On improved positions

Last week, I noted the top-line results from Angus Reid's latest federal polling. But perhaps even more important than the stability in Canada's party polling numbers is the question of which party is living up to the expectations underlying its popular support. And for all the work some have done to attack the NDP in its new role as Official Opposition, the poll results show respondents happier with the NDP than with any other party.

To start with, the party momentum scores show the NDP leading the way in the number of respondents saying their opinion of the party has improved. In fact, the NDP's 23% score on that from matches the Cons, Libs and Bloc combined. And the NDP also saw fewer respondents indicate a worsening opinion than any of those parties - putting the NDP's momentum score at par, compared to -11 for the Cons, -25 for the Libs and -33 for the Bloc.

So rather than disappointing its newfound voters, the NDP has actually done far better than any other party at living up to and exceeding voters' expectations. But what effect might that have on actual voting patterns in the future?

Well, the poll also included a question as to how many 2011 voters actually do regret their choice to the point where they'd prefer to have supported another party. And a stunning 20% of those who voted for the Libs now say they'd rather have supported the NDP.

Translating that to the Libs' share of the popular vote, roughly 4% of voters can be classified as having voted Lib, only to wish that they'd supported the NDP - by far the largest group of respondents with regrets about their voting choice. And the Lib/NDP swing looks to be the only one with such a massive imbalance as to who's having second thoughts: while most of the inter-party swings tend to be roughly equal on either side, the number of voters who would now switch a vote from Lib to NDP is more than double that which would go in the opposite direction (roughly 4% to 2% of voters).

So for all the well-spun talk about how the NDP would fall flat on its face, the truth is that it's exceeded expectations and left plenty of voters with the sense that they'd have been better off supporting the party. And one could hardly ask for a better set of public perceptions as the NDP looks to build on its election result.