BigJonsson
Member
Forum was closest for the last Ontario Provincial election, they had the Liberals winning a majority in the middle of the campaign
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Canadian General Election (OT) - #elxn42: October 19, 2015
- Thread starter matthewwhatever
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eBay Huckster
Member
holy moly that Forum poll
unfortunately it's probably just as much of an outlier as that postmedia poll
So I'm trying to figure out who I should vote for. Not 100% sure how Canada's system works despite living here my whole life. I honestly follow US politics way more than Canada's. Just going by my basic understanding, by voting you aren't necessarily voting for the main 3-5 people (Steven Harper, Trudeau, etc), but instead are voting someone into a seat in Parliament? And the party with the largest amount of seats gets to be the prime minister?
Basically, I want to vote either Liberal or NDP (don't really care which). I don't know which has a better shot of winning in my location though. Are there any recent voting polls for me to get an idea of who I should vote for?
Basically, I want to vote either Liberal or NDP (don't really care which). I don't know which has a better shot of winning in my location though. Are there any recent voting polls for me to get an idea of who I should vote for?
chaobreaker
Member
These are my results.
I voted for NDP in the last election and intend to do it again. This is my little brother and sister's first federal election so I'm trying to make them take the test.
I voted for NDP in the last election and intend to do it again. This is my little brother and sister's first federal election so I'm trying to make them take the test.
Well if you're going by the strategic voting attitude, then it's currently the NDP that are the best bet given they've been surging the past 2 or 3 months. I'd suggest looking at polls like Nanos or 308 (which recent started doing polling for CBC if I recall).
Just always take into account that all this is subject to change in the coming months, even dramatically. Though unlikely, the Liberals could potentially bounce back in polling if they pull the right punches.
EDIT: But seriously, you should likely do more research on the parties yourself.
matthewwhatever
Member
Which riding are you in? There probably aren't any remotely accurate polls for your area yet, but you should find out who the candidates are and what the voting history is.
1) 308 doesn't do polling. Instead, Grenier using the Nate Silver model and does an aggregate poll -- which doesn't work nearly as well in Canada as it does in the US, both because of our different systems and because our pollsters generally aren't that great. The fact Postmedia and Forum can both come up with polls that have the Conservatives and NDP, respectively, in the high 30s and winning by double digits a week apart should show just how much faith you can put in polls at this stage.
2) "Unlikely", eh? We'll see. We just had a provincial election that showed how much can change over the course of a campaign, and this campaign will be twice as long as that. If you don't want to compare provincial trends to federal ones, that just look at the 2011 federal election. At the outset, it was a two-horse race between the Liberals and the Conservatives, and the NDP was barely a blip on the radar in Quebec. We saw where that wound up just a few weeks later. 11+ weeks is a very long time, and I'd don't think you can call anything "unlikely" at this stage.
Anyway...interesting contrast for Day 2 of the election:
Harper in Laval (in front of a carefully-vetted crowd):
Trudeau in Calgary:
And Mulcair in...oh, what's that?
So he's skipping most of the debates -- after NDP supporters have been saying for months what a great debater he is, and how he was going to wipe the floor with Trudeau -- and he's also not actively campaigning. I'd call that a Harper-esque approach of avoiding people, but even Harper is getting out to meet some (carefully chosen) people.
Mulcair bailing on the debates is very disappointing to me. Him not going all out on campaigning yet doesn't really bother me much, though. I expect the NDP plan is (a) to really kick off campaigning after the first debate on the 6th, and (b) to save most of their warchest for the last month unless polls (including their internals) start going south for them before that. It's a valid strategy against the ridiculously long campaign. Likewise, the Liberals coming out swinging when they've been languishing in third for a while also makes sense.
If Mulcair's still being taciturn by the end of August, that's when I think it'd be a bigger problem.
If Mulcair's still being taciturn by the end of August, that's when I think it'd be a bigger problem.
I know making the Conservative candidate lose will make you feel good, but doesn't this sort of strategy increase the likeliness of a split between Liberal and NDP and a Minority Conservative government result?
It seems like the big hope is for a NDP/Liberal coalition, but it seems to me to be awfully risky to hope for that as the solution to Conservative rule, considering that it has never been done and it seems deeply controversial within the Liberal Party. The Liberals propped up the Conservatives from 2008 to 2011. Why wouldn't they do that again? They may see that as the better option when compared to being a junior partner in a coalition run by the NDP.
A more reasonable strategy in my opinion is to simply vote for the opposition party with the strongest chance of winning, which at the moment is the NDP due to their strong nationally wide support.
To win this election the NDP absolutely must hold onto most of their seats in Quebec, so he's got to put in appearances. If Duceppe had not reappeared, maybe we'd have seen Mulcair hand off Quebec to one of his lieutenants, but now he has to treat the situation more seriously.
However the other part of the country where NDP support has shot up a great deal is in BC and here is where a few previously safe Conservative seats may slip away into NDP hands. I am expecting him to be in BC a lot as it will be a major battleground.
Saskachewan is another spot where the NDP could make substantial gains.
t-storm
Member
Like... this is just baffling. He's really doing his best to NOT have his party form government.
Here's the 2011 results of Papineau updated due to the riding redistribution:
Code:
Liberal 17,047 37.93
New Democratic Party 13,625 29.47
Bloc Québécois 11,421 24.89
Conservative 2,314 5.04There's clearly no chance the Conservatives will win, so why not vote NDP here?
Or do you want to keep Trudeau around for some other reason?
Probably saving his pennies for later in the campaign.
More seriously than just being the opposition party with the least amount of support, at the moment Liberal party support is currently so badly distributed that they actually have no possible chance of winning.
Essentially the Liberals are the distant 3rd place competitor in too many places. The Liberal party is not terribly competitive in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec. They badly need the entire situation to change in Quebec otherwise they simply cannot put together enough seats to get out of third place, even if they did fantastic in the areas where they're second.
Obviously anything can change over the campaign as we saw in the previous election, when the NDP surged in Quebec half way through. People must follow the current state of national support very closely.
I only bring these points up to highlight that a poll stating a party has whatever amount of national support could sound like they're pretty close, in the running and could win, but the distribution of that support is crucially important. High support unevenly in all the wrong places will result in a tough loss.
matthewwhatever
Member
I'm certainly not going to complain if he's ceding the first chunk of the campaign to the Liberals. It was terrible strategy when Martin and the Liberals did it back in 2005/6, and it seems just as bad now.
That said, if I remember his leadership campaign correctly, he ran in a somewhat similar way: by acting like the presumptive winner, rather than like he had something to prove.
Agreed about the Liberals, though: if they'd come out any other way, I'd have been enormously annoyed. They have ground to make up, and getting in front of as many people as possible is the best way to do that. They've put in a lot of work towards building up a ground game over the last couple of months, so it would've been a shame to let that go to waste.
Check Elections.ca. You can still mail it in. Whether you'll still be able to vote in five years remains to be seen, but for now, there's nothing stopping you from voting by mail.
Sakura
Member
Considering you clearly don't seem to know much about Canadian politics or how it works at the moment, I strongly suggest reading party platforms and whatnot, and then voting for the party you agree with most.
But yes what you are voting for is the member of parliament running in your riding. You are not voting for Mulcair, Harper, Trudeau, etc (unless of course you live in the riding they are running in). The party with the most seats will form government with the leader of the party being Prime Minister. If they win more than half of the available seats then they form a majority government.
You could go find your riding in previous elections (on wikipedia or elections canada for example) and see how it voted. If it was heavy for one party the last couple elections, it likely will be again.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
There's a two page form you fill out (from Elections Canada) that will register you as an out-of-country elector. You can fax or mail the form. You may want to call to see if you should do this before or after you move.
In terms of riding, you will be put in either your last Canadian address or the address of a relative, your choice.
They will send you a kit with voting information to your out-of-country address.
This will be more effective at killing Harper's chances than any scandal.
On the other hand, his favourite song to perform is Imagine. Which always baffled me. Does he really have no idea at all what it means? I'm not sure any song in history expresses an ideology more diametrically opposed to his.
I can't really fault him for that because most people don't pay attention to the meaning of songs.
dc3k
Member
It's possible he thinks it supports his ideology, the lyrics are vague and don't specify how we are going to get to such a world. Or he knows what it means and knows that it would make him look like a caring person so he says that to make himself look better.
Emperor Bohe
Member
my results:
I will vote for either Liberal or NDP most likely... whoever has a bigger chance of winning in a few months basically
I will vote for either Liberal or NDP most likely... whoever has a bigger chance of winning in a few months basically
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Those are beautiful results.
I'm hoping for some backlash against the early campaign. Completely unnecessary.
Also, it looks like Harper is playing tag team with the Bloc. He says "the NDP MPs of Quebec are the most useless there have been." Useless for what? Opposing his own government? He is parroting the same line as the Bloc.
He blames the recession on China's slowing growth and Europe's debt crisis :lol :lol All Mulcair and Trudeau have to do is get him talking about the state of the economy. The holes dig themselves.
Which is exactly why we won't be seeing him at the debates.
Edit: I can just picture Steven Harper at a parent-teacher meeting.
Teacher: We have to talk about your son. He's failing in math, and the other day he shoved a kid in the toilet.
Harper: The Conservatives have a proven economic track record. We just delivered a billion dollars in tax cuts for families. Justin Trudeau thinks the economy will fix itself. Tom Mulcair will just raise taxes and take your family's money away.
matthewwhatever
Member
Almost nailed it. The only problem?
The Conservatives have apparently decided they'll no longer say Trudeau's last name.
Their pettiness really has no bounds.
Here's the actual polling data for the Forum poll: http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/...lease (2015 08 02) 8430912 Forum Research.pdf
Really pretty interesting. Mulcair's personals are really strong, with only one age demo (late baby boomers) preferring Harper to him. That kind of surprised me, tbh.
Really pretty interesting. Mulcair's personals are really strong, with only one age demo (late baby boomers) preferring Harper to him. That kind of surprised me, tbh.
gutter_trash
Banned
this 2 and half month long campaign is going to benefit Justin.
Mulcair is the better parliamentarian but Trudeau is the better campaigner
2 days in and Justin has been more front and center so far compared to controlled Harper and absent Tom.
Mulcair is the better parliamentarian but Trudeau is the better campaigner
2 days in and Justin has been more front and center so far compared to controlled Harper and absent Tom.
Mulcair has run a lot of wildly successful campaigns, so I don't really see how this reflects reality.
gutter_trash
Banned
what campaigns you speak of? 2011 was all Jack and the NDP has lost almost all bi-elections since
Yeah, I'm sure Mulcair had nothing to do with NDP success in Quebec. You know, being that he was literally their first Quebec member ever.
But seeing as I don't really consider byelections barometers of much at all, and neither have been leaders of a federal party during a federal election yet, I'm going on the campaigns they've *personally* fought. Mulcair has been very successful on the campaign trail no matter how you slice it.
Yes, Mulcair was their top lieutenant in Quebec and was very instrumental in engineering the NDP's gains in Quebec, especially their ground campaign IIRC.
Why a NDP/Liberal coalition will probably never happen in a nutshell:
In many important Liberal ridings voters would be quite happy to elect a Conservative MP. Liberals MPs aren't going to bend their ideology, jeopardize their careers, and livelihood by aligning themselves with the NDP.
In many important Liberal ridings voters would be quite happy to elect a Conservative MP. Liberals MPs aren't going to bend their ideology, jeopardize their careers, and livelihood by aligning themselves with the NDP.
gutter_trash
Banned
you guys on the left think everybody else to the right of you to be an outright Conservatives.
here is the truth about 2nd choices:
http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=6925
While we're trading various polling firms' data, here's ekos'
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/07/midsummer-haze-clouds-voter-outlook/
Liberals wanting Conservatives over Mulcair lead coalition at 26%
NDP wanting Conservatives over Trudeau lead coalition at 17%
Believe who which polls you want want to believe in, but I don't think it's an unusual statement to make that the Liberals carry a bigger right leaning component than the NDP do. The coalition debacle of 2008 seemed much more controversial for the Liberals than it did for NDP, and after Dion was ejected the Liberals supported the Conservatives up until 2011.
EDIT: I'm not attacking the Liberal Party for their beliefs here, I'm just stating that I think there's a much bigger gap between them and the NDP that the electorate seems to believe. The electorate seems to lump them together as two near indistinguishable progressive parties that have much in common (and which should obviously join in a coalition), but I don't think that's true at all, and the data doesn't really back that concept up either.
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2015/07/midsummer-haze-clouds-voter-outlook/
Liberals wanting Conservatives over Mulcair lead coalition at 26%
NDP wanting Conservatives over Trudeau lead coalition at 17%
Believe who which polls you want want to believe in, but I don't think it's an unusual statement to make that the Liberals carry a bigger right leaning component than the NDP do. The coalition debacle of 2008 seemed much more controversial for the Liberals than it did for NDP, and after Dion was ejected the Liberals supported the Conservatives up until 2011.
EDIT: I'm not attacking the Liberal Party for their beliefs here, I'm just stating that I think there's a much bigger gap between them and the NDP that the electorate seems to believe. The electorate seems to lump them together as two near indistinguishable progressive parties that have much in common (and which should obviously join in a coalition), but I don't think that's true at all, and the data doesn't really back that concept up either.
BigJonsson
Member
In a minority situation they could get a lot passed but there would be some big debates between them, but you can manage deal with the issues you don't agree on later on
gutter_trash
Banned
http://www.threehundredeight.com/p/canada.html
threehundredeight updated their riding projections.
Look for yours in here and see what's up
threehundredeight updated their riding projections.
Look for yours in here and see what's up
Wow according to 308, my riding is totally NDP (University-Rosedale in Toronto). Speaking of ridings, I'm pretty sure the government still has my address as being in Vancouver at my parent's house. Since I will be moving around a lot, I don't really want to update my address until I settle down. Unless they somehow send me a voter card at my current address, how do I vote?
matthewwhatever
Member
I think this is accurate. I may dislike Harper and want him out, but if it's at the cost of getting an NDP government led by Mulcair...enh, suddenly I'm a lot more ambivalent about it, because I really loathe Mulcair as well (his little habit of refusing the call the Liberal Party by its name -- instead calling them the "third party" -- pretty much solidifies that he and his party will never get my vote or my support). I don't think I'm alone on that, either -- Kady O'Malley tweeted a few months ago that her perception was that Liberal and NDP supporters disliked each other more than either disliked the Conservatives, and the responses all seemed to support that.
Elections Canada has voting information for students and first-time voters -- that might help?
Ah, that was easy. Just submitted the request. Thanks.
So many GTA suburbs going Conservative.
These are the uninformed middle class twits who Harper has been spending tens of millions of dollars on propaganda towards in the past few years. Listen to any boomer-oriented radio station in the GTA and you would have heard those "just not ready" ads 10 times a day for the past year or so.
Those commercials are so annoying. My riding however is showing that it is very liberal.
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