EKOS of the Week: Beware the Jackerwock!

Data tables available here. 

Can someone -- anyone -- explain to me, by the way, why a 0.1 increase for the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec results in a 0.2 jump for the same party nationally? Because I've been trying to figure it out, and I'm stumped. Math is hard. Let's go analysing!

Oh, and for those of you who flip straight to the dailies -- and I know you're out there -- the Liberals had a terrible, awful day on Tuesday, although they managed to hold off the NDP from taking second place this time around, albeit barely. Probably not at all coincidentally, that was also the highlight of the NDP week, as far as nightly results; the best day for the Conservatives, meanwhile, was last Wednesday, when they hit a 34.8 percent high.

Onto the regionals!

British Columbia (MoE 5.78)
NDP: 28.6 (+0.5)
Conservatives: 28.4 (-5.3)
Liberals: 22.7 (+1.1)
Green: 16.1 (+2.8)
Other: 4.1 (+1.8)

Look who's in first place on the West Coast! That's right, for the second time in the last month, the NDP has hit the voter intention jackpot in British Columbia, although to be fair, it was a sudden, and possibly temporary collapse in Conservative support that propelled them into the top spot with a mere 0.5 point boost over last week's numbers. The Liberals are up as well, but still well back from the two leading contenders; it was actually the Greens, who went up by nearly three points, that made the greatest gains.

Alberta (MoE 6.88)
Conservatives: 54.5 (-1.9)
Liberals: 15.1 (-1.6)
NDP: 13.5 (+3.0)
Green: 10.6 (-1.2)
Other: 6.4 (+1.7)

Not much to say here, of course, what with it being Alberta and all, although the NDP has finally managed to rout the Greens from third place, and are now less than two points behind the Liberals, although again, what with it being Alberta and all, whether that actually means anything -- other than possibly good news for the NDP's Linda Duncan, the province's lone non-Conservative MP  -- is an open question. Oh, and the Others have rebounded from a lacklustre early spring, and are now heading determinedly upward. Can they crack the elusive double digit threshold? Tune in next week to find out!

Saskatchewan/Manitoba (MoE 7.95)
Conservatives: 38.2 (-5.6)
Liberals: 27.5 (+4.3)
NDP: 23.8 (+5.6)
Green: 9.0 (-2.8)
Other: 1.6 (-1.3)

So, uh, did the Conservatives do something to antagonize the West last week? Because I didn't want to mention it before, but there was a little bit of slippage in Alberta -- not that it matters much when you're in the 50s, of course -- and it looks like Saskitoba may be sagging as well, with both the Liberals and the NDP picking up the difference. Wasn't the whole HEY LET'S ALL TALK ABOUT THE GUN REGISTRY A WHOLE LOT gambit supposed to work the other way? I'm -- I'm confused. And a little unsettled. Then again, given the margin of error, and the madcap sense of humour that the Saskitoban electorate tends to demonstrate when playing head games with the EKOSbots, by next week, the universe may once again be unfolding as it should.

Ontario (MoE 3.78)
Conservatives: 36.0 (+2.9)
Liberals: 34.2 (-0.4)
NDP: 17.7 (+0.7)
Green: 9.3 (-3.8)
Other: 2.9 (+0.6)

Hah! I totally predicted this, you may recall -- that the Conservatives would edge back into the lead in Ontario, that is, and that the Liberals would continue to quietly bleed away just enough support to let it happen. I fully expect the lead to keep flipping back and forth between the two for the foreseeable future as well, and there's no way to know how this would actually play out in terms of seat distribution without the sub-regional data, but I have no doubt that teams of underpaid pollcrunchers are toiling away at the respective party headquarters, identifying target seats and danger zones with fierce conviction.

Quebec (MoE 4.40)
Bloc Quebecois 38.5 (+0.1)
Liberals: 19.3 (-3.4)
Conservatives: 16.0 (+2.2)
NDP: 12.6 (+2.8)
Green: 10.4 (-1.6)
Other: 3.1 (-0.3)

The Liberals take a fairly serious tumble, dropping below 20 percent for the first time in -- actually, quite a while, I think; they've been hovering in the mids, with the occasional pirouette into the highs, for months. The Conservatives, meanwhile, recover some of the ground lost last week, and the NDP takes back fourth place from those upstart Greens. The Bloc Quebecois, of course, looks down from on high with imperious disinterest, like an owl wondering if the meat on the mice scampering below would be worth the effort of swooping down and devouring them whole.

Atlantic Canada (MoE 7.37)
Conservatives: 34.9 (+0.2)
Liberals: 34.2 (+2.1)
NDP: 15.5 (-4.5)
Green: 13.5 (+0.3)
Other: 2.0 (+2.0)

And finally, to Atlantic Canada, where the Conservatives hang onto the lead, although not by much, and the NDP ... well, let's just say that they may finally have hit rock bottom, which would undoubtedly be more reassuring than the alternative.

As for the right-wrong-o-meter, it's as close to a tie as we've seen in some time -- 43.2 for the Righties, 43.8 for the Wrongistas -- with self-identified NDP supporters, oddly enough, seemingly the most likely to give the current occupants thumbs up amongst those who plan to mark their ballot for another party.

There are also leadership numbers, which are, as has become tradition, laden with grim tidings for the Liberals, whose leader, it's safe to say, does not appear to be turning the world on with his smile, what with 50.7 percent panning his performance to date, and just 20.3 percent deigning to lend their approval. It's not like the Conservatives have much to cheer about either, of course -- 48.7 percent disapprove of how the prime minister is handling his job, compared to 33.3 percent who think he's doing just fine. The one silver lining for Ignatieff may be the comparatively larger chunk of the population whose internal jury is still out -- 18.7 percent, compared to just 9.4 who haven't yet made up their mind on that Stephen Harper fellow.

Jack Layton, on the other hand, continues to enjoy the approval of 42.7 percent of the EKOS-surveyed population, with just 26.3 giving the frowny face, and 20.7 undecided. What would be truly fascinating, however, would be to find out just how respondents interpret the question. What, I wonder, do they see as the job of the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition, compared to that of the third party in the House? (For the purposes of these tangential musings, it's fair to point out that there is fairly universal agreement on what the job of being prime minister entails.)