Polls and Campaign Strategy

Seat projections are for wankers

In every election, there’s something that makes voters pick one candidate or party over another.

Call it the ballot box question or what drives a vote.

Literally the only thing worth noticing in the MQO marketing poll released to current and prospective clients within the last 24 hours is the question about what people are most concerned about.*

Now lay that down beside the party campaign strategies.

Liberals started out the campaign with one topic: the MOU with Quebec. Only 6% of voters are concerned about that according to MQO.

Pea Seas have been talking consistently since the start about health care, jobs and affordability, and safety. MQO says the top issue for voters is health care (29%), while cost of living, jobs, and the economy combined are at top issues for 38% of prospective voters.

Now look at campaign execution. Liberals had to pivot like Ross, Chandler, and Rachel with a couch on the stairs aftet the first week when the Pea Seas refused to be baited into talking about the MOU. The Pea Seas hammered away consistently, on their themes that lined up perfectly with what voters are concerned about.

Tony Wakeham had good responses to media questions so that he looks as well-organized and credible as his party’s campaign. Liberals have been so frustrated with their campaign that a gang of them started to freelance on Facebook, led off by former cabinet minister Andrew Parsons. Meanwhile, the party has had bad stories - health minister maybe in trouble in her district - embarrasing stories - dust-up in cental, Gemma Hickey (AllNL) - and no truly big announcements. The PCs had a huge endorsement from Trades NL and while they haven’t run a perfect campaign and are not running away with the election, they are relentlessly lining themselves up with exactly what people are concerned about.

That’s why the Liberals might have had a commanding lead, but they don’t any more. Narrative’s August omnibus put the Liberals at 43 to 22 for the Pea Seas with 23 undecided. And that MQO poll had the Liberals at 32 with the Pea Seas at 29 with 21 (and probably more) undecided this past week.

Whatever goose Team Furey sorry Hogan got in August from the wildfires when Narrative was in the field, it’s gone now. Liberals have dropped dramatically. Pea Seas are up solidly.

As it stands right now, we could easily be staring at Premier Tony Wakeham within two weeks. No chance Liberals will say. Look at how much people love our leader compared to their leader.

Doesn’t matter, sez someone who knows something. John Hogan is not drawing votes. That’s clear if his party is way behind his own personal lead over a comparison to Tony Wakseham. Candidates can amp up the number of pictures of themselves with Hogan all they want. Not gonna save them if they are not strong enough themselves to win. All that fumbling, bungling, and scrambling adds up as deadweight on the Liberal campaign. And that’s before we realise all the talk about the importance of strong leaders is just a myth.

Add into all this the campaign organizations. Liberals stuttering, despite Mainland help. Pea Seas getting volunteers and more money from local donors. Scroll back two years and notice that this is *exactly* the warning for the Liberals who delayed an election needlessly: the Liberals got weaker. The Pea Seas had time to unf*ck themselves and they did.

Now watch what happens on Tuesday, confident that you know something that all the rumour mongers, amateurs, and seat projectors missed. If these trends continue, you will see Liberals lose seats. You will see the Pea Seas pick up more. They are only a handful of points and seats behind and the Liberal drop and Pea Sea rise has been greater than what the Pea Seas would need to form a majority government. In 1988, the Pea Seas beat the Liberals in popular vote - what these polls roughly pick up on - and yet the Liberals won a comfortable majority by picking up enough votes in a enough seats to win decisively.

There are four days to what could be one of the most surprising and consequential elections in Newfoundland and Labrador history.

---

* Main Street and Cardinal dropped Robo poll results on Saturday. Both our marketing polls and so the results are more for entertainment value than anything else. Main Street chronically skews liberal. If you compare MQO to the two Robo polls on an equal basis there are gaps of more than 10 to 15 points difference between the results for the same party across the three polls.