PC Delegates Survey Orchard Faction as Socialistic Island in a Semi-Conservative Party Companion to General Public Unite-the-Right Poll

Transcription

1 PC Delegates Survey Faction as Socialistic Island in a Semi-Conservative Party Companion to General Public Unite-the-Right Poll Report to Global TV and National Post COMPAS Inc. Public Opinion and Customer Research June 28, 2003

2 Two Surveys and Two Political Communities The Public vs. the Faction COMPAS undertook two surveys on behalf of Global Television and the National Post in order to gauge attitudes towards the unite-the-right possibilities. Reported in more detail in a companion document, the study of the public concludes that Canadians favour a joint PC-Alliance slate. Voters in general, PC voters from across the country, and PC voters in the seat-rich province of Ontario believe that newly elected Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay should renege on his commitment to leadership hopeful David not to run a single slate of federal candidates in conjunction with the Alliance party. Strong majorities of both Tory and Alliance voters said that they would feel comfortable voting for candidates of the other party if their own party leader gave his blessing. Delegates to the recent PC leadership convention feel somewhat differently. Support for the MacKay- agreement on not running a combined slate outweighs opposition. Support for the MacKay- agreement on reassessing the free trade agreement brought about by Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney also outweighs opposition. On the key question of whether the two apparently rightwing parties should run a common slate, opposition slightly outweighs support. The preceding portrait of Tory convention delegates moderate opposition to a common slate overlays sharp left-right division among the delegates, as discussed below. Details Single Slate Polarization of Enthusiasts Against the Slate vs. Detractors for the Slate Table 1 displays the attitudes of selected categories of PC leadership convention delegates and voters towards the anti-slate provision of the -MacKay deal. MacKay s acceptance of the anti-slate and anti-nafta provisions of the agreement led to back MacKay on the last convention ballot. PC delegates are on balance supportive of the anti-slate provision while voters as a whole, including PC voters, are opposed, as shown in table 1. 1

3 polarizes opinion on the matter. PC delegates respondents were asked to grade on 100 point school report-type scales the performance of Brian Mulroney, George W. Bush, Stephen Harper, Peter MacKay, David, Jack Layton, and Mike Harris. Table 1: [At the recent federal PC Leadership convention, Peter MacKay agreed to a set of demands by third place candidate David to secure s support for MacKay s candidacy.] Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the following aspect of the agreement between Peter MacKay and David David prevented PC Party leader Peter MacKay from forming any arrangement with Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper to run a single candidate against the federal Liberals in the next election.(%) All PC Delegates Delegates: Enthusiasts Delegates: Detractors All Voters PC Voters Alliance Voters SUPPORT Strongly support Somewhat support OPPOSE Somewhat oppose Strongly oppose DNK/Ref For purposes of this analysis, delegates were considered enthusiasts if their score for him exceeded 74% while they were deemed detractors if their score was lower than 26%. About a fourth of respondents fell into each of these categories. In practice, 79% of enthusiasts were his delegates; most of the remainder were MacKay delegates, pleased perhaps that had come over on the last ballot. delegate enthusiasts were almost unanimous (87%) in supporting the prohibition against an Alliance-PC slate while his delegate detractors were even more opposed (61%) to the prohibition than Tory (45%) and Alliance (53%) voters, as shown in table 1. On the ballot question of whether the Tories and Alliance should form a joint slate, Tory and Alliance voters are strongly in favour of doing so, as shown in table 2. PC delegates are split with the larger portion opposed to a joint slate. enthusiasts 2

4 are overwhelmingly opposed while his detractors are strongly favourable to a joint slate. Those delegates who would vote PC or Alliance if an election were held today are virtually deadlocked on the issue while those who would vote for another party are strongly opposed to a slate. That Peter MacKay run candidates in all ridings, even if it means continuing to split the opposition vote and elect Liberals in many ridings. That Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper come up with an arrangement to end vote splitting between their parties so that they can elect an alternative to the Liberals. Table 2: The Ballot Question on Forming a Joint Slate (%) All PC Enthusiasts PC Delegates Detractors Voting Alliance or PC Voting Other Voters All PC Alliance DNK/Ref Polarization over NAFTA Enthusiasts vs. Detractors The polarization over a joint slate that divides delegate enthusiasts from delegate detractors is paralleled by a polarization over whether the party should re-assess NAFTA, as shown in table 3. enthusiasts are virtually unanimous (99%) in backing the provision to re-assess NAFTA while detractors oppose doing so (56%). 3

5 Table 3: David received a commitment that the PC Party would reexamine and possibly reconsider the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA. Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose this aspect of the agreement? All PC Delegates Delegates: Enthusiasts Delegates: Detractors SUPPORT Strongly support Somewhat support OPPOSE Somewhat oppose Strongly oppose Don't know/ref Supporters Socialistic Island in a Semi-Conservative Party David and his followers appear to be a socialistic island in a semiconservative party. Consider the following findings: In response to an initial question of how they would vote if a federal election were held today, 25% of delegates say they would vote NDP (15%), Liberal, Green, or PQ while 16% say that they are undecided; 86% of Tory delegates who would vote NDP were backers; PC delegates who like at all (i.e. grade him 50 or higher on the 100 point school-type report card) approve a great deal of NDP leader Jack Layton, scoring him an average of 61, while disapproving of Brian Mulroney (42/100 score), Mike Harris (41), Stephen Harper (32), and George W. Bush (32) 1 ; enthusiasts (i.e. grade of 75 or higher) are especially favourable towards NDP leader Layton (67) and especially dismissive of all conservatives except MacKay, i.e. MacKay (58), Harris (29), Mulroney (28), Harper (23), and Bush (19); scores are negatively correlated with scores for Harper (-.17), Bush (-.37), Harris (-.40), and especially Mulroney (-.53) 1 Peter Mackay earns a score of 62/100, nominally higher than Layton s 61/100. 4

6 while uncorrelated with those of MacKay 2 and positively correlated with those for NDP leader Layton (+.63); Among PC delegates who would vote other than PC or Alliance if an election were held today, the only two leaders to earn passing grades (i.e. 50+) are (63) and Layton (52); Harris, Harper, Bush, and Mulroney all earn failing grades; Among delegates, only Layton (60) and himself (78) earn passing grades while MacKay scores 49 and Bush, Mulroney, Harris, and Harper secure grades in the range; When the delegates grades for each of the leaders are plotted using factor analysis, support for is virtually indistinguishable from support for Layton while very divergent from the pattern of support for all the remaining conservative leaders, as shown in fig Product-moment correlations, significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 5

7 Fig. 1: Plotting of Grade Scores for the Leaders (Horizontal Access is Left-Right; Vertical Access is Pro-NAFTA vs. Anti-NAFTA) Anti-NAFTA Leftwing Rightwing Pro-NAFTA 6

8 Methodology Interviews with a representative sample of N>400 delegates were completed June 27-28, The findings can be considered accurate to within 4.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20. The principal investigator on this study was Dr. Conrad Winn. 7