Not yet satisfied

Eric highlights Environics' polling as to how happy supporters of various parties are with last month's federal election results. And the findings look to bode about as well as possible for the NDP's prospects of expanding its reach over the next few years:

Conservative supporters felt very positively about the election result - and why not. Their party won a majority. Fully 82% are quite happy.

But New Democratic voters aren't as pleased as you might expect. Their party made a historic breakthrough in Quebec, won the most seats and votes in their history, and are now the Official Opposition. But only 27% of their voters are happy with the results.

Though it is somewhat surprising it is as high as it is, 13% of Liberal voters and 10% of Bloc voters feel positively about what happened on May 2nd. Thirty percent of non-voters are also pleased with the result.

As for having negative feelings about the election result, only 2% of Conservative voters have some regrets. That is miniscule. Surprisingly, only 21% of non-voters feel the same way (36% are, understandably, indifferent).

Despite their historic outcome, fully 42% of NDP voters feel sad or fearful about the election results. And despite being reduced to third party status, only 54% of Liberal voters feel negatively. It is a majority, but you'd expect Liberals to be a little more upset, along the lines of the 73% of Bloc voters.

Now, it's important enough that a substantial number of NDP voters were hoping for more rather than expressing satisfaction with the party's position. After it's surely easier to build a movement when supporters are concerned about the direction of the country and motivated to change it, rather than seeing reason to get complacent.

But the level of satisfaction with the election result among the opposition parties is especially significant when paired with the NDP's post-election polling boost. In effect, it looks like a number of the Lib voters who already looked like promising NDP targets have already made the jump - and are apparently finding a landing pad which fits their own attitudes about the election.

[Edit: fixed quote.]