Monday, February 07, 2011

On localization

It's fully predictable that a questionable narrative about Canadian politics turning into a two-way race will be blown out of proportion. But it's particularly worth keeping in mind how a focus on national polls alone might miss some of the most important steps taken by the NDP to get ready for the next federal election.

While the NDP closed the gap against its competitors in terms of national spending in 2008, it still had a ways to go in getting organized at the riding level to covert potential votes into actual ones. And so, as I've pointed out, the NDP has been engaged in a concerted effort to build capacity at the EDA level, providing incentive programs and support to make sure that local campaigns can do more to turn general support into riding-level success.

Like any choice, that strategy carries a price, with correspondingly less resources going into efforts which might do more for the NDP's national numbers. Which means that the focus on local development may go a long way toward explaining the fact that the NDP has mostly stayed at the low to middle end of its usual polling range over the past couple of years.

What the choice to focus on local development also means, however, is that a seat projection model which relies on national polling while missing any increased ability to translate that broad support into votes is bound to err on the low side in projecting the NDP's results. And while it's difficult to know exactly how the two factors will play out, I'd see at least as much upside as downside in combining strong candidates and improved local organization with a marginally lower top-line number outside the election period.

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