Time to decide

I'm not sure that Angus Reid's polling to the effect that 54% of voters had already made their minds up before the start of the election campaign should come as too much of a shock, as the number at least roughly approximates the parties' base support levels. (Though the number does offer a strong indication as to why the parties can't afford to wait until the start of a campaign to make a serious push to win support.)

What strikes me as more interesting, though, are the numbers within the campaign itself. There, roughly equal numbers of voters made their decisions before the debates (15%), following the debates (12%), and on election day (15%).

I'd tend to figure that for a voter who hadn't yet decided anything by the start of the election period, there would be little reason to finalize any voting decisions before all the information from the campaign is in. But it appears that a remarkable number of voters tuned in from the start of the campaign, then made a fairly quick decision as to who to support.

Now, it could be that the dynamic in 2008 was based mostly on the diverging campaign fortunes of the two parties mentioned most often in the media's horse-race narrative, such that the same pattern might not hold in other campaigns. But if the distribution does reflect how undecided voters will generally reach their decision, then it would seem that parties may be best served focusing more of their resources on the beginning of the campaign (when there are at least as many voters to be won, as well as an opportunity to shape a public narrative for later) than on a closing push. And that could lead to a significantly different campaign shape than what we saw this year.