#ScrimshawSix: Leger, Nanos, And Federal Polling

With Bonus Kyle Dubas Slander

The department of metaphor is waiting for Jordan Spieth to tee off at St. Andrews, so, enjoy six thoughts on the state of play in the Federal Polls.

Is The NDP Surge Real?

No, but it’s still fun. We are living in a world where Nanos has the NDP at 25% in Ontario and Leger has them at 26%, a number that either keeps the Liberal lead artificially small (in Leger) or has the Liberals unable to really catch the CPC (Nanos). In all likelihood, this is some amount of provincial contamination, but even if it’s genuine support for Jagmeet, we know the NDP will blow it by election day, because it’s the NDP – it’s what they do.

In a sense, this is just what happens at midterm – the NDP vote goes up, and then when someone actually has to vote for them, they shit the bed. It’s a tale as old as time, and it’s almost definitely a sign of actual Liberal voters saying they’ll vote NDP now. (This is also a useful exercise if we get polls where the PPC are at 8% or whatever, if and when those come.)

What The Fuck Is Nanos Doing?

Nanos last week had the Conservatives winning Ontario by 12% and the NDP in second, but this week the Liberal vote rose by 6%, because Nanos uses a rolling sample and clearly they dropped a particularly bad Liberal sample and added a pretty decent one. My guess is that the truly weak Liberal numbers in Ontario were at least in part due to provincial effects, both because it happened in 2018 and because the Liberal vote has fallen 6% and then risen 6% in the span of two weeks, as if that actually happened in reality.

In the rest of the country, their Quebec house effect is still clear – they consistently have the Liberals way too high in Quebec and the Bloq too low. It’s been this way for a while, and it’s not that notable. Their BC numbers are weird in comparison to Leger’s, but not that far off the 2021 election. Basically, if I’m right and it’s provincial contamination, then Nanos will show a tied race in Ontario by the end of the month. If they don’t, then we’ll have to see everyone else’s next polls to see if it’s Nanos weirdness or actual inflation-derived issues. (My guess is inflationary hits to the Liberals would be broader based and hurt in BC just as much, but your mileage may vary.)

What Does It All Mean For 2025?

As usual, nothing.

If Leger was reproduced in exact form, the Liberals are borderline in the hunt for majority government, with gains in Atlantic Canada and the west likely with a few losses in Central Canada. What we know for sure is that the Tories would lose seats. What we also know is literally none of this matters for an election in 2025, even with the issue of new lines ignored. This was true of Nanos last week and is true of Leger this week – whatever you think will happen in 2025, this should change your mind 0%.

There is a rush to say that Leger means that Skippy is unelectable or that the CPC drama is going to have impacts and my response to all of it is a big fucking yawn. The one (maybe) interesting takeaway from Leger is that 59% of Canadians think we’re in a recession and the Liberals would still win another election held today, but that doesn’t even mean that there will be no political penalty for a bad economy in the future, just that as of now the Liberals are not facing any such penalty.

I honestly only really revived the Federal model (after originally saying I wouldn’t) because I’m a political tragic who needs his fix of the drug that is new data, but the idea that Trudeau and the Liberals having 155 seats today means fuck all for what he’ll have in 2025 is a fiction. If you think Poilievre can’t or won’t win, polling now isn’t why, and if you think he will win, this means nothing.

What’s Happening In BC?

Nobody in this country can poll federal vote intentions in BC for shit, and I don’t know why. Leger has the Liberals at 38% and the CPC at 22%, and Nanos has that their positions flipped, with the gap a bit less extreme. It’s the wild west there, but fortunately for seat aggregators, there aren’t many close seats left there, so unless one of these pollsters is actually correct, as opposed to them both being wrong like an average would suggest, it doesn’t seem like much would change there in aggregate.

Could Federal Health Funding Hurt The Liberals?

This week, John Horgan is hosting the Premiers in their annual (or is it biannual now? I don’t care enough to check) joint press conference to ask for more money from the feds for health care funding. This is always followed by the Feds conditioning the increased spending on the provinces actually spending it on health and not tax cuts or whatever else, the provinces say no to those conditions, and then six months or a year later we do it all again. If you’re bored by this description, I’ve done my job.

The reason the Premiers don’t want to accept conditions is because they want to use extra federal funds as a source of all-purpose revenue to bail them out of their housing issues or to pay teachers more or whatever ails them that month or year. If they were content to only use it for health, they’d accept the conditions, in the same way the kid leaving for a party without booze in their bag has no problem with snoopy parents but the kid trying to smuggle out tequila does.

Will it hurt the Liberals? No, because the best shield they have to political damage is that it’s the provinces who give out their health cards, and nobody blames the feds for long delays at the hospital. Right or wrong, hospital problems and hallway medicine rebound on Premiers, not Prime Ministers.

Is it bad policy from the feds? Fuck no, because the last time the Feds gave considerable fiscal firepower to the provinces for health costs, Jean Charest cut taxes. That ain’t it.

Bonus 6th – Kyle Dubas, You Good?

(I only had five points, let me have this.)

Kyle, my guy, what on earth are you doing? Matt Murray is the solution to your problem? Are you out of your mind?

I mean, I’ve gotta be honest – I don’t think Dubas is good at his job. Between the first rounder for Foligno, the “own-rentals” that saw them lose JVR, Hyman, and Barrie for nothing, having to give up assets to get off Nick Ritchie half a season into his career, Peter Mrazek’s contract, and the fact he didn’t build a team good enough to beat the fucking Habs in 2021, why are we supposed to say he’s good?

Yes, getting Toronto born players to take cheap deals here is good, I guess, but God almighty, the addiction to former Soo Greyhounds and the fact he let the team ride a Campbell-Mrazek tandem last year should have been a fireable offence, but no, he had to go get Matt Murray, who every Sens fan wanted to give a ride to the airport.

Fucking hell what a disastrous trade for Toronto.