New Ontario provincial poll

Source for blog post:
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=a2d2efab-7cdc-40b4-9ffd-166ae1ef2b16&k=4761


A new poll out by Ipsos-Reid shows the McGuinty Liberals 4 points ahead of the Tories – 41% to 37%. The pollster and/or media were spinning this result as bad news for the Liberals. But this spinning ignores the fact that the Liberals are actually up 3 points from the previous Ipsos-Reid poll. It puts the Tories up 4 points. But more good news that the spinning fails to mention is that both the NDP and Green Party are down from the previous Ipsos-Reid poll. This is obviously good news for the Liberals. What’s more, in my opinion I think this poll is actually good news for the Liberals. For the last several months, the Ontario government has been under constant Opposition attack over the Ontario Lottery Corporation and over grants to immigrant service groups. Even after all the negative publicity that occurred due to these Opposition attacks, the Liberals are still ahead by 4 points. I think that that is significant. If it weren’t for those attacks, no doubt the Liberals would be ahead by a greater margin. I applied the poll results to the UBC election forecaster. It predicted a narrow Liberal majority government based on the results I entered. In the article I sourced it says that a minority government is a distinct possibility. While that is true that a minority government is very possible, a 41-37 spread in favour of the Liberals could just as easily produce a majority government depending on how the votes in each riding are actually cast, and the UBC election forecaster confirms a majority government is possible with a 41-37 spread in favour of the Liberals.

On a slightly related note, I think pollsters should start polling support for voting yes in the upcoming Ontario referendum on electoral reform. For the record, I plan to vote no in the referendum. Sometime soon I will make a blog explaining why I am against the proposed electoral reform.

Meanwhile, us Ontario Liberals have to continue to fight to get re-elected with a majority in October, 2007.