On the upswing

It's a plus to have some new Saskatchewan polling results. But some useful analysis would be helpful as well...and the Star-Phoenix falls somewhat short on that count:

An early election poll is signalling that Saskatchewan may be heading toward 2004's federal election result -- majority support for the Conservatives and a near split of the remaining vote.

An Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CanWest News Service and Global News from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 has found 36 per cent of Saskatchewan respondents say Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are the leader and party most capable of dealing with the most important election issue. The Liberals and NDP are tied at 26 per cent, and 12 per cent don't know or refused to respond...

The poll's findings reflect the 2004 federal election results in the province, where the Conservatives garnered 41.8 per cent of the vote, the Liberals 27.2 per cent and the NDP 23.4 per cent.

Let's leave aside the seemingly obviously distinction between a majority and a plurality. Also note that the poll only includes 250 Saskatchewan voters, so drawing conclusions is a dicey proposition.

Those issues aside, neither the reporter nor Ipsos-Reid hesitated to conclude from the numbers that nothing much had changed since 2004. This despite the fact that the NDP is up 3 points in the poll even without taking the undecided voters into account. More importantly, the NDP's numbers trail the Cons' provincially by only 10 points now, as opposed to over 18 in 2004.

It shouldn't have required too much effort to examine the actual results, which strongly suggest that a shift between the NDP and Cons of 8+ points would have substantially affected the election's outcome. Contrary to the article's take, if the new polling numbers show anything, it's that the NDP is well-positioned to put the 2004 disappointment far behind it.