[OTTAWA – April 11, 2011] From time to time, EKOS offers seat projections based on its opinion polling. The projections are based on national, regional and, in some cases, sub-regional polling projected onto the results of the last election. They do not pretend to predict individual ridings.
Click here for the full report: seat_projection_april_11_2011
CONSERVATIVE SUPPORTERS MOST COMMITTED
[Ottawa – April 8, 2011] – As the race winds its way to the midpoint, we find the poll numbers have returned to the position we had in our poll released the day before the writ was dropped. The similarity of the top line numbers occlude major shifts which have gone on under the surface. There have been very significant changes in the regional and demographic constituencies for the parties. The basic ballot question which will decide the election also appears to be coming into much clearer relief. What isn’t clear is what the final outcome will… [More...]
A CHECK-UP AND PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION OF OUR TRACKING SYSTEM
[Ottawa – April 6, 2011] – While we are completing the calibration and analysis of our new election tracking system, we thought we would offer up a preliminary picture of how the campaign is evolving. Beginning very early Friday, we will be rolling out the results of our new tracking system with our partners at iPolitcs. There are some interesting findings which we will share today and we want to signal some of the more interesting diagnostic analysis that we are preparing for week end. We are also sharing a specific test… [More...]
[OTTAWA – March 28, 2011] From time to time, EKOS offers seat projections based on its opinion polling. The projections are based on national, regional and, in some cases, sub-regional polling projected onto the results of the last election. They do not pretend to predict individual ridings.
Click here for the full report: seat_projection_april_1_2011
NDP ADVANCES AS WELL
[Ottawa – April 1, 2011] – This week, EKOS is entering into the first phase of our election polling program. We will be publishing surveys at the end of each week based on a roll-up of the previous four days. We will be diverting additional resources to these polls to ensure that we are offering the most rigorous coverage of the campaign. This week’s poll is based on the responses of nearly 3,000 Canadians collected from Monday to Thursday night.
At the conclusion of the first week of the 41st Federal Election campaign, the Conservatives have modestly widened… [More...]
INITIATING AN OPEN-SOURCE APPROACH TO POLLING
By Frank Graves with Jeff Smith
In the same spirit that we offer our public opinion polling, data tables, and methodology as a forum for discussion, this document is offered as a draft and we welcome comments from those interested.
[Ottawa – March 29, 2011] – Recent articles by Joan Bryden, and the responses they have generated, have launched a useful, if mildly overwrought debate about the merits of contemporary polling, with a particular focus on the perils of political polling. There are many useful caveats and lots of points of consensus. Let’s focus on the main… [More...]
COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS BY FRANK GRAVES
[Ottawa – March 28, 2011] – With the election campaign underway, some people are beginning to ask why any of the opposition parties (with the possible exception of the Bloc) would want to go into an election now, given where they were in the polls.
Maybe we should start with the obvious answer which even the most casual viewing of the question period would underline. These guys really and truly do not like each other. This parliament has been pretty dysfunctional, mired more in acrimonious sniping than nation building. There is very little common ground or… [More...]
[OTTAWA – March 28, 2011] From time to time, EKOS offers seat projections based on its opinion polling. The projections are based on national, regional and, in some cases, sub-regional polling projected onto the results of the last election. They do not pretend to predict individual ridings.
Click here for the full report: seat_projection_march_28
[Ottawa – March 25, 2011] – In our final poll before the election campaign begins, the parties stand at, well, pretty much where they were three years ago. While the Liberals and Greens are poised to make some minor gains at the expense of the Conservatives and the NDP, there is little chance that we will see any major changes in the balance of power. At these numbers, the Conservatives will retain their status as a minority government and it is doubtful that the Liberals will gain enough seats to form a legitimate coalition with the NDP, let alone the… [More...]
COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS BY FRANK GRAVES
[Ottawa – March 11, 2011] – If the government manages to avoid an earlier non confidence motion, the budget may well become the frame for an ensuing election, which appears increasingly unavoidable. Obviously, there is a strategic advantage in being able to actively frame your election strategy in the most visible act of Parliament – the federal budget. Add to this the fact that the Government enjoys higher confidence on managing the economy than the opposition and that there has been a modest but significant improvement in outlook on country and the economy going on… [More...]
[OTTAWA – March 14, 2011] From time to time, EKOS offers seat projections based on its opinion polling. The projections are based on national, regional and, in some cases, sub-regional polling projected onto the results of the last election. They do not pretend to predict individual ridings.
Below are the seat projections polling data collected from February 24th to March 8th. As you can see from the above the mere 7-point lead belies a pretty formidable advantage for the Conservative Party. The key is Ontario where the Conservatives would see the rewards of a newfound but fairly stable lead. Even with… [More...]
UNDERSTANDING WHERE VOTERS ARE COMING AND GOING
[Ottawa – March 10, 2011] – Following a brief breakout a month ago, the voter landscape has settled into a pretty stable pattern with the Conservatives enjoying a clear but modest 7.4-point lead over the Liberals. This survey provides some interesting analysis on the question of how stable that lead might be and where voter movements have occurred, and where they are likely to occur in the future. Coupled with an analysis of the underlying demographic and regional patterns, this provides a revealing portrait of the pre-campaign electorate.
The survey data were collected over the… [More...]
COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS BY FRANK GRAVES
[Ottawa – March 3, 2011] – Given the recent public debate, let me begin with what I would have thought would be a pretty obvious caveat. When I comment as a pollster, my preferred role is to interpret direct empirical data. There are, however, numerous situations such as this question about the potential impacts of the in-and-out issue where the pollster is asked to provide insight without direct evidence. Notably, any attempts at prediction will lack direct evidence of the effects. Perhaps this is why Yogi Berra’s caveat about how “prediction is hard, particularly when… [More...]
[Ottawa – February 23, 2011] – In an interesting but not entirely surprising movement, the race has tightened back to the locked in pattern of last year in one fell swoop. The Conservatives have bled nearly five points of support back to 32.4 and the Liberals have moved up more slightly to 27.3. But a 12.5 point lead is now 5.1 points, which is a huge and highly significant shift (well beyond mere “noise”).
Based on 2,811 cases, there has been a whiplash-like reversal to the last poll’s near Conservative majority. Therein may lie the explanation. Not only our poll, but… [More...]
CANADIANS INCREASINGLY CONTENT WITH NATIONAL DIRECTION
[Ottawa – February 11, 2011] – From a Liberal (or indeed NDP) perspective, this poll can be summarised as nasty, brutish, and short. The opposition is losing touch with an increasingly distant Conservative party. The Conservatives have advanced with virtually all groups and now enjoy a 12.5-point lead (the largest since October 2009).
This dramatically different political landscape is a far cry from the statistical tie that existed only last fall. Put another way, the Conservatives have hit a high at 37.3 points that they haven’t seen since October 2009. The Liberals’ miserable 24.8 points is… [More...]
FRANK GRAVES DISCUSSES THE ISSUE OF CORPORATE TAX CUTS
[Ottawa – February 3, 2011] – There has been a lot of debate on the issue of the corporate tax cuts lately. Frankly, I find the government’s approach on this quite puzzling. Putting aside the very mixed economic literature on the benefits/costs of corporate tax cuts as a boon to job creation, the public opinion research is remarkably consistent. Corporate tax cuts, when position against virtually all of the plausible alternatives (e.g. individual tax cuts, investment in health and education, even deficit reduction) consistently emerges as a clear loser in the court… [More...]
COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS BY FRANK GRAVES
[Ottawa – January 31, 2011] – Over the past two weeks, we saw a number of seemingly dramatic political manoeuvres. The Liberals dug into the historical political tool chest and produced a ballot framing around the question of whether you were better of five years ago than today. When Ronald Reagan asked this of Americans some 31 years ago, things were looking downright gloomy in post-Vietnam, recession-weary America. So how would this framing work in contemporary Canada? Just as the Liberals were launching this framing, Canadians were showing rising confidence in the country and its… [More...]
PLATFORMS CITED AS MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN ULTIMATE VOTE DECISION
[Ottawa – January 27, 2011] – The frozen political landscape appears almost totally inert. The Conservatives enjoy a mildly comfortable 7.5 point lead, but everything looks more or less as it did two weeks ago. These results are somewhat better for the Conservatives than in the late fall, but the outcome of an apparently looming election is very much in doubt. The public as forecasters say they lean to a Conservative result of the minority variety.
Of some interest given the pre-campaign positioning of the parties are questions on national and federal… [More...]
7-POINT CPC LEAD BUT DEAD PARITY FOR A COALITION VERSUS HARPER GOVERNMENT
[Ottawa – January 13, 2011] – There may be enough good news for the Conservatives in this poll to take the steel out of the Opposition’s spine when it comes to a spring election. On the surface, it’s a very good poll for Stephen Harper. The seven-point lead is on the cusp of comfortable, still well short of majority territory and below the last election result, but at the upper levels of their tracking over the past year.
Perhaps it has been the absence of the usual sound and fury… [More...]
[Ottawa – December 16, 2010] – In our final poll of 2010, both lead parties have fallen back slightly. The Liberals appear to have fallen further, but none of these changes are of much significance in a log jammed political landscape.
The Conservatives are ending the year at 32.0 points, virtually tied with their 2010 average of 32.2 per cent. Nevertheless, they enjoy a significant but modest lead of 5.5 points over the moribund Liberals who, at 26.5 points, are at their lowest levels of support since July.
The Conservative Party’s lead is largely built on a better performance with men and… [More...]
We launched this website in order to showcase our election research, and our suite of polling technologies including PROBIT© and IVR. We will be updating this site frequently with new polls, analysis and insight into Canadian politics. EKOS's experience, knowledge and sophisticated research designs have contributed positively to many previous elections.
For media inquires, please contact:
Frank Graves
President
EKOS Research Associates
t: 613.235-7215
fgraves@ekos.com