News yesterday that a leaked copy of high-profile Alberta pollster Janet Brown’s latest poll suggesting Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party may be on the road to a relatively easy victory in Calgary (and therefore Alberta) was about as welcome in NDP circles as the proverbial skunk at a garden party.
Ms. Brown is a respected pollster with a traditional and persistent telephone-based approach to collecting voter opinions and a unique model for crunching the data they provide that has a history giving her the right answers about who is going to win elections.
With rumours that her company, Janet Brown Opinion Research, was in the field last week, NDP strategists riding the wave of a positive new poll from another respected opinion research company, Abacus Data, were naturally hoping for something that would back up those numbers and the positive results they’ve been getting from their own polling.
Everyone understands that that a positive poll or even better several positive polls shortly before an election helps set a narrative that impacts voter behaviour, that can keep the supporters of one party at home and energize those of another.
But when a copy of the confidential poll done for Ms. Brown’s Wild Ride opinion research clients showed up in Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid’s email in-box only 35 minutes after she’d pressed the send button, it wasn’t just the NDP’s strategists who were unhappy.
Ms. Brown was furious – this isn’t the first time one of her Wild Ride polls has been leaked by someone connected to the UCP. “It’s not my intention to give the NDP a heart attack,” she told me yesterday. “I’m as nervous as everyone. These numbers don’t add up for me either.”
“I would have preferred to spend more time to understand them, because it is not an expected result,” she said. But this is what the methodology she uses told her, she added, and it’s been right for her before.
Some UCP operatives in the government’s election war room couldn’t have been all that pleased either. After all, in a tight race like this one, having their supporters think they might be in a weaker position than they in fact are in Calgary’s crucial ridings could have given them a covert edge when it came to the struggle to get out the vote. Judging from the way the UCP reacted to the Abacus poll, their own internal polling is more like the NDP’s than Ms. Brown’s.
They presumably understand that being the underdog isn’t always the disadvantage it might appear at first blush, and that added motivation may have now passed back to the NDP in what is sure according to everyone’s polling to be a tight race in Calgary.
Moreover, the fact that someone in the UCP war room thought this was a good idea, and someone else there didn’t, suggests a level of disunity right at the heart of the UCP campaign.
One way or another, though, this does change the narrative of the last two weeks of the election campaign, and that’s why it was leaked.
Ms. Brown’s results show the UCP winning 56 seats to 31 for the NDP province-wide. As Mr. Braid put it in his column, though, “the real shocker in this poll is the Calgary finding: 51 per cent for the UCP, 39 per cent for the NDP.”
If true, that’s grim for the NDP. It’s also true that some of the data collection for Ms. Brown’s poll, which was in the field from May 1 to May 11, was done before it was widely understood that Ms. Smith thought the 75 per cent of Albertans who got themselves vaccinated against COVID-19 were just like the Germans who voted for Hitler. That could have an impact on the results – or not. This is Alberta, so who knows?
The Brown poll also shows rural Alberta leaning more heavily to the UCP, but even if true that may not matter as much as the Calgary numbers because you only get to elect one MLA per riding no matter how many votes your guy gets.
It’s Calgary that matters in this fight and Ms. Brown’s numbers show Calgary leaning toward the Take-Back-Alberta-dominated UCP. I don’t have to tell regular readers of this blog what a UCP victory big enough to give Ms. Smith a credible claim to an overwhelming mandate would mean. Given what a truly enabled Danielle Smith is likely to do with such a mandate, that should energize her opponents to ensure they make it to the polls on May 29 or before.
UCP supporters who were crying yesterday that the Abacus poll was a set-up to explain the election being stolen by sinister NDP operatives are now crowing that their victory is assured and circulating a conspiracy theory that Ms. Brown’s poll was done for the CBC and suppressed by the network.
Not true, but the speed at which Conservatives can generate self-serving conspiracy theories is a wonder to behold.
Interviewed by Mr. Braid, an unruffled senior NDP strategist Jeremy Nolias coolly laid out the results of the NDP’s polling. They show the NDP leading province-wide by 11 points, he said – 53 per cent to 42 per cent. The party is ahead by 12 points in Calgary, he said, 54 per cent to 42 per cent, and by 34 points here in Edmonton – 65 to 31.
“Janet Brown is a very respected pollster, but this time she’s got it wrong,” Mr. Nolais told Mr. Braid. “Her poll is an outlier.”
Ms. Brown described her poll the same way.
Whatever you thought when you first heard about Ms. Brown’s conclusions, this remains a close race, with ample evidence it could go either way. There is no question though, that the electoral map of Alberta means the road to victory is a steeper path for the NDP than any party with the word conservative in its name.
A few thoughts on Thursday’s leaders’ debate on TV
One thing NDP supporters should not count on is that Ms. Notley will slaughter Ms. Smith in Thursday’s leaders’ debate on CTV and Global News.
Yes, Ms. Notley is a better Parliamentary debater, able to forensically slice and dice her opponents’ arguments with surgical precision.
But televised debates are not about the sort of arguments that win a debate in a legislature or a court of law. They’re about creating a positive impression with voters, often with clever lines and speedy ripostes. And who is going to check the facts … especially if the fact checkers are busy tweeting furiously at each other on social media?
If Parliamentary debating skills won elections, Thomas Mulcair would be prime minister of Canada today.
Ms. Smith is a congenial bullshitter. Nothing she says can be trusted, but it often sounds good. Sad but true, that may be all that’s needed to win a TV debate.
Well yes, as I said before polls sell media. But purely telephone polls, assuming land lines, are in the present time problematic. The reason being the number of people who have dispensed with land lines altogether. The preponderance of people still holding landlines are mostly past age 50, and often are conservative souls. How to compensate for this over-representation I am not sure. But it may not matter either as younger people tend not to vote, but are untraceable having only cell phones. So, the result may not be so startling, other than being possibly overstated in favour of the UPC. But then perhaps not. This is a major piece of what makes present day polling difficult, along with call recipients not wishing to reveal their leanings. So reliability falls downwards. At this point, I would say it is not certain, other than it is going to be a 2 a.m. bun fight on e-day + I am sure. Get your supply of Appies and drinks. I expect a long night. Unless, of course the Calgary campaign truly shifts to one side or the other dramatically.
I don’t think Ms Brown limits her polling to landlines, but from what I understand, she does use real human beings talking to voters, not push-button computer menus or online panels.
Jerry, it may well be that Ms. Brown also accesses cell phone numbers, but given that cell phones have caller display, finding a respondent becomes even more difficult. People are quite reluctant to answe unknown callers – fraud calls etc. I don’t disagree that a human survey taker is superior to automated systems, but to be clear polling samples are now more unreliable in the sense of being more likely to be unrepresentative of a given population, and therefore we are left with erroneous predictions. Even Janet Brown would seem to be suspicious of the voting intention result. But I think we can be suspicious of pretty much all polls, even if they all give similar projections.
I think the issue smith might face in a debate is that she is awful without a script. At the same time though she knows how to appeal to a tv audience which might benefit her in the debate. Notley has to get smith off script if she wants to win the debate which I think is possible.
And right on cue: ala Press Progress ( 2thumbs up)…
“Danielle Smith suggested police officers could face criminal charges for enforcing public health orders ”
….2 weeks before becoming Premier, you know, way back in her previous job.
P&P /CBC today were discussing this, my impression was too many variables given the dates and change of circumstances re: wildfire situation.
re: Tom Mulcair …..you are the first person that I know that agrees with me on that. He was a pleasure to listen to, whether you agreed with him or not, and then listening to PP’S adhoc ,smirky performance today, you wouldn’t know it was the same job .The only reason I watched today was to see if 2 trends were going to continue and PP didn’t fail…
1.PMJT is flying off in his jet again , how dare he go off and do his job??? ( SIGH!!)
2. Michael Chong is being rather ‘restrained ‘ ?? in his support for PP’S theatrics– staying seated, not joining the rowdy caucus clap, hmmm, I wonder why ? If one had a picture of the look on his face, whenever PP gets up, one could get some very interesting thought bubbles .
my impression has been Chong is not a fan of PPs and right now PP is using Chong to advance his own agenda, which has nothing to do with Chong. PP is carrying on like a banchee and he might be best to shut up.
Well just in case we thought things were not eventful and not exciting enough, we now have decidely contradictory duelling polls! And not just slightly different numbers, but numbers that probably mean the opposite election outcome.
I suppose logically there are three likely outcomes: Brown is right, the other polls are right, or somewhere in between. While I hesitate to put money on this, my hunch leans to somewhere in between. The actual results could be closer than anyone wants.
As much as I understand Brown’s methodology and appreciate her rigorousness, I do feel the environment in which it generally leads to the most accurate result has likely changed somewhat recently.
I suspect the next while may also continue to be an interesting roller coaster of various poll results, some of which will continue to be contradictory. So, as is sometimes the case, we may need to wait for the actual results to resolve our uncertainty and suspense.
As for the debate, I hope Notley will be more of a Layton than a Mulcair. Regarding Smith, I feel she can’t have it both ways – both saying outrageous things and trying to appear reasonable.
As has been suggested by those more knowledgeable than I am, politics in Alberta is largely tribal. Anecdotally, it seems to me that, if a political party in Alberta has the word “conservative” in its name, it is more likely to be elected to the government here than a party that does not.
As an aside, Duane Bratt of MRU seems to be concerned that many Albertans do not know what they are actually choosing when the voting for in the UCP as they don’t understand the significant influence of Take Back Alberta on the UCP. David Parker, founder of the third party advertiser take Back Alberta, boasts that he has been successful in having Andrew Scheer, Erin O’Toole and Jason Kenney ousted as leaders of their respective political parties. Accurate or not, it’s a scary thought that anyone even thinks that he has such influence, let alone the ability to actually accomplish this. .
Aw gawd David, I hope this poll is wrong!
Polls in the short election period should be illegal to be made public because of the chaos they create as have well described in the article. It should be treated as confidential information with heavy fines and maybe jail terms to the “leaker”. This just adds to the mistrust of the voting system.
This might be the best thing to happen to the NDP. In 2016 complacency reigned supreme because every “reliable” poll said Donald Trump had no chance whatsoever.
If Danielle loses the debate, expect the UCP to delay the vote via an announcement late Friday night. If Notley loses the debate, expect the UCP to win and Notley to step down as leader.
With Smith in power in Alberta and possibly Petit Pierre in Ottawa, expect Canada to be radically reconstituted beyond any Quebec separatist’s wildest dreams.
Sorry.
If Notley loses she did it to herself. In 2015 she praised Lougheed for what he did for Albertans and promised to increase our corporate taxes and royalties back up to the Lougheed levels to get us out of this financial mess. She raised corporate taxes by 2% and it was agreed that due to the international oil industry crash of 2014 increases should be done gradually over a period of time. Instead Albertans bought the Reform Party lies that she was out to financially destroy us and blamed her for increasing our debt to $70 billion and I think Notley should be showing where she spent all this money like on the 55 new schools we know she built. Instead she just seems to be trying to out do Smith with who can spend the most money to buy the most votes and I think it is a huge mistake, what do you think? If Smith is elected you can bet she will see it is an approval rating to privatize our healthcare and education systems and we can’t stop her. The seniors who are blindly supporting her and our young families will be in a horrible mess, and as senior friends keep pointing out they don’t want to become a financial burden to their children ,and we can’t afford anymore Food Banks to help them out, can we?
Alan K. Spiller: I believe Danielle Smith is going to stick her appendage in her mouth, and sink her chances of taking the UCP to victory. She did that as the Wildrose party leader. The Wildrose are no longer a political party.
the citizens get the party they voted for. Sometimes you have to learn to live with that and in some cases you die because of it.
I’m sure there have been any number of American corporations which have been in touch with Smith to see if any hospitals are up for sale and which ones can they buy.
If people vote for Smith and she sells off hospitals, hope that there is never another outbreak of COVID or some such disease. During the covid crisis, there were hospitals in Texas which actually closed. Why? Because they couldn’t do the usual surgeries so they weren’t making enough money and closed.
Alberta has some good things going for itself. However, should health care take a big shift per Smith’s dreams, people might consider moving. Doesn’t matter what you have in life. If you don’t have health care you could die and private health care is all about making money.
Women ought to have a look at the mortality rate in the U.S.A. for babies and their mothers. Some third world countries have better stats.
The more I think about this, the worse it smells. There is something mighty wrong here. A very, very competent pollster and surely very understanding of the impact, had a “leak” of sensitive data from one of her polls? I’m not buying it. There has to be a lot more behind the scenes.
Roger: Ms. Brown sells subscriptions to a service that periodically provides a confidential poll for the use of subscribers. Subscribers agree not to publish or distribute the information outside their organization. I’m not going to comment on her business model other than to say this one obviously brings with it a risk of leaks if the information benefits subscribers. Her company also does polling for other organizations – including the CBC in this election campaign. DJC
Our contingency plan is ready: pack up and leave if Albertans are so stupid to elect a stupid party (again, again, and again).
I wonder how the residents of Calgary are feeling today, with the real-time Air Quality Index currently at 509, thanks to smoke from the forest fires in northern Alberta. It’s better than being surrounded by out-of-control wildfires, or being evacuated like the people of Valleyview, but still. Is the “let ‘er rip” UCP approach to forest fires, reducing wildfire budgets in favor of the same amount spent on the War Room’s annual budget, and playing politics by refusing federal firefighting help for a week really wise these days? The sky in downtown Calgary is orange today. Maybe the politics will be, too, by the end of the month. Fire is in the forecast.
The air quality is getting worse, now registering 525 in diehard UCP southeast Calgary. “Hazardous: everyone make experience more serious health effects.” The icon is a circle with X-eyes and its tongue hanging out. Ignoring climate change and budgeting for ideology instead of forest fires comes at a cost.
https://aqicn.org/map/canada/alberta/calgary-southeast/
How utterly ironic. Those most likely to suffer from smoke inhalation effects – the elderly – are also most likely to vote UCP. Will these voters reconsider their choice as they contemplate long hospital waiting lines in Calgary, and the same at medical clinics, line ups for breathing issues. Will they further remember which government cut the fire fighting budget as they wheeze and gasp for air, whilst looking at a sky with no visible noon day sun. Or as they choke and gasp trying to find a doctor’s appointment at a walk in clinic; will they recollect this government tearing up the AMA payment agreement, thereby creating chaos in an already overwhelmed system. Lake of fire, indeed.
I no longer live in Alberta, and haven’t for over 25 years. Needless to say I am not optimistic about who will win, but still I hope that H.L. Mencken was wrong generally; and that clear thinking on the electorate’s part may end this shambolic government.
In my opinion, it’s just as likely Brown’s poll could scare reasonable Albertans (I know that sounds like an oxymoron) into voting correctly. That means voting for the only woman who is NOT crazy – Rachel Notley.
Similarly, it could demotivate UCP supporters by feel confident that it’s in the bag, so why bother voting at all. In the end the only poll that matters is the actual election.
Polls make me nervous whatever they say, and two weeks is too long to be on tenterhooks about which polls to believe.
But meanwhile Press Progress keeps doing good journalism and today’s report is something to worry about, TBA working to insert scrutineers by hook or by crook.
https://twitter.com/pressprogress/status/1658509085438820353?cxt=HHwWgoC25bvOmoQuAAAA
I don’t know how much damage a bunch of rogue scrutineers can do, maybe just annoy the other scrutineers? Can they affect a vote count?
It seems they could be attempting to disenfranchise people who registered to vote using “commercial” addresses, i.e. renters. This probably comes from the Republican playbook, wherein only white male landowners were allowed to vote in elections after the American Revolution. If they’re coming after non-landowners, what’s to stop them from challenging others: non-whites and non-males?
These people seem to have a lot of pride in proving how bad Alberta is. Today we proved it, too, by having the worst air quality reading in the world, at 539 in southeast Calgary, a UCP stronghold.
Valerie, thanks for the link, with a further link to Susan on the soapbox, who had a very easy readers digest version of Danielle 101…..must read. 2Thumbs up !!
Sorry David but when you wrote Smith is a “congenial bullshitter” was that a typo for congenital?
Martin: Smith is a congenial bullshitter – that is, she tells lies with an engaging smile on her face and sometimes a convincing little chuckle. Is she a congenital liar? I wouldn’t know. She might have been born that way. She might have been raised that way. She might have just stumbled upon it one day and found that it works. I am unclear about the difference between a pathological liar and a congenital liar, but I know a congenial liar when I hear one lying. DJC
Ms. Smith is a professional liar with an affected voice of sincerity to convince the gullible into believing she cares for them, regardless of what she says or does. She also covers her tracks well when in trouble, mastering the use of the red herring. Moreover, she has the right wing media on her side that neutralizes any bad news about her and fear mongers about the NDP.
In regard to the Janet Brown poll, it is not likely an outlier for polling the entire electorate, but more likely a reflection of her sample of a much reduced population of telephone users, a subset of the entire electorate. This subset will have too many who only have landline phones, miss many who only use cell phones, and miss also those who have both but don’t always forward calls going to the landline number to their cell. [Likely in order to avoid sales calls and scammers.]
This is also the case for a survey only of on-line polling, as again this is a subset of the entire population.