Monday, May 14, 2007

Looking to the future

The detailed numbers are now out (warning: PDF) for the poll that I mentioned last night. And there's another tidbit worth noting, as the voting intentions by age suggests that the current proliferation of parties could be the norm for some time to come.

In the 35-54 and 55+ age classes, the Cons and Libs are well out in front of the other parties. But the numbers in the 18-34 age take a significant turn:

Lib 27
Con 24
NDP 22
Green 14
Bloc 11


Now, this is a small sample of younger voters (216 voters aged 18-34)...and it's also entirely possible that voting patterns will change with time. (In that vein, I'm curious as to whether there's a usual pattern of younger voters disproportionately supporting third, fourth and fifth parties - and will have to follow up on that.)

But those caveats aside, the poll offers at least some indication that younger Canadian voters are significantly less wedded to the Libs and Cons than their older counterparts. And one of the major tasks for the NDP and Greens going forward will presumably be to both cultivate that trend, and retain their current share of the 18-to-34 vote.

Correction: My mistake in linking this poll to last night's Decima numbers - instead it's the breakdown from a poll released earlier.

No comments:

Post a Comment