2017 Nova Scotia election (May 30)

[DL]

Race is tightning

Liberal: 40%
Tory: 32%
NDP: 25%

Already changed too!

Liberal: 37% (-3)
Tory: 32% (-)
NDP: 27% (+2)

Two questions:

When is the leaders debate?
At what point does the popular vote spread start to make a minority government a serious possibility?

[DL]

Halifax Armdale
This riding is an almost perfectly even split of middle class comfort and lower class poverty. Liberal Lena Diab won last time and has been prominent as Justice Minister. The NDP haven't generated much momentum yet, I think Diab will win it again.
Lean Liberal

Don't be too sure about that. The NDP is running David Wheeler the former Dean of Management at Dalhousie who is widely regarded as a "star candidate"...also if polls now have the NDP at 27% province-wide, i suspect that 27% is much more concentrated in halifax than in the 2013 election and if that is the case this seat would have to be considered relatively "low hanging fruit" for a resurgent NDP

[DL]

Race is tightning

Liberal: 38%
Tory: 31%
NDP: 28%

Boy the NDP sure has been on a steady upwards trajectory...at 28% they are getting to that tipping point where a lot of seats would fall their way

[DL]

I could see the NDP losing Queens-Shelbourne since there is no incumbent running there and its not "natural territory", but in Chester St. Margarets you have an NDP incumbent who survived the massacre of 2013 so i suspect she may be better placed to be re-elected...ditto with Truro-Bible Hill

[DL]

Today's CRA poll:

Liberal: 42%
Tory: 28%
NDP: 26%

Now it looks like it will be a race for who will be official opposition. Considering that the PC leader has already led his party through an election and has been leader of the opposition for the last four years...I'm surprised that the PCs are this close to falling back into third place behind the NDP led by a neophyte like Burrell

[DL]

A brand new poll by Forum Research suggests it's very close:

Liberals 37%
PCs 35%
NDP 25%

And they have Halifax a three way dead heat!

[DL]

People dismissed Forum as "junk polls" in BC...but their final poll there was almost exactly what the election results were.

Meanwhile CRA today is also suddenly showing the Liberals losing ground:

Libs - 39% (down from 43% just a few days ago)
PC - 31%
NDP - 27%

[DL]

Actually it seems like everyone's riding polls are "junk" these days. Both Mainstreet and did a bunch of riding polls at the every end of the BC election and just about every single one of them was wildly off.

[DL]

Today's CRA tracking poll includes a little bit of post-debate data

Liberals 39
PCs 31
NDP 28 (+1)

Interesting movement on "best premier"... over the last few days Gary Burrell has inched up from 18% to 22% and is now tied with Baillie. That could presage the NDP eclipsing the PCs in the battle for second place.

[DL]

If ,Forum named those two regions "south west" and "north central" you'd get no objection from me

[DL]

The latest numbers from CRA are interesting:

Since this poll is a 5-day roll, it was a bit odd for the NDP to drop from 28% to 24% yesterday - especially when there was no corresponding change on "best premier"...but yesterday's poll covered May 15-19 which suggests that May 14 that was dropped was likely a very good day for the NDP and that May 19 was a very bad day...today's poll is from field work conducted May 16-20 and it has the Liberals down 2 points back to 40% and the PCs and NDP each picking up a point to 32% and 25% respectively.

What I find interesting is what's happening in the "best premier" numbers which can be a leading indicator for vote intention and which are now based on a field period that is about half before and half after the leader's debate on Thursday night. Keep in mind that all party leaders are lower on this measure than their parties are on vote intention because CRA doesn't allocate "undecided" the way they do with the vote question. MacNeil has drifted down to 30%, Burrill has continued his upwards climb to 23% (he was 17% as recently as a week ago) and Baillie is at a relatively low of 21%.

This suggests to me that Gary Burrill of the NDP did very well for himself in the leaders debate and that Baillie of the PCs is drifting down.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/nsvotes/1466845-daily-poll-may-22-burrill-pulls-ahead-of-baillie-in-personal-popularity-both-still-b

[DL]

Possibly, but to looking at the graph, it just looks like bouncing around the margin of error for the past couple of weeks to my eyes.

You can say that for the party support numbers, but on "best Premier" chart, Burrill has been on a pretty clear upwards trajectory

[DL]

Mainstreet has a new poll out

Nova Scotia
Liberal: 37%
Tory: 34%
NDP: 25%

Halifax CMA
Liberal: 40%
Tory: 28%
NDP: 26%

Cape Breton CMA
Liberal: 43%
NDP: 28%
Tory: 24%

Rest of NS
Tory: 42%
Liberal: 33%
NDP: 23%

I'm inclined to trust CRA more than Mainstreet (i.e. there's no way the Greens are going to get 5% in Cape Breton), but this could make things interesting if its true.

Though FWIW this Mainstreet poll is eerily similar to the Forum poll last week that was also done by IVR and the Mainstreet poll is entirely data collected May 22-23, while the CRA poll has a smaller sample size and is over a longer 5 day period. Not saying what is better just that it is different