Well, At Least Dion Needn’t Worry About Excessive Expectations

[OTTAWA – October 1, 2008] – A miniscule 5% of Canadians expect Stéphane Dion to be the winner in the leaders’ debates tonight and tomorrow evening. Dion has said in the past that he loves being underestimated, and he certainly doesn’t need to worry about high expectations going into these debates, which mark the turn into the home stretch of the election campaign.

Sixty-two per cent of Canadians say that they intend to tune in when the leaders go at it – tonight in French and tomorrow evening in English.

The likely winners? Stephen Harper and Jack Layton are in a dead heat, with 30% of Canadians rating each of them as the likely winner. In most of the country, Harper and Layton are seen as the joint frontrunners, though interestingly, in British Columbia, where the two parties are locked in a fearsome battle, Layton is given the early edge.

Despite the media build-up to her appearance, only 11% of Canadians say Elizabeth May will be the likely winner. She still outstrips Dion. Even Gilles Duceppe, at 9% nationally – largely on the strength of expectations in Quebec – does better than the Liberal leader.

In fact, Dion fails to beat out either “nobody” or “don’t know”, as the favourite to win.

“Dion has such stunningly low expectations coming into this debate that he is almost bound to exceed them,” said EKOS President Frank Graves. “That may create an opportunity for him. There are nonetheless dangers for him in the debate as well. Some people who had been sitting on the bench until recently have started to drift back into the Liberal camp in recent days. A weak performance by Dion could send them skittering away again.”

Well over half of Canadians – 58% — say that they consider the debates important in helping them to make up their mind how to vote on October 14.

Detailed Tables:

Intention to Watch the Debates

Q. Are you planning on watching the debates?

Intention to Watch the Debates

Q. Are you planning on watching the debates?

Importance of the Debates

Q. How important will the leaders’ performance in the debates be in your decision of who to vote for on October 14?

Importance of the Debates – Election 2004 vs. 2008

Importance of Debates

Q. How important will the leaders’ performance in the debates be in your decision of who to vote for on October 14?

Expectations for the Leaders in the Debates

Q. Leaving aside which party you are considering voting for, which leader do you expect to have the best performance in the leader’s debates?

Expectations for the Leaders in the Debates

Q. Leaving aside which party you are considering voting for, which leader do you expect to have the best performance in the leader’s debates?

Methodology:

Today’s poll was conducted using EKOS’ unique hybrid internet-telephone research panel, Probit©. This panel is randomly recruited from the general population, meaning that, the only way to be included in Probit© is through random selection. Unlike opt-in internet-only research panels, Probit© supports confidence intervals and error testing.

The field dates for this survey are September 29 to October 1, 2008. In total, a random sample of 1496 Canadians aged 18 and over responded to the survey. A sample of this size provides a margin of error of /- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as regions).

All the data were statistically weighted to ensure the samples composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.

Posted on October 1st, 2008 under Election Issues • RSS 2.0 feed