The Trill

Vox Populi, Vox Dei — a polling episode

• The Trillium

Share episode

Hello politicos. This week, we dive into Ontario polling with two very smart guys. The first is Joseph Angolano, who does polling for The Trillium as head of Pallas Data. Philippe J. Fournier, editor-in-chief of 338Canada and an astrophysicist to boot, joins us as well. We talk about the state of play, what motivates voters, and why polls are the modern-day voice of God.

"Lost in Translation" theme music by Wendy Marcini and Elvin Vangaurd.

Ad:

This episode of the trill is brought to you by unsmoke Canada. Canada can be a global leader in reducing the harm caused by smoking, but it requires actionable steps, including giving adult smokers the information they need to choose potentially less harmful alternatives. Learn more@unsmoke.ca you Jessica,

Jessica Smith Cross:

hello politicos and welcome to the trill a podcast by the trillion. I'm Jessica Smith cross, the editor in chief of the trilliant, and I'm your host today. I'm joined by two incredibly intelligent guests.

Joseph Angolano:

Hi. I'm Joseph Angolano. I'm the founder and CEO of Pallas Data, a market research and polling public opinion research firm in Toronto, Canada.

Philippe J. Fournier:

And I'm Philippe J. Fournier. I'm the editor in chief of 338Canada, and also QC125, based in Quebec, in Montreal.

Jessica Smith Cross:

Great. And as you may have guessed by those bios, we're here to talk about polling. Joseph, you've been doing some polling for the Trillium on Ontario politics. Let's start by getting you to explain to our listeners what the basic state of play is in Ontario right now.

Joseph Angolano:

So the basic state of play is very similar to the previous election the PCs under Doug Ford are roughly at the same level of support as they got in the as they were in the last provincial election. We have them at 41% the one change is that the OLP are now in the Ontario liberals gonna refer them as OLP. There are 28% and the NDP are 22% so the Liberals have taken second place away from the NDP right now, and the greens are at seven and people who said that they'll vote for other parties are at 2% as it stands now, it looks like not much will change, at least in terms of the electoral outcome, it will still be a PC majority, if an election was held today, but the liberals would be, uh, taking will be forming official opposition.

Jessica Smith Cross:

And Philippe, I know you analyze polls, every poll in Canada, as far as I can tell, how does that area situation stand out in any way? Well,

Philippe J. Fournier:

it's interesting, Jessica, to see, uh, pulling out of the most populous province in Canada to be so stable for so long. And as as Joseph just mentioned, the PCs hovering around the 40% mark, 40 41% in the latest Palace data poll. This is the cruising speed of the PCs for the past, I want to say six years we've seen some fluctuations during the pandemic, but since the last time the Ontario voters went to the polls, the numbers really haven't changed that much. The Ontario liberals have taken second place in the polling average, but it's still very tight with the NDP. We see the NDP between 21 and 25% in the polls, and the Ontario liberals usually in the mid to high 20s. But aside from that, the PCs are cruising. Nothing seems to stick either way, for Ford or against Ford, and that 40% mark would create a massive majority at Queen's Park, if it holds until Election Day. And

Jessica Smith Cross:

all this talk about cruising actually makes me wonder and potentially say something stupid here. It seems like polls don't change. They never change until one day. They do. I guess Believe in your years of studying polling, have you ever? Have you come to any conclusions about why the change happens or when it happens? Are there signs of it coming?

Philippe J. Fournier:

Well, thing is, the average or the median voter clearly does not follow politics as much as we do. We are right, you know, right in it on the first row of the hockey game with, you know, we see it from very close. And so I'm not saying that the voters are dumb or uninformed, but they don't follow all the intricate details of what's the happening daily. And so that's why, usually, outside of campaigns, I think Joseph could confirm this, but outside of campaigns, usually the changes are really slow. They're gradual. And so in the case of Ontario specifically, we haven't seen much changes outside of who is second right now in the vote, and that's the liberals. What

Jessica Smith Cross:

about you, Joseph? Do you believe in the elections matter? Theory of elections

Joseph Angolano:

matter? Absolutely. I mean, the what I always tell people is our respondents always answer their the questions truthfully and to the best of their ability. If their election were held today, who would you vote for? And this is who they would vote for. However, the nature of the question changes dramatically once an election is called. If I ask you if you're going. Buy a car tomorrow. What kind of car would you buy, or what kind of bicycle you would buy? Give me an answer, but if your car breaks down like mine did a year ago, my Chevy cruise finally, finally decided to go to automobile heaven. Now I gotta do some research, and I gotta think about and the kind of car I was going to buy when my Chevy was still working great might have been, Oh well, I'll buy a Lexus. I might buy an SUV, but when I started doing research, I decided to buy Toyota Camry. Case in point, to bring us back to politics, we did have, we have a recent example of this, and that was the last federal election the Liberals under Justin Trudeau were dominating in the polls. Everybody under his son was set, was telling, was advising any liberal friend that they had listen. The Prime Minister has to call an election. He's going to win a crushing majority, and the moment he calls an election, just so happens that he also had one of the worst press conferences to launch a campaign since Kim Campbell 1990 1993 that that we won't have, we won't see unemployment go down till the year 2000 that was good, but the nature of the question changed. Okay, now there's an election. Now I'm going to think about this. And you know what? I'm not so sure, and the polls narrowed in favor of the conservatives, and was supposed to be a big majority win for Trudeau didn't happen. So things change once, once an issue is put in front of your face, and elections are no different.

Unknown:

Okay, so Phillippe, I know you do the studying of like the regional projections, what are the battlegrounds shaping up to be in Ontario. Should there be an election anytime soon?

Philippe J. Fournier:

Well, here's the thing, are there battlegrounds? When you project a massive majority party, there are some toss up seats. I mean, obviously there will be, but if in the projection right now, if the numbers are correct, and in recent elections, Ontario polls have been very good, so we have no really scientific basis to doubt those polls, at least taken collectively. But I'm looking at some GTA seats. I'm looking at some Toronto seats, Etobicoke, Lakeshore, Mississauga, Erin Mills, Eglinton, Lawrence, all seats that were won by the PCs but were close last time around, so those seats could flip if the liberals and the NDP don't split the vote as much as they did in the past election. But outside of that, the PCs have such a huge cushion of safe seats that it would take a dramatic turn of events, and I mean literally hundreds of 1000s of voters in Ontario switching their votes and going towards only one of the option on the on the opposition side. So I know it's not, it's a boring answer. I could tell you, Oh, it's going to be very hot in London, but the fact that the PCs dominate right now in almost a region, a couple of seats here and there in Toronto, and a GTA would be what I would look at for, for changes.

Jessica Smith Cross:

Maybe I'll ask it in a different way. I'll try Joseph this time, are there any sort of, like demographic battlegrounds, groups of people that you look look for, for where there could be, like a fight between the parties?

Joseph Angolano:

Yeah, I think, I think Ontarians under the age of 35 I think there's a real battle that that will probably foment in the next election. This is a group that has been voting conservative more and more and more, and at least, certainly indicating so federally, and did so in British Columbia, certainly, I they are still performing very well in our polling. With the PCs are with that group, and I know the NDP and the Liberals are going to work hard to try and go after that demographic. There is, there's a perceived housing supply issue in Ontario. The it's very likely that this, as we know, that the target of building 1.5 million homes is likely going to fall short. That is a key issue for for younger Ontarians looking a bit looking to purchase a home. For the first time, we see Bonnie Crombie trying to make hay of this issue by embracing more yimby Yes in my neighborhood attitude. So that will be a key battleground. This group generally doesn't vote as as in greater numbers, as as older Ontarians, but if they can come out and vote, it could make a difference, especially in those seat reach areas of Toronto where the Liberals are doing the best as two, or the NDP as and in the GTA and in the Hamilton agri court, or these are most of the seats are in Ontario, and this is where majorities are won in Ontario. So that, I think that is going to be a key battleground. Can they can they get motivated? Can they get interested? Can they show up and vote and. If they vote a certain way, it could be. It could be a good launching ground for NDP or liberals in that selection. Yeah,

Jessica Smith Cross:

as a journalist and as somebody with a creative writing background, I'm not an astrophysicist, like fully I'm interested in why people vote, why they do, or what changes, and how to how to get in touch with that. So it's hard to if I talk to somebody about why they want to vote, how they vote, it's it's one person at a time, and they're most likely in Toronto, where I am. I like the idea of using polling to try to get a sense of what moves people and what moves their vote. So Joseph, when we do polls together, I like asking interesting questions. Let's see how people understand, you know, the politics of the day. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on like, how well polling does at getting at what people are actually thinking and feeling and potentially why they're voting, whatever way they're going to vote. I'm

Joseph Angolano:

a guy who who believes that the wisdom of the many trumps the wisdom of the few, and I think it's far more respectful of people to ask their opinions on issues and and things that matter to them and why they want to do, why they choose the behaviors that they do, or what rational rationalizations they give. I'd rather ask a group, a large group of people, what they think instead of, instead of people, instead of, you know, I love our pundits, but they are just one voice. I'd rather ask people. Rather ask people what they think. And their wisdom is not better or worse than than the elites and the pundits, but it's different, and they're the ones who actually decide who go who, who goes into power or not. It is a democracy. They make the decision. And I always push, I mean, I'm the big defender of my industry, because we explain and we try and unravel what people actually think about issues, not not what, not what one person in a studio perceives to be the truth, right? There's a saying in Latin that goes Vox popli, Vox day. And there's my Catholic education coming out. And that means, in English, the voice of the people is the voice of God. The voice the people. Is what is, is what we should be listening to and and that's why I think governments should try their best to do understand what. And same thing as journalists, same thing as public policy experts and NGOs, fill in the blank, talk to people, understand and ask them questions, understand what they do. And this is why I think our industry is well suit for doing that, because that's exactly what

Jessica Smith Cross:

we do. Yeah, I think our last poll maybe did a pretty good job of that. Like, if you had asked a pundit on the day that Ford announced his big tunnel idea, he's going to do a tunnel expressway under the 401 they would have probably said that this is a really, this is a populist idea from a popular premier that really appear appeals to driving voters in those suburbs that fleet mentioned are possibly the most competitive in the coming election. That's the pub the the pundit take on that one. But your poll founded, maybe not so so popular. 52% of Ontarians strongly oppose it. Another 10% somewhat oppose it. Among PC supporters, 28% strongly opposed to 12% somewhere. It wasn't even popular among people who said that they drive on these highways like every day. And so what do you make of what that poll found? Do you think this thing has the potential to drive some votes in one direction or another?

Joseph Angolano:

It could. It's always possible. I think it goes back to whether Ontarians or a critical mass of Ontarians. I mean, we're talking about our more recent poll. I'm not talking about the poll we did before that, where we really tried to figure out if everyone's so upset at everything Doug Ford does, why is he still winning elections? Well, the simple answer is, why is he still winning the popular vote, or why is he still leading in the polls? Excuse me, Well, the answer is pretty simple. He can keep 36% of the population relatively happy, and that's and PJ can confirm this, that's enough to keep that's not to win a majority, so long as the liberals and the NDP are roughly tied in support with the 401 it could be, but it could be a problem if they really think that that the Premier is making a massive mistake, and he is, and he's going to be the cause of of a lot of of a lot of delays caused by construction on the 401 the most used Road, used highway in Canada. And while they're on their while they're on the on the 401 middle of Russia, I already start cursing his name because he's a guy who did this while we're building the tunnel. Yeah, it's going to hurt. Right, but construction is not going to start until after the election. So it's all theoretical. So if I, if I were the NDP, if I were the Liberals under Bonnie Crombie, I my opposition digital ads would be saying, look at all the construction all over all around Toronto. You want them to four one, because this thing is not going to be built for another 50. For another 50, 100, 100 years. If you can create that doubt in the mind of voters and tend that to Doug Ford, maybe have a possibility of making a Other than that, if people still trust Him above more than Bonnie Crombie and merit styles, voters are just going to wrap find another rationalization to to to vote for him and ignore the potential and just look past this, this potential construction boondoggle that this might be,

Jessica Smith Cross:

as much as I love this idea of polling being the voice of God. I certainly know that a lot of voters don't see it that way. Philippe, you rate pollsters. You take a look at when they do well and when they do poorly. How good is polling right now in Canada?

Philippe J. Fournier:

Okay, that's, that's a good question, but I need to to have nuances answer, because I, if I just tell you good or bad, it would not be a complete answer. In the past decade, I would say even decade and a half, we can count on one hand the times when polling was wrong in an election, and usually we find, after further research that there's a reason. It was just not the posters missing out. It was actually voters who either changed their minds or changed their votes, or there were dynamics in there. And so to go back to what Joseph was just talking about a few minutes ago, here's the thing with polling is politicians all the time tell us, well, that's not what we're hearing on the field. And as a scientist, I always say, I don't care what you hear on the field. What you hear on the field is a very tiny sub sample that's not representative of the population, like your family or your circle of friends, are not representative. They could be good they could have good insights. You could have some clues. I mean, sometimes polling companies will do focus groups, which is doesn't give you quantitative data, but it gives you qualitative data that can have value. But polling, scientific polling, if it's done properly, will give you the most objective analysis of the state of a race. And so that's why it is so important. It is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of facts with some uncertainty in there, because that's what it is. The sticks, there's always a bit of uncertainty. And in the case of Ontario, so I've covered two Ontario elections with 338, 2018, and 2022, the polls were really good. So individually, you will have some pollsters that will miss the mark by a few points. But when you take them collectively, and especially if you take the high rated ones, you notice that they do not miss. The Miss are occasional, far and far in between. We just saw and be in British Columbia like there were. It was a close race. It was a race that was really difficult because we had a realignment, a party being absorbed by another one, a new map, a sitting premiere that was kind of popular, but also had his opponents, and the numbers were right on and including, that's including Palestina and Joseph here, who had the numbers right down to the to The final score. So if you don't trust polling, it's your choice. Okay, it's fine, it's it's your opinion. But that doesn't mean that most of the time it's right. And to people who say, Well, you shouldn't trust polls like I guess you don't go outside much when the weatherman says it's gonna rain because, right, we have to pollsters do a really good job in this country, and posters that don't go out of business. There is a natural selection that happens with the polling industry, and that's why those who are left right now in Canada, at least, are still in business, because they've survived this, this, this barrage of elections that they have to face. I'm not sure that answer your questions, but that's, that's, that would be my analysis of the state of polling and

Jessica Smith Cross:

in Saskatchewan, was it a little less close, and what was happening there?

Philippe J. Fournier:

Yeah. Well, okay, so the Saskatchewan has been a problem for pollsters for a while. That was not new, and we we see that the final polls were converging towards either a tie or a slight NDP lead, and in the end, we see the sax party wing winning ill for people who do seat projections, like me, it did not really matter that much, because the rural, urban divide was so stark that even with the NDP overestimated in the polls, it. Not change that much, but there is a huge challenge for pollsters today to be able to reach, not only reach rural voters, but conservative rural voters and sometimes anti system voters, because those people, many of them, will hang up the phone if you call them for a poll, because they don't like mainstream media, they see it as manipulative and so but it's always in the margins we saw in the states that the polls were really good, but they were just one point or two in favor of Trump, and that margin can make a whole other difference. So to answer your question about Saskatchewan, it when I said, in the past decade and a half, we could count on one hand that counts in the last to schedule an election.

Jessica Smith Cross:

Okay, that's really interesting. Are there any other lessons to learn from that giant poll that we had this week in the United States? Joseph, what do you

Joseph Angolano:

think on the average pollsters? I think performed very well. I think their average error, if I misspeak, forgive me, I think the average error from the average was roughly 1.2% off every estimate. And that's pretty akin to BC, where the top four posters their average error per estimate. So if I sit so, just explain that for your audience. If I say, if my polling says the Conservatives are going to the PCs get 41% and they actually get 42.1% that is 1.1% of an error, of a miss right margin of error is usually within, is usually three four points. So that's much within the margin of error. That's very good, right? The difference in the United States is that a very small error could have led, could have led, either to Harris winning 300 electoral votes, or what ended up happening, or will happen, Trump winning 300 electoral votes that. And I understand some people saying, well, that's imprecise. You promised us a close election. Well, I don't promise you anything. I just mentioned to which I'd counter and say, Look, if I if I had a system, I had a prediction system, or algorithm, that could predict the baseball the batting averages for every pro baseball player within 11 points, which is 1.1% right? If I told you Ohtani was going to bat 369 and it ended up batting three eight, you'd think my model would be working very well. And this is what polling is doing, right? There will be some imprecision. We are asking humans what they are going to do. Humans change their mind for a bunch of reasons, right? There will be some imprecision, right? Humans are irrational news flash, and they will do things that are unpredictable. I'm not telling I don't think I'm breaking any ground when I reveal that. So there will be some imprecision. That's fine, but broad strokes, we generally do a very good job of measuring public opinion, at least certainly in this country, right? Well,

Jessica Smith Cross:

we're running to the end of our time, so we'll wrap up with a quick answer question to both of you, if you were the Premier of Ontario right now, based on the polls, would you be calling an early election,

Philippe J. Fournier:

whoever? Well, I'll let Joseph answer that first. According to his numbers, what do you think of Joseph? Yes, I would.

Joseph Angolano:

I a question we also asked in our poll is, would you be would you be concerned? Would you be upset if there would be, there would be an early election? And most people are very tepid to the idea. And what I find interesting about that result was, usually people are really against the idea of having an election. They never want to have an election. I get it, people knocking on your doors, politicians on your television, complaining about everybody. I mean, I get it. It's annoying. But usually when I when I pull that question in other in federally or jurisdictions, the answer is usually a big fat no, no. I don't want an election. This time they said, Yeah, well, I don't care if there's a Yeah, sure. Have an early one. Quite a few people said there were. We'll have one if you have a good reason, sure have one. So Ford's not the Premier's not going to really suffer that much if you were to have one. So as long as he has a compelling reason and says, Look, I need a new mandate to do X, Y and Z, and there's a new direction I want to take the province into. Certainly, the election of Donald Trump is a good it might be a good reason. He the premier, has talked about, listen, we gotta have a buy a by North America. And we gotta convince, we gotta convince the new administration that, you know, Ontario is a friend of new as a friend of new administration, if he wants to do this campaign around the whole Captain Ontario vibe, that might be reason enough. So I think we. What, by all means, I think there might be a good there certainly are good reasons to have

Jessica Smith Cross:

one. I'm just shocked that not everybody likes elections as much as I

Philippe J. Fournier:

do. Well, I'll say, I'll say this, provinces have fixed election laws that are only suggestions I get when a fixed election date law is broken because you have a minority government, when you have a massive majority, as Doug Ford does right now, there's no really good reason to do it, except for opportunism. If your bet is that your voters will forgive you for being opportunistic and going early, because Doug Ford has the votes at Queen's Park. He doesn't need to. Had to go into an election almost two years early. But if his numbers, if just straight cynical politics, if his numbers say, like Joseph's numbers, say that voters will be fine with it, then go ahead and secure it under four years. Four years, and Doug Ford would be the first Ontario premier with three majorities since, I think it was frost, right? It's been a while, pretty straightforward. So I understand why you would do it, but Well, that's all I had to say

Jessica Smith Cross:

about that. Thank you guys so much for coming to all of us. It's fantastic. Thank

Philippe J. Fournier:

you, Jessica. You