Close race also seen by Ipsos Reid

The polls have spoken. The Ipsos Reid survey published Wednesday afternoon by Global News put the gap between the Liberals and Conservatives at just one point, exactly the same margin as recorded by Abacus Data and EKOS Research. Even the support levels are very uniform: 32% to 35% for the Tories and 32% to 34% for the Liberals. For all intents and purposes, the national landscape is now a tie.

Ipsos was last in the field between Jan. 6 and 11. Since that poll, the Liberals picked up three points to move into the lead with 34%, while the Conservatives were down two points to 32%.

The New Democrats slipped one point to 23%, the Bloc Québécois was steady at 6%, and support for other parties (including the Greens, which Ipsos does not prompt for) was down one point to 3%.

Total undecideds numbered 13%, down four points.

None of these shifts were outside the margin of error of similarly sized probabilistic samples.

Ipsos's last poll was hinting at a Conservative surge. No other survey at the time was suggesting quite the same thing, so it appears that it was just the product of normal sampling error and this new poll is a reversion to the mean. Apart from the sharp decline in Liberal fortunes since the fall, there is no discernible trend in Ipsos's numbers over the last few months.

Indeed, the 'surge' may have been the product of an unusual result among women. That January poll put the Conservatives ahead among this demographic, something that no other poll was showing at the time or has shown since. But this new poll shows a reset of those numbers, with the Conservatives and Liberals swapping six points. The Liberals now lead again among women and the Conservatives among men, putting Ipsos back in agreement with every other poll.

Oddly, Ipsos showed a big uptick in support among the youngest Canadians for the Conservatives, putting them up seven points to 29%, just five points behind the Liberals and one point ahead of the NDP (which was down eight points). This might seem like a counter-intuitive result, but in fact the recent Abacus and EKOS polls have also shown improving numbers for the Tories among young voters. Why this might be, however, is beyond me, as is whether this is a real trend or an anomalous blip.

The regional results are fairly typical, with some small variations.

The Conservatives led in British Columbia with 39%, putting them ahead of the Liberals, who were at 34%. The six most recent polls had put the Liberals ahead, so this is a bit of a reversal. But that other polls were in such agreement in B.C. was, itself, unusual. Ipsos has recorded a drop in NDP support in the province, to 21%, as others have.

The Conservatives led in Alberta and the Prairies with 54% and 45%, respectively, but Ipsos puts the NDP in much better form in the Prairies than other polls at 27%, one point up on the Liberals.

The Liberals and Conservatives were in a tie in Ontario at 37%, which is almost identical to the current polling aggregate. The NDP at 23%, however, is a much better result than the party has seen in most polls in some time.

And Atlantic Canada is the usual, with the Liberals way ahead of the NDP and Tories with 47% to 26% and 24%, respectively.

But what about Quebec? It has been the wildcard in federal polling lately, and this survey is no exception.

As most other polls have it, the Liberals were ahead with 31% to 27% for the NDP. This represented a sizable, but just inside the margin of error, increase for the Liberals. The Bloc Québécois was in third with 26%, while the Conservatives were well behind at 15%.

We've discussed the standing of the Conservatives in Quebec quite a bit, and this Ipsos poll would seem to argue in favour of their gains having been wildly over-stated. I think there is something to that. But if we look at the trends from each of the pollsters that have been active so far in 2015, there is a pattern that emerges. Virtually all of them have had the Conservatives gaining in January and early February, compared to where they were in December. But now the polls seem to be showing those gains tailing back or plateauing. Ipsos is well in line with that, with a three point drop.

The debate, then, is more about the size of the gain and the amount of support the Conservatives really have. The trends seem clear enough, however.

Another notable result here is the 26% for the Bloc Québécois. Coupled with the EKOS poll that put the party in second place with 23% last week, some were saying that the new Quebec narrative should be about the Bloc's rebound. I think that is premature.

This Bloc result is the best the party has had in any poll in a year. But that it comes from Ipsos is significant. The Bloc is only up one point from Ipsos's early January poll, so the number is far from unusual.

In fact, Ipsos has tended to have better results for the Bloc than other pollsters lately. Polls conducted within a week of this most recent survey have averaged 18% for the Bloc, compared to the 26% here. In January, polls taken within a week of Ipsos's 25% result averaged 17%, while polls taken within a week of Ipsos's November poll, which put the Bloc at 21%, averaged 15%. The Bloc had 20% in the Ipsos poll from September, while other polls at the time were averaging 14%.

So, it would appear in this case that we should not get ahead of ourselves in predicting a comeback for the Bloc. As far as Ipsos is concerned, the party is in a better position now than it was in the summer and fall, but is otherwise holding steady. This is the consensus among most other polls as well. Quebec is a confusing place for federal polls, so let's focus on points of agreement when they exist.

EKOS, Abacus polls show close race

With little over six months to go before the official start of the 2015 federal election campaign, the latest polls from EKOS Research and Abacus Data show the Conservatives and Liberals in a very close race.

The current projection reflects this. The previous update, done on Feb. 17 and incorporating polls in the field to Feb. 10, had the Liberals narrowly ahead with 34.2% support to 32.9% for the Conservatives. Now, that gap of 1.3 points has reduced further to just 0.5 points, with the Liberals at 33.5% and the Tories at 33%.

That, in turn, has widened the margin in favour of the Conservatives in the seat projection: 145 to 126, against 140 to 135 in the last update. The ranges have also become more favourable to the Tories, with 126-164 seats against 107-145 for the Liberals.

The NDP stands at 19.4%, with a range of 47 to 77 seats.

I go over the latest projection numbers and the regional breakdown in my CBC article this week. Please check it out.

Let's look at the two national polls added to the projection (CROP was also added for the Quebec numbers), by EKOS Research for iPolitics and Abacus Data.

Abacus was last in the field Jan. 26-28. Compared to that poll, both the Conservatives and the Liberals picked up two points to reach 35% and 34%, respectively. The NDP was down three points to 21%.

None of these shifts were outside the margin of error of similarly sized probabilistic samples. Indeed, Abacus's numbers have been wobbling back and forth for some time, with no discernible trend.

EKOS, which appears to be reporting on a weekly basis now, was last in the field Feb. 4-10. There was little change since that poll, with the Conservatives up 0.3 points to 32.3%, the Liberals down 2.2 points to 31.6%, and the NDP up 0.2 points to 19.1%. None of these shifts were outside the margin of error.

Both polls showed similar gender breakdowns, with the Tories up on the Liberals by a margin of 40% to 35% among men in the Abacus poll and 36.7% to 30.2% in the EKOS survey. Among women, the Liberals were ahead with 34% to 30% according to Abacus, and 33.1% to 28.4% according to EKOS. Both polls also showed the NDP doing better among women (25% Abacus, 20.9% EKOS) than men (17% Abacus, 17.4% EKOS).

The two polls were also in lock step in age breakdowns, with the Conservatives narrowly ahead among the youngest cohort (unusual as that is), the Liberals ahead among those aged roughly 30 to 65, and the Conservatives in front among older Canadians.

Regionally, there were few major differences in the two polls in most parts of the country. The Liberals narrowly ahead in B.C., where the NDP is faltering, the Conservatives well in front in Alberta, the Liberals with majority support in Atlantic Canada, and the Conservatives ahead in Ontario (considering the sample sizes, the differences between the Abacus and EKOS polls there are really marginal).

The two polls were in disagreement in the Prairies, where Abacus has the Liberals with 41% to 38% for the Tories and 15% for the NDP. But the sample size, at 95, would carry a margin of error of +/- 10 points with a probabilistic sample. EKOS has more familiar looking numbers, with about 44% for the Tories, 31% for the Liberals, and 15% for the NDP.

The other point of disagreement is Quebec, which has become par for the course in recent polls. It does seem to be a methodological difference, since the online polls are all in agreement and the IVR polls are generally on the same page.

Abacus put the Liberals ahead with 32% to 31% for the NDP, the Conservatives at 18% and the Bloc Québécois at 17%. EKOS, meanwhile, has something very different: 23.6% for the NDP, 23.1% for the Bloc, 22.7% for the Liberals, and 22% for the Conservatives.

That represents some exceptional results. For the Liberals, it would be their worst result in any poll since March 2013, or 124 polls ago. For the Bloc, only two of the last 53 polls have been better.

It is possible that EKOS is on to something, but it looks more likely that this is a bit of an outlier result, which is bound to happen from time to time.

The most recent polls from the province have some points of agreement, but also paint a very confusing portrait of what is going on in Quebec. Here are the latest results (all polls taken between Feb. 9 and 17) with their respective error ranges (assuming probabilistic samples in the case of Abacus and CROP).

For the Liberals and Conservatives, the four polls do not all overlap. Or at least, the three by Abacus, CROP, and Forum do, whereas the EKOS poll does not.

There is only a little bit of overlap with the NDP numbers (at 27%) and the Bloc (at 20%).

With these numbers, we can posit that EKOS was probably a little low for the Liberals and high for the Bloc, and that the Liberals' true support probably lies closer to the high-20s or low-30s in the province. The New Democrats seem to be in the high-20s.

The Conservatives are likely in the high-teens or low-20s, where as the Bloc is most likely in the high-teens.

The province is certainly in flux, and undoubtedly the smaller amount of interest in the federal scene has an influence on how fluid voters are in the province. But with the race becoming a four-way contest, an extremely wide range of outcomes is possible.

If we use these ranges to calculate the best case scenarios for each party, we get an enormous variety of results. The Liberal best case scenario with these ranges gives them 51 seats (14 NDP, 13 CPC, 0 BQ). The NDP could take 54 (16 LPC, 8 CPC, 0 BQ). The Conservatives could win 20 (31 NDP, 24 LPC, 3 BQ). Even the Bloc, topping out at 27%, could win 40 seats (22 LPC, 10 CPC, 6 NDP) if the other parties divvy up the remaining vote.

Consider how Quebec alone could cause a huge swing. If we use these seat ranges and apply them to the current projection, assuming all the other provinces go as projected, the Conservatives would be at 137-149, the Liberals between 118-153, and the NDP between 33-81. The stakes in Quebec are laid out quite clearly here: probably not too significant for the Tories, but the province decides whether the Liberals win or place second, and whether the NDP stays as a strong party or returns to pre-2011 days.

The polls did a good job calling the federal election in Quebec in 2011, better than anywhere else in the country. It might not prove so simple in 2015.