Mulcair favoured as PM due to likely coding error (updated)

When a poll result is counter-intuitive, and not marginally so, you should probably take a look to make sure you did everything correctly. Last week, The Hill Times reported on a new poll by Forum Research with a headline that read: "Libs gain at expense of Conservatives, but Mulcair favoured as leader who would make best Prime Minister".

That didn't make much sense. The Liberals were ahead of the New Democrats in the poll by 12 points, yet Justin Trudeau trailed Thomas Mulcair on the PM question by 10 points? The reason it didn't make much sense is because it was probably wrong, and a coding or transcription error on the part of Forum Research is to blame.

UPDATE: As appeared to be the case, Forum Research has confirmed there was an error in its two reports that listed the numbers that should have been Trudeau's as Mulcair's and the numbers that should have been Mulcair's as Trudeau's. So, the error crept in when Forum took the data from their polling and transcribed it into their reports, both of which contained analysis as to why Mulcair was polling ahead of Trudeau on this question. 

This means that for these two polls, Trudeau was ahead on who would make the best Prime Minister with 29%, with Mulcair at 19% on Jan. 16-17 and 18% on Jan. 23-24. Forum says it has corrected the issue.

I've obtained the detailed reports of Forum's most recent polls, and the firm has some numbers out for a Jan. 23-24 poll that shows generally the same numbers that they recorded in the Jan. 16-17 poll reported by The Hill Times. Here is the table showing how the numbers have evolved on this question:

Forum report for Jan. 23-24 poll

What happened between Dec. 12-13 and Jan. 17 to change things so dramatically? Voting intentions did not shift to any similar degree between that time. Polling by Nanos Research concerning who would make the best prime minister has consistently tracked very closely to what Forum has been recording - until these last two polls, that is.

Forum releases a lot of data tables in their reports, so it makes it possible to see how the various demographic and regional breakdowns look. For the Best PM question, the numbers don't make much sense. The Liberals leading with 58% support in Atlantic Canada to 23% for the NDP, yet Mulcair gets 47% to 12% for Trudeau on the Best PM question in the region?

But then you get to the table of Best PM by voting preference. You can see why this is a problem pretty quickly:

Forum report for Jan. 16-17 poll

Apparently, Mulcair is the overwhelming choice of Liberal voters and Trudeau is the overwhelming choice of NDP voters. Time for a leader swap!

If you run the numbers using this table exactly as presented, you get pretty much the exact same national results as reported by Forum. But let's assume that this is the table that is wrong, rather than the overall numbers. That would mean that 53% of 609 Liberal voters prefer Trudeau, and 65% of 381 NDP voters prefer Mulcair. Perhaps the columns were just misplaced on this chart. If you do that, however, you come to a national tally of 24% on this question for Trudeau and 23% for Mulcair.

So, it seems that somewhere in Forum's coding or transcription process, the numbers were swapped between Trudeau and Mulcair, or Trudeau and Mulcair's names were put in the wrong spot on the chart (meaning Trudeau would be the one at 29%, and Mulcair at 19%). Either that, or their detailed report is rife with typos. Both the Jan. 16-17 and Jan. 23-24 polls show the same error, while previous polls have everything in the right place.

It isn't entirely The Hill Times's fault for the misinterpretation, the article was written by a great, but very busy, Parliament Hill reporter who can be forgiven for the omission as the analysis by Forum in the report itself talks about how Mulcair is ahead of Trudeau on the Best Prime Minister question. But there is a lesson in here, though. If a number doesn't look right, it probably isn't right, and both pollsters and journalists should be damn sure to double check to make sure everything is as it should be.

Manitoba NDP takes a beating in by-elections

Last night's results in the two Manitoba by-elections in the ridings of Morris and Arthur-Virden showed that Greg Selinger's NDP government has indeed taken a big hit from the increase in the PST that started their poll numbers spiraling downwards in 2013. Though the winners were never in doubt - both ridings are solidly Tory - the NDP dropped more than half of its vote share from the 2011 provincial election and, overall, finished third on the night.

We'll start in Arthur-Virden, where the results were particularly bad for the New Democrats.

PC candidate Doyle Piwniuk won handily with 68.2% of the vote, improving upon Larry Maguire's performance in 2011 and putting up the best numbers for the Tories since at least 1990.

Liberal candidate Floyd Buhler finished second, surging from 3.8% in 2011 to 16% last night, the best performance for the Liberals in Arthur-Virden since 1995. He was the only candidate last night (excluding the Greens and the independent Ray Shaw, who did not run in 2011) to get more raw votes despite the steep slide in turnout. Buhler received 738 votes, compared to 288 for the Liberal candidate in 2011.

The New Democrats' Bob Senff fell most sharply, to just 10.4% after the NDP took 30.2% in this riding in 2011. That was a drop of almost 20 points, and the NDP took just 21% of the vote haul they did in 2011. It was their worst performance since before 1990.

The Greens' Kate Storey captured 5.3% of the vote.

There was less movement in Morris, but again the NDP lost support to the Liberals and the Greens. PC candidate Shannon Martin's vote share was slightly lower than Mavis Taillieu's, at 70% to 74%, but that is a minor quibble when you take more than two-thirds of the vote.

The NDP's Dean Harder narrowly placed second, with 12.9%. That was a drop of 6.5 points and the party's worst showing since 1995. The Liberals' Jeremy Barber took 11.2%, up from 6.6% in 2011, and their best performance since 2003.

Shaw took 3.7% of the vote while Alain Landry of the Greens captured 2.3%.

Overall, it was a rough night for the New Democrats. In these two ridings in 2011, they had captured just under 25% of votes cast. That fell to less than 12% last night. The Liberals increased their share from 5% to 14%, while the Tories held firm.

Average vote share across the two ridings (eliminating the difference of turnout between the two) was 69.1% for the Progressive Conservatives, 13.6% for the Liberals, 11.7% for the New Democrats, and 3.8% for the Greens.

In 2011, the average vote share in Morris and Arthur-Virden was 70% for the PCs, 24.8% for the NDP, and just 5.2% for the Liberals.

That means the Liberals picked up 8.4 points last night, primarily from the NDP. They dropped 13.1 points, with the remainder going to the Greens and Shaw. The PCs dropped by just 0.9 points.

If we apply those proportional changes to the province-wide results in 2011, we get the Tories at 43%, the NDP at 22%, and the Liberals at 20%. That is remarkably close to the last Probe Research survey, that put the Tories ahead with 48% to 26% for the NDP and 20% for the Liberals. These ridings did just about as expected in that respect, and the results go a long way to confirming the NDP's slide. It also suggests that the Liberal support recorded in the polls can actually manifest itself at the ballot box - at least in a low-stakes by-election. But what about a general election?