There has been much ado about the NDP’s polling in recent weeks. While I wouldn’t be so flippant as to call them ‘nothing,’ I would say that they require some greater meditation. 

First, let me say that while I am rather fond of the idea of doing away with polls outright, as I pointed out earlier this week, I still love agonizing over them. It’s fun. So no, this post is not hypocritical.

Let’s turn our attention to ThreeHundredEight. I won’t try to rehash any of the work that Éric Grenier has done over there, because in trying to do so I would fall on my face with the comedic value of the highlight reel from America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Instead, I want to consider what we’re really looking at when we see these numbers. Take the regional breakdown he got from Environics this week:

Crazy, right? The NDP are kicking ass in Newfoundland. Even with the margin of error, there’s little double that the NDP is cleaning up on the rock.

The Montreal numbers are less surprising. They’re solid.

The Manitoba numbers are a little more interesting. They’re very good news for the NDP - this poll indicates that the Conservatives are in free-fall, shedding a good 14% since the last election, which is mostly the NDP’s to gain.

Toronto?

But it’s Toronto that should have NDP staffers scratching their heads.

A neck-and-neck race between the three parties sounds like good news. However, by my calculations, the NDP garnered 31% in the Toronto area in May (including the immediate suburban areas, as I assume Environics did,) which tied the Conservatives and fell just short of the Liberals’ 34%. So the news here is that the Liberals appear to be down, the Conservatives are up, and the NDP are stagnant.

One would imagine that with the NDP picking up steam Canada-wide, Toronto would be leading the charge. This appears to not be the case. It’s certainly the case that the NDP have picked up about 5% province-wide, but with Toronto seemingly stuck, is it possible that those gains are concentrated not in the seat-rich core, but instead in the areas where the NDP already carries significant support? If that’s the case, Ontario might not deliver for the party like some are expecting.

Note: I fully accept the possibility that Environics’ poll encompassed a more limited area than what I used for my calculations. Be that as it may, the numbers would not change significantly unless they polled only the downtown core.

Correction: here’s a note from Environics’ VP Derek Leebosh,

@justin_ling FYI, in May '11 NDP took 31% in 416 City of Toronto. Across the GTA it was much lower since in 905 'burbs the NDP had about 15%

— Derek Leebosh (@Dleebosh)

July 2, 2012

@justin_lingso for the 31% NDP across the GTA is actually up about 7% from the election.

— Derek Leebosh (@Dleebosh)

July 2, 2012

So that’s quite a different story. It can either mean that the NDP really is throttling forward in the downtown core, or - a better scenario for them - their numbers are picking up in the outter lying areas that have become Conservative strongholds in recent years. I suspect the former is likely.

Apologies for screwing the pooch on that one.

Saskatchewan?!

And if the Toronto situation were not perplexing enough, these numbers indicate that the NDP is actually losing support in Saskatchewan.

Environics’ numbers suggest that the NDP is actuallydown four points in the flattest province. A poll from last week confirms that the party is struggling in the prairies, garnering only 30% between the two provinces. 

That is an interesting conundrum with no conceivable answer. Could it be that metropolitan Mulcair simply isn’t connecting with rural voters? Was it the Dutch Disease comments?

I tend to think neither. 

It’s worth noting that Environics puts the Greens at 12% - no doubt an oversample that likely cuts right into the NDP. 

But here’s a more substantive theory - the dog days of summer are no time to be polling. With parliament out, and an election three years off: people simply aren’t thinking about it. All the messiness of parliament has never reached the prairies in the same way it has the big cities anyway, so it stands to reason that the NDP’s reflexive growth would be stunted there.

But it’s still a serious hurdle when it comes to election-time strategy. To win without the prairies, the NDP would need to dominate Nova Scotia and Newfoundland (assuming New Brunswick and PEI are write-offs,) pull off a massive victory in Ontario, keep all their seats in Quebec and pull ahead by a good 10% to 15% in BC. This is without figuring in the 15 new seats in mostly-Conservative areas of Ontario, 6 sure-fire Tory seats in Alberta and another 6 toss-ups in British Columbia.

The NDP could certainly use another dozen seats in the prairies.

Vancouver!

The NDP can be a little more at ease over Vancouver. Their numbers there are good - a full 6% higher than their 2011 result, by my numbers. The CPC is down 6%, with the Liberals splitting the difference.

No great fanfare there.

So?

So here’s the thing; those Environics poll numbers aren’t great for the NDP. They’re certainly not bad, and dare I say they may be good - but they’re not becoming for a party that has been given so much to work with and has triumphed so totally in the past several months. Mulcair’s Dutch Disease comments aside - the NDP has garnered virtually no bad press.

So why, according to this poll, are they only up 5% - a paltry 2% above the governing Tories? And, as Grenier displays, in no position to win enough seats to form a minority.

Colin Horgan also points this out over at iPolitics, where he and Frank Graves shoot the shit over the ups-and-downs.

There’s one easy answer - that poll is simply wrong. Some polls put the NDP at 38% - a much more impressive result - with a commanding lead in virtually every province. However, that poll - by Ipsos-Reid - puts the NDP behind in BC. 

An Abacus poll has the NDP tied with the Conservatives at 35% a pop, with the NDP still stuck around 30% in Ontario, and shows them in third in Atlantic Canada, a distant second in the Prairies and only a nose up in BC.

These polls are all on ThreeHundredEight.

But the divergence is, at this point, the rule rather than the exception.

So, Really, What?

How are all these polls so wildly divergent? While taken on the same week, using virtually the same method, they sometimes show as much as a 10% gap in the NDP and Conservative’s numbers in each province and up to five points nation-wide.

Are the NDP’s numbers really that fluid that they shift from day-to-day? If that’s the case, when these numbers settle, the party’s fortunes may be wildly different - either for better, or for worse.

Keep in mind that the rise took place in a sort of vacuum - with no legitimate CPC attack ads in the field, Mulcair’s way was paved. That has changed recently, and we may see the dividends of it soon.

And if the NDP’s growth can’t break the 40% mark in the next year, that’s a troubling sign that they may be nuzzling their electoral ceiling.