Deveryn Ross — Election is closer than numbers suggest

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/04/2016 (3786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As I write this, a poll conducted earlier this week for Postmedia by Ontario-based polling company Mainstreet Technologies indicates that Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservatives continue to enjoy a huge lead over their rivals with just 17 days until election day.

The poll found that 47 per cent of decided voters would vote for Tory candidates, with the Liberals at 24 per cent, the NDP at 23 per cent and the Green party well back at eight per cent.

Those numbers are largely unchanged from findings by Mainstreet, Probe Research, Forum Research and Insightrix over the past several weeks. What has changed, however, is the support for the Progressive Conservatives in Winnipeg.

Mainstreet found the Tories now have a 13-point lead over the NDP in that crucial battleground (40 per cent to 27 per cent, with the Liberals at 25 per cent), and that the Tories are the second choice of 34 per cent of Liberal voters.

Also as I write this, the CBC’s Eric Grenier, who also operates the threehundredeight.com website, is predicting the Tories will form a majority government with between 32 and 49 of the 57 seats in the legislature. He suggests the NDP will win between three and 17 seats, while the Liberals will win between two and 13.

Grenier also says PC candidate Reg Helwer has a 97 per cent chance of being re-elected in Brandon West, while fellow Tory Len Isleifson has a 94 per cent chance of defeating NDP incumbent Drew Caldwell. Grenier also says Liberal leader Rana Bokhari has a 92 per cent likelihood of winning in her Fort Rouge riding.

Mainstreet is a credible polling company, and Grenier has a long track record of accurately predicting the results of elections throughout Canada. That said, there are a number of reasons why I am skeptical that these numbers and predictions will be the results we see on the night of April 19.

First, I question whether out-of-province polling companies are sufficiently familiar with Manitoba’s demographics, or use appropriate methodologies, to accurately determine voter intention in this province. Recall the 2013 Brandon-Souris byelection, in which Forum claimed Liberal Rolf Dinsdale had a lead of almost 30 points over Conservative Larry Maguire on the eve of the election. Dinsdale ended up losing to Maguire.

Second, I also note that Grenier’s riding predictions rely primarily on polling data obtained by Mainstreet and Forum. If that data is wrong, so are Grenier’s predictions. Third, it is always prudent to wait for the Probe Research numbers, as Probe has a strong track record of accuracy in Manitoba elections.

Finally, and most importantly, I’m not sure voters are really paying attention to the election campaign yet and, though approximately 80 per cent claim they have made up their mind, many of them admit they could still change their mind by election day. There is ample reason to suspect that could in fact happen, in no small part due to what happened to the Liberals this week.

When the autopsy of the 2016 election is written, it may well regard the past five days as the point when the wheels fell off the Liberal campaign. This was the week when party leader Rana Bokhari released an economic plan that didn’t add up and a municipal infrastructure funding scheme that would hurt low-population rural municipalities.

This was also the week when we learned that the Liberals failed to field a full slate of candidates in the election and that the party’s last-minute candidate in Brandon West, Billy Moore, believes Manitobans would be healthier if the province had fewer hospitals. (Incredibly, he now claims it was a publicity stunt. If it was, it has had disastrous consequences.)

None of this week’s Liberal calamities are reflected in the current polling data and seat projections. That fact, combined several important debates scheduled for next week, points to a strong likelihood that the polling data we see today will bear no resemblance to the final numbers. That will have implications for which party wins the election, and which candidates win in Brandon East and Brandon West.

Don’t be fooled by the numbers you see today. They are going to change. This election is far closer than it currently appears.

» Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon. His columns also appear in the Winnipeg Free Press.

» deverynrossletters@gmail.com

» Twitter: @deverynross