BC NDP voters stayed home: exit polls

Negative ads had a huge effect: Ipsos-Reid E-Day poll.

from Ipsos-Reid

The reality is that one in 10 (11 percent) BC voters decided in the voting booth on election day to mark their ballot for their candidate — and with one of the lowest turnouts in provincial voting ever (52 percent) it was motivated voters, Liberals, who bested the NDP in the voting booth.

The long and the short of it was that NDP voters did not get out and fulfill their promise to vote for the party of their choice — they stayed home while Liberal voters showed up. As such, a small number of voters were able to influence the greater outcome.

In fact, nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of voters said they decided who they were going to vote for in the last week of the campaign. So the trend had continued from the week previously and these late deciders chose to vote BC Liberal by a 7 point margin over the NDP (41 percent BC Lib vs 34 percent NDP).

The BC Liberals also led by substantial margins among the 12 percent of voters who decided in the middle of the campaign (58 percent BC Lib vs 25 percent NDP) and the 16 percent of voters who decided early in the campaign (49 percent BC Lib vs 36 percent NDP). The NDP only had an advantage among the 47 percent of voters who decided before the campaign actually began (50 percent NDP vs 43 percent BC Lib).

It’s clear that the negative-advertising campaign of the Liberals waged against the NDP had a slaughtering effect. If ever there was a case to behold that negative advertising campaigns work, it is here where the Liberals were able to take the NDP lead at the outset of the campaign of 20+ points in some of the polls and put it in the hole. The following show the changes in what happened in the final days of the campaign:

In the exit poll, voters told us which issues (from a battery of 18) were important to them in their vote decision. The top issues influencing vote decisions were as follows:

• Open and honest government (71 percent rated as "very important")

• The BC economy (65 percent rated as "very important")

• Health care (60 percent rated as "very important")

• Trust in a particular leader/party (58 percent rated as "very important")

• Government spending (56 percent rated as "very important")

• Leadership (56 percent rated as "very important")

On this – as key motivators to get out the vote – the BC Liberals won big among voters who rated the economy and government spending as “very important”.

• Economy voters chose the Liberals by a 24-point margin over the NDP (56 percent BC Lib vs. 32 percent NDP), which is an improvement from a May 6-8 survey that had the Liberals ahead by 7 points on this issue.

• Government spending voters chose the Liberals by a 20-point margin over the NDP (53 percent BC Lib vs. 33 percent NDP), which is an improvement from a May 6-8 survey that had the Liberals ahead by only 2 points on this issue.

The BC Liberals also won with voters who rated leadership as “very important.”

• Leadership voters chose the Liberals by a 9-point margin over the NDP (48 percent BC Lib vs. 39 percent NDP). This is a reversal from our pre-election survey when Christy Clark trailed Adrian Dix by 13 points as best premier. It also differs from our May 13 survey that had Adrian Dix ahead by a single point.

On health care, the BC Liberals managed to cut the gap to the NDP.

• Health care voters chose the NDP by a 12-point margin over the BC Liberals (49 percent NDP vs. 37 percent BC Lib), which is an improvement from a May 6-8 survey that had the Liberals behind by 18 points on this issue.

And trust, pushed as an issue by the NDP throughout the campaign, barely registered as a differentiator between the two parties.

•  Trust voters chose the NDP by only a 5-point margin over the BC Liberals (45 percent BC Lib vs. 40 percent NDP).

On open and honest government, the NDP held on to a lead.

•  Open and honest government voters chose the NDP by a 10 point margin over the BC Liberals (47 percent NDP vs. 37 percent BC Lib), mostly unchanged from a May 6-8 survey where they had a 12 point lead.

With the issues, on balance, being won by the Liberals in the late stages of the campaign compared to what they were at the outset of the campaign, the desire for change dwindled as “very important” to only 40 percent of voters. Stalwarts in the NDP voter camp embraced the change message (76 percent) by a wide margin over other parties, but because it did not translate amongst other voters the issue of change as a motivator essentially evaporated. In this case, it’s obvious that Liberal voters were more motivated to stop change rather than NDP voters, who, in smaller numbers, wanted change.

Further, the current mood of the province is now much more positive than negative and this translated into votes for the BC Liberals: half of BC voters (51 percent) felt that BC overall is currently on the right track, as compared to 32 percent who felt that the province is on the wrong track.

Voters who thought the province is on the right track voted overwhelmingly for the BC Liberals (74 percent voted BC Lib). Wrong track voters went almost as strongly for the NDP (71 percent voted NDP), but there just weren’t enough wrong track voters for the NDP to win.

The Election Day survey…

Ipsos Reid surveyed a representative sample of 1,400 actual voters on Election Day. Vote choice among this sample almost exactly matched the actual election result for popular vote.

Comparing the results of our Election Day poll conducted with real voters to our pre-election poll conducted with a representative sample of all British Columbians (voters and non-voters) on May 13, 2013, the Liberals increased support across both genders and all age groups:

By gender – The BC Liberals improved among both men and women, and almost beat the NDP among women on Election Day.

• Among men, the Liberals improved by a net 15 points (from a 2 point deficit to the NDP in our pre election poll, to a 13 point advantage in our election poll).

• Among women, the Liberals improved by a net 11 points (from a 14 point deficit to the NDP in our pre election poll, to a 3 point deficit in our election poll).

By age – The Liberals improved across all age groups, including turning a deficit into a lead among 35-54 year olds and increasing their lead among the all important 55+ age segment.

• Among 18-34 year olds, the Liberals improved by a net 12 points (from an 18 point deficit to the NDP in our pre election poll, to a 6 point deficit in our election poll).

• Among 35-54 year olds, the Liberals improved by a net 14 points (from a 9 point deficit to the NDP in our pre election poll, to a 5 point advantage in our election poll).

• Among 55+ year olds, the Liberals improved by a net 7 points (from a 2 point advantage to the NDP in our pre election poll, to a 9 point advantage in our election poll).

Conclusion…

The analysis shows that the Liberals had created enough momentum in the final days of the campaign for voters to put them over the top. It also speaks to the campaign run by the NDP and is a lesson clearly for others that campaigns matter, negative advertising can have a huge impact, and motivating voters right down to the wire can have a huge influence.

So let’s talk about the polls.

After an event like this – which in Canadian politics has been few and far between – there are lots of people who say that the “polls got it wrong” when in fact it’s voters who upset their own applecart based on everything they’ve seen, read or heard.

But that’s not good enough.

Over the last number of years, Ipsos Reid – Canada’s largest market research and polling company with over 1000 employees in over $200 million worth of business in Canada, that is part of Ipsos which is made up of 16,500 employees worldwide earning $2.6 billion in market research every year and conducting election polling in countries around the world ranging from Nigeria to the United States and from Italy to Brazil – has been pushing for greater transparency by polling companies and the education of the media and pundits who use polls to try and understand what is happening during an election and otherwise.

In this regard, our last poll should have had more attention paid to those who intend to get out and vote as opposed to just those who issued a voter preference. This was a hand-to-hand combat campaign and it deserved close scrutiny to the final ballot – and that’s why we did what we did by doing this special poll but because of the rules we couldn’t release it.

Source

© Copyright 2013 Ipsos-Reid, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca