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TORIES CLAW BACK SMALL LEAD

DEFECTING UNIVERSITY EDUCATED VOTERS PROPEL GRITS INTO A MUCH MORE
COMPETITIVE RACE

[Ottawa – August 19, 2010] – Our most recent

poll – particularly the last week of polling – has
HIGHLIGHTS
changed little from our last reporting period. The • National federal vote intention:
Conservatives have widened their lead from one ¤ 32.5% CPC
to five points and now lead 32.5 to 27.9. While ¤ 27.9% LPC
this change is only marginally significant, it pulls ¤ 17.4% NDP
the Conservatives out of a statistical tie into a
¤ 10.3% Green
¤ 9.2% BQ
small but significant lead. The real value of the
¤ 2.6% other
poll is in examining the patterns of the last two
months in order to assess whether the media • Direction of country:
brouhaha over the Census is actually having an ¤ 50.4% right direction
effect. ¤ 39.2% wrong direction
¤ 10.3% DK/NR
For those wondering if the Census dispute is
having any real effect on the Canadian • Direction of government:
electorate, the evidence is now in. When we look ¤ 44.0% right direction
at what happened to the voting intentions of the ¤ 44.2% wrong direction
highly educated, it appears almost certain that ¤ 11.8% DK/NR
the narrowing race can be traced to the
controversy over the government's decision to Please note that the methodology is provided at the
end the voluntary long form. Changes in the end of this document.
demographic anatomy of support lead to the conclusion that this controversy has triggered a fairly
significant shift in the electorate during a fairly quiet summer period when little else is at play.

First of all, the shifts in the overall vote intention are modest, but both substantively and
statistically significant. The Conservative Party's 11-point lead in the early summer has become a
much narrower (but significant) lead of around four points. There have been some fluctuations in
recent weeks but the settling pattern seems to be a much narrower race today than it was at the
outset of the summer. So yes, the race is clearly tighter but why the rather bold assertion that
this narrowing is linked to the Census controversy? The fact that there is concomitant co-variation
isn't any indication of a causal relationship; suggestive in the absence of other plausible
explanations but hardly definitive. A closer look at the shifting demographic bases of voter support
provides much stronger evidence; not definitive, but pretty close.

First of all, let us assume that the relatively arcane issue of the representativeness of a voluntary
and mandatory sample is much more likely to have been an issue of the university educated. If it
was having an effect, we would almost certainly expect to see the effects registered in this group
(a little more than one third of all voters). Let us compare the post-Canada Day poll which saw an

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11-point Conservative advantage with today's poll by breaking down support by educational
attainment (see charts on page 3).

In early summer, there were no dramatic differences in terms of Conservative support across
various levels of educational attainment. They led the Liberals across all levels of education;
slightly lower with university educated at 33 points but still well ahead of the 26 points the
Liberals achieved there. Now let us look at today. The Conservatives are slightly down with the
university educated (though insignificantly ahead with college graduates) and down with high
school or less.

The really interesting story is clear when we compare the changes in Liberal support across the
same time period. The Liberals were performing anaemically across all educational categories in
early July. Fast forward to today and the picture is dramatically different. The Liberals have
remained flat with the lower and college educated and still trail the Conservatives by a large
margin in both these categories. But among the most highly educated, there has been a dramatic
change. The Liberals have opened up a significant lead amongst the university educated where
they now fare much better. Indeed, Liberal growth has been almost exclusively focussed among
the most educated and this shift alone has produced a much more competitive political
landscape.

One would be hard pressed to find any other explanation to account for an over 33% growth rate
in this category than the Census controversy. This suggests that we may be seeing a new fault
line pitting the expert and professional classes against the rest of the political spectrum. One
month doesn't suggest a permanent shift and we have seen the educated move back and forth
before. The dramatic and focussed shift during this particular controversy, however, suggests
something new.

It is important to note, however, that Liberal gains among the university educated do not come
entirely at the expense of the Conservatives. The numbers show that the Liberals are picking up
university graduates from all ends of the political spectrum, suggesting that the Liberal Party is
becoming a “common ground” for the highly educated. We intend to dig deeper into this issue in
the coming weeks by breaking out the university educated into two categories (undergraduate
versus graduate).

The other notable feature of the poll is the starkness of the East-West divide we see now. While
hardly a new feature of Canadian politics, we now see the Conservatives with a huge lead in
Western Canada (and the Liberals are hard-pressed to match the NDP or the Greens).
Meanwhile, the Liberals have carved out a lead over the Conservatives (although less impressive)
in Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic.

All of these indicators suggest some interesting new dynamics to the regional and social class
fault lines beneath a newly competitive voter landscape as we prepare to return to school and
Parliament. Stay tuned to what will undoubtedly be a very interesting fall period.

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Top Line Results:

Federal vote Intention: August 11-17

Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

50

40
32.5
30 27.9

20 17.4

10.3 9.2
10
2.6
0
CPC LPC NDP GP BQ Other
Other

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Decided Voters; August 11-17, 2010 (n=2,543)

Weekly tracking of federal vote intention

Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?
50

40

30

20

10

Other
Line
6
0
2008
Oct-08 Dec-08 Feb-09 Apr-09 Jun-09 Aug-09 Oct-09 Dec-09 Feb-10 Apr-10 Jun-10 Aug-10
Election
Results
Note: The data on federal vote intention are based on decided voters only.
Our survey also finds that 14.9% of Canadians are undecided/ineligible to vote.

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Decided voters; most recent data point August 11-17, 2010 (n=2,543)

Page 3
Changes in education characteristics of Conservative support
Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

June 30-July 6, 2010 August 11-17, 2010

50

45

40
36.5 36.2
34.4 35.1
35 33.0 32.7
32.5

30 29.2

25

20
Overall High School Educated College Educated University Educated

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point August 11-17 (n=2,543)

Changes in education characteristics of Liberal support

Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

June 30-July 6, 2010 August 11-17, 2010

50

40
34.4

30 27.9
26.3
23.9 24.5
23.5
22.0
20.5
20

10
Overall High School Educated College Educated University Educated

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point August 11-17 (n=2,543)

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Changes in regional characteristics of Conservative support
Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

June 30-July 6, 2010 August 11-17, 2010

80

70
61.3
60 55.2

50 44.5
41.1 41.4 39.5
40 34.4 32.5 33.2 32.4 31.1
30
23.5
20 16.4 17.3

10

0
Overall BC Alberta Man/Sask Ontario Quebec Atlantic

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point August 11-17 (n=2,543)

Changes in regional characteristics of Liberal support

Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

June 30-July 6, 2010 August 11-17, 2010

60

50

40 35.7 35.1

30 27.9 26.9
25.2 26.4 25.1
23.9 24.8
21.9 21.4
20 17.6
16.0
14.2

10

0
Overall BC Alberta Man/Sask Ontario Quebec Atlantic

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point August 11-17 (n=2,543)

Page 5
Direction of country
Q. All things considered, would you say the country is moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?

Wrong direction Right direction

60

50

40

30

20
May-09 Jul-09 Sep-09 Nov-09 Jan-10 Mar-10 May-10 Jul-10

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point August 11-17, 2010 (n=half sample)

Direction of government
Q. All things considered, would you say the Government of Canada is moving in the right direction or the wrong
direction?

Wrong direction Right direction

60

50

40

30

20
May-09 Jul-09 Sep-09 Nov-09 Jan-10 Mar-10 May-10 Jul-10

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Canadians; most recent data point August 11-17, 2010 (n=half sample)

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Second choice
Q. Which party would be your second choice?

FIRST CHOICE
Second
SECOND CHOICE Choice CPC LPC NDP GP BQ Other
(overall)

10.2 -- 19.9 15.1 11.2 12.0 13.9

16.8 25.1 -- 33.2 26.1 12.2 13.5

17.9 12.5 36.2 -- 22.7 29.7 20.0

12.3 10.3 14.9 19.3 -- 15.4 7.2

3.0 1.8 4.4 5.0 3.7 -- 0.7

Other 2.4 3.4 1.3 2.9 3.1 1.1 --

No second choice 37.4 46.9 23.3 24.6 33.1 29.5 44.7

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Eligible voters; August 11-17, 2010 (n=2,916)

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Methodology:

EKOS’ weekly tracking polls are conducted using Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) technology,
which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone,
rather than telling them to an operator.

In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell
phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with both a
landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households. This
dual frame yields a near perfect unweighted distribution on age group and gender, something
almost never seen with traditional landline RDD sample or interviewer-administered surveys.

The field dates for this survey are August 11 – August 17, 2010.1 In total, a random sample of
2,979 Canadians aged 18 and over responded to the survey (including a sub-sample of 2,543
decided voters). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-1.8 percentage
points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error
margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically
weighted to ensure the samples composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada
according to Census data.

1
Please note that these dates are not inclusive of weekends, as we do not survey on Saturday or Sunday.

Page 8
Annex:

Federal vote intention: August 4-10

Q. If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?

50

40
32.2
30 27.7

20
15.4
12.3
9.5
10
2.8
0
CPC LPC NDP GP BQ Other
Other

Copyright 2010. No reproduction without permission BASE: Decided Voters; August 4-10 (n=2,048)

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