Palliser. Tight Race: Incumbent Proctor Threatened by Conservative Strengths and NDP Weaknesses

Transcription

1 Palliser Tight Race: Incumbent Proctor Threatened by Conservative Strengths and NDP Weaknesses COMPAS Inc. Public Opinion and Customer Research June 9, 2004

2 Conservative Batters in Position to Oust Incumbent Proctor Because of the Locally Weak NDP Brand The NDP may lose its current rural Saskatchewan House of Commons seat of Palliser in the upcoming election despite the NDP s growing support nationally, according to a COMPAS riding poll (N=300) conducted for the National Post, Global Television, and Leader-Post. Conservative candidate Dave Batters, with 40% of the decided vote, may edge out incumbent New Democrat MP Dick Proctor, who has 35% of the vote, as shown in table 1. Liberal Candidate John Williams trails with 23% of the decided vote. With a margin of error of 5.8 percentage points, Batters victory over Proctor is suggestive, not certain. Table 1: Vote Intentions, DNKs Excluded In your present thinking, will you vote for [ROTATE IF UNDECIDED/REFUSED TO ANSWERS] Whom are you then leaning to? [PROMPT ONLY IF NECESSARY SAME ROTATION AS ABOVE] ALL David Batters, the Conservative candidate 40 Dick Proctor, the NDP candidate 35 John Williams, the Liberal candidate 23 Brian Rands, the Green candidate 1 Other Party 1 Would not vote (excl. from calc.)* DNK/ Undecided/ Refused (excl. from calc.)** *Percent Would not vote excluded from final percent calculation **Percent DNK/ Undecided/ Refused excluded from final percent calculation

3 Batters appears to be gaining support in Palliser because of the inherently conservative-leaning nature of the riding. If voters made their decision based on parties alone without any consideration of the individual candidates, the Conservative Party would win the seat with a 10- percentage point margin, as shown in table 2. When asked how they would vote in a hypothetical election involving candidates they knew nothing about, 38% of Palliser residents say they would vote Conservative, 28% NDP, and an unknown Liberal candidate would garner 30% of the hypothetical vote. The Conservative party s rising fortunes in the riding are reflected in widespread pro-conservative observations made by respondents, for example: I like the party platform of the Conservative Party and am pretty much satisfied with what they stand for. I like the ideas of conservative party. The Conservative Party platform is better. Paralleling a strong and rising support for the Conservative party in the riding is evidence of local weakness for the NDP brand. As shown in table 2, the NDP vote drops 7 percentage points (from 35% to 28%) with an unknown candidate. Furthermore,, both federal NDP leader Jack Layton and Saskatchewan NDP Premier Lorne Calvert garner astonishingly low performance scores from Palliser voters, as shown in table 3. On a 100- point school-type report card scale, Layton earns a score of 45% and Calvert 47%. These failing grades are among the lowest performance scores in COMPAS large database of such results. The bottom line is that the strong incumbent MP, Dick Proctor, faces the challenges of sailing against the wind of rising Conservative fortunes in a boat that is experiencing some leakage as a result of voters generalized misgivings about the NDP, whether federal or provincial. Proctor is doing as well as he is does because of his success in assembling a coalition of voters from all parties, but especially with Liberals topping up his NDP core. 3

4 Table 2: Pure Hypothetical Party Vote by Actual Intended Vote (Vertical %) Let s imagine for a moment that all of the current candidates in your particular riding resigned and pulled out of the election for personal, family, or health reasons. Let s suppose that the [ROTATE] Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Green parties all nominated new candidates whom you knew nothing about. In this hypothetical situation, which party would you vote for? [PROMPT ONLY IF NECESSARY] The Conservative candidate The Liberal candidate The NDP candidate The Green candidate Other Party ALL WILLIAMS LIBERAL BATTERS CONSERVATIVE PROCTOR NDP RANDS GREEN OTHER UNDECIDED/ DNK/REF Would not vote (excl. from calc.)* DNK/ Undecided/ Refused (excl. from calc.)** *Percent Would not vote excluded from final percent calculation **Percent DNK/ Undecided/ Refused excluded from final percent calculation 4

5 Table 3: Leader Performance On a 100 point performance scale, what score would you give [ROTATE] Federal NDP leader Jack Layton Provincial Premier Lorne Calvert MEAN WILLIAMS LIBERAL BATTERS CONSERVATIVE PROCTOR NDP RANDS GREEN OTHER UNDECIDED/ DNK/REF Proctor is able to retain NDP supporters despite a tarnished brand partly because of his local personal appeal. National party leaders (mean 5.2) and national parties (mean 5.1) are perceived to be more important to Palliser voters than the local riding candidates (mean 4.8), as shown in table 4. This pattern holds true for all voters with the exception of Proctor NDP voters, who perceive the local candidates to be the most important (mean 5.2) deciding factor. Table 4: Importance of Leaders, Parties, and Candidates as Stated Drivers of the Vote Using a 7 point scale where 7 means very important and 1, the opposite, please tell me the importance of each of the following when deciding how you ll vote [ROTATE] MEA N DNK The national party leaders Overall

6 MEA DNK N Williams Liberal Voters Batters Conservative Voters Proctor NDP Voters Rands Green Party Voters Other Party Voters Undecided/ DNK/ REF The national parties Overall Williams Liberal Voters Batters Conservative Voters Proctor NDP Voters Rands Green Party Voters Other Party Voters Undecided/ DNK/ REF The local candidates in your riding Overall Williams Liberal Voters Batters Conservative Voters Proctor NDP Voters Rands Green Party Voters Other Party Voters Undecided/ DNK/ REF The strong Proctor candidacy resembles other strong candidates across the country, for example former NDP leader Ed Broadbent in Ottawa Centre. In general, some candidates outperform their parties while others earn less voter support than their party could normally expect. A combined Appendix for all 12 ridings studies, containing COMPAS' proprietary electability-traction index scores for each significant candidate in every riding, is provided as a separate, stand-alone document. 6

7 Conservative Party Successful at Capturing Anti- Liberal Voters; NDP Generates Support with Healthcare and Pro-NDP Sentiments Voters who are decidedly anti-liberal appear to be migrating towards the Conservative Party. Conservative partisans volunteer anti-liberal sentiments (21%) as the top factor in how they will vote, followed by leaders or leadership in general/integrity (15%), as shown in table 5. Integrity is often another way in which Conservative voters express their anti-liberal animus. This Liberal antipathy is reflected in the following statements volunteered by respondents: The Liberal b---s---t is the factor that most affects my vote, specifically their scandals and arrogance (sic). I have had enough of Liberal Party and they screwed up. I want a change, and that is why I am voting for the Conservatives. I think we need a change in Government because we need some new blood and some new ideas on spending. I want the Liberals out of power. I am sick of the Liberals. New Democrat partisans volunteer health (22%) and party loyalties (13%) as the factors that most influence their vote. The importance of healthcare in affecting voter choice is reflected in the following statements made by respondents: It is important for healthcare to be there when we need it, we have a good system and we should keep it that way. The Liberal government seems to promise one thing and not deliver it. They took all the money out health care and now they are promising to put it all back. I do not really trust them anymore. Health issues need to be dealt with, particularly the cutback of services. 7

8 The Healthcare issue affects how I vote with regards to all of the cuts. There should be no cuts to Healthcare. Table 5: Unprompted, Volunteered Vote Drivers Ballot Issues Thinking of how you re likely to vote, please tell me what factor most affects how you ll probably vote? [USE STANDARD CLASSIFICATION SCHEME FOR ISSUES] ALL WILLIAMS LIBERAL BATTERS CONSERVATIVE PROCTOR NDP RANDS GREEN OTHER UNDECIDED/ DNK/REF Health Leaders or leadership in general, Integrity Miscellaneous party policies Taxes and economy Depends on local candidates and local platforms Gay, women s and other rights; social issues Adscam, Liberal government corruption Environment Foreign policy and defence Education in general--improve or protect public education Pro-Liberal Anti-Liberal

9 ALL WILLIAMS LIBERAL BATTERS CONSERVATIVE PROCTOR NDP RANDS GREEN OTHER UNDECIDED/ DNK/REF Pro-NDP Pro-Tory Anti-Tory Pro-Alliance, Pro-Reform * Martin-like Martin-dislike * Layton-like * Other DNK/Refused Demographic Communities Vote Does not Appear to Be Affected by Demographic Characteristics Party support does not seem to be affected by demographic characteristics. The one possible exception is the support of the NDP among young voters. Voters under 30 appear more inclined to support the NDP than either the Conservatives or the Liberals. Methodology A representative sample of N=300 residents entitled to vote in the coming election were interviewed by professional interviewers using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) technology. Interviews were conducted from June 5-7, Samples of this size are deemed 9

10 accurate to within 5.8 percentage pointes, 19 times out of 20. The principal investigator on this study was Dr. Conrad Winn ( ). 10