Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Questions about those Polls

One thing to consider about all those opinion polls floating around are what the pollsters are asking.

For instance, Harris-Decima asks "If a federal election were being held tomorrow, who do you think you would be voting for in your area…the Liberal Party candidate, the Conservative Party
candidate, the NDP Party candidate or the Green Party candidate?"

Fair enough.

But I bet you would get a different result if the same pollster asked the question this way: "If a federal election were being held tomorrow, who do you think you would be voting for in your area ... the Stephane Dion Liberals, the Stephen Harper Conservatives, the Jack Layton NDP or the Elizabeth May Green Party?"

The point is most people don't vote for a party anymore, they vote for a leader and if you tied the leader to the party, it might show the Tories doing better than current polls indicate.

Just a theory.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree. When Canadians get to the polling booth on Tuesday, I have no doubt that the conservatives will win the day, and I'm not ruling out a majority.

Anonymous said...

You're 100% on the mark with your assessment Gerry.

I would also add, that the answer also depends on the questions that are asked just prior the "who you would vote for?".

I know Decima does this type of polling.

Think about it, if you ask something like "Do you agree that Harper should do more for the economy like the Liberal Party has said?" or something along those lines, it must have some affect when you finally get asked "who would you vote for?"

Anonymous said...

Gerry,
All public polling in Canada is cooked by homosexual lobby that controlls that industry.
Their numbers hardly ever match reality.

Anonymous said...

The only poll that really matters, is the one on the 14th of October.Heaven help us if Dion & his 7% tax on everything get in.Between him and Layton, this would be a very sick Canada.

Iain G. Foulds said...

... Of course, the perennial good news is that most of those who say that they will vote Left... don't.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

Perhaps that might change this, but Harper's numbers even on a personal level are dipping. In the case of Nanos, he was closest in the last two elections, so I would take his results based on past record. The reality is although all polling companies use different methodologies, the closer one gets to an election, the firmer one becomes in their intention and it really doesn't matter how the question is phrased. Besides in the last two elections, the Tories performed worse than most polls stated.