tonight. It was the second time I met him in a week. Amazing person.
Had great conversations with Paddy Torsney (Burlington), former Mayor Larry Di Ianni (Hamilton East / Stoney Creek) and Tyler Banham (Hamilton Mtn) as well.
Touching story about Paddy that June witnessed: A developmentally challenged young man wanted June to take his picture with Stéphane as he was walking back from the press scrum on Saturday. June was already filming and was trying to figure out how to accommodate the request. Paddy, just ahead of Stéphane saw the situation and quickly interpreted it. Paddy looked at June, smiled, then took the camera from the disabled young man, pulled him beside Stéphane who stopped and put his arm around him and she stated clicking. What a sweetheart you have for a candidate in Paddy Torsney.
And what a great guy Stéphane was - he then spoke to him for a bit even though his timelines were so compressed by that time and his handlers were urging him on. And no, it was no cynical photo op - the press had moved to another location to catch his exit.
As I said before, he's the real thing.
ATB
John"
[updated Mon Oct 13 03:58:03 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 03:58
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United Front - Ridiculous
To those who feel the non Conservative Parties should unite, particularly the Liberals & NDP the following points for your considerations:
From the Globe Comments: "Shades of Grey from Whitehorse, Canada writes: For those posters calling for the left to unite, the liberals of the recent past and the NDP have nothing in common. The Liberals have been (not so sure about Dion) the party of the centre, one of fiscal conservatism and social progressiveness. Layton is too busy making promises to think about where the money will come from."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Comment:
Exactly the point - I don't see where the Liberals and NDP have a commonality. One is centre as you say, one is left, quite far left actually.
If one really wants Harper - vote for him
If one wants a centrist party with an excellent front bench - Vote Liberal
If one really wants a Tax & Spend socialist party without a single economist on their bench - vote NDP
If one wants the Greens - why vote Green ? Vote Liberal (who are fiscally moderate and socially progressive with much of what the Greens want for the environment)
.
[updated Mon Oct 13 05:25:49 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 05:25
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Canadians voters are apathetic and voter turnout will not grow, in fact it will be same or less than 2006. Less than 65% will mean trouble for the Liberal Party.
What does that mean? What are the big changes from 2006?
Assuming Nanos is as accurate again.
The gap is the same with 6% lead for the CPC.
The trend is up in the last week of the campaign by the CPC increasing in their support.
Compared to 2006
The CPC party is down 3% in popular vote.
The Liberal party is down 3% in popular vote
The NDP party is up in popular vote 5%
The Green party is up in popular 5%.
The Bloc is the same at 10% in Quebec.
The battleground ridings 45-70 where splits were close 2 way or 3 way races might yield some very interesting swings.
Each party that fails to energize its machine and bring out their base will have a very big problem.
The NDP with the best machine in getting support out has the biggest gain in support so they stand to make Tuesday very interesting in seat gains. (Ekos Polls support that)
Under Dion the once mighty liberal machine is again in "saving the furniture" mode and stand to lose the biggest number of seats.
The CPC have planned this next campaign for a long time and stand to gain some seats in close races in Ontario at the expense of Quebec.
http://www.ekoselection.com/index.php/2008/10/daily-tracking-october-10-2008/
[updated Mon Oct 13 08:33:12 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 08:33
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On McCain's Negative Tone
http://www.theseventen.com/
I find the article very informative and reminds me of the Liberal Campaign. Agreed?
[updated Mon Oct 13 12:25:59 EDT 2008]
13 Oct 12:25
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