Thursday 8 December 2016

Fairfax-Nielsen poll - Exploring a Post-Key World






Fairfax-Nielsen Poll

Weighted On-line Poll conducted in the immediate wake of  Key's shock resignation on Monday (carried out "on the evening of December 5, the day John Key announced his resignation, and on the morning of December 6").




 Fairfax-Nielsen    Next National Party Leader Poll              
   Who should be the next National Party leader and Prime Minister ?     
                                                                                                                    
     Don't Know  39%          Bill English  37%          Steven Joyce  6%      
     Judith Collins 4%           Paula Bennett 4%         Amy Adams 3%       
                                                                                             Other 6%         
                                                                                                                    








 Fairfax-Nielsen     Political Fallout  Poll                                   
   How does John Key stepping down affect your likelihood to vote for   
   National at next year's election ?                                                             
                                                                                                                    
      Much More Likely to Vote National    5%                                            
      Slightly More Likely to Vote National  4%                                          
                                                                 (= 9%)                                        
       Makes No Difference  75%                                                                  
                                                                                                                    
       Slightly Less Likely to Vote National  9%                                           
       Much Less Likely to Vote National     7%                                          
                                                               (= 16%)                                        
                                                                                                                    








 Fairfax-Nielsen    Main Beneficiary of Key Resignation      
     Who is the main Beneficiary of John Key's  Resignation ?                   
                                                                                                                     
             Labour  46%              NZF  9%              National  8%                    
                                 (No Other Data Provided)                                          
                                                                                                                     








 Fairfax-Nielsen        Early Election Poll                              
       Should there be an Early Election ?                                              
                                                                                                             
      Yes - as soon as possible  17%                                                      
       Yes - in next 6 Months    13%                                                       
                                             (= 30%)                                                    
                                                                                                              
        No - New Person should be given some time   37%                    
        No - It makes no difference anyway                  24%                    
                                                                                (= 61%)                 
                                                                                                               
         Don't Know  9%                                                                           
                                                                                                               










Monday 28 November 2016

Updated CB






Colmar Brunton Polls since 2014

______________________________________________________________________________

(1) Broad

 Oppo  = Lab+Green+IMP+NZF
 Govt   = Nat+ACT+Maori+UF
 Right  = Govt+Cons

 O/G Lead
2 = Numbers in Red = Oppo Lead
2 = Numbers in Blue  = Govt Lead
Equal = Oppo and Govt tied

 CB  One News Colmar Brunton



                                     Oppo       Govt         Right      O/G Lead   
   2014 Election             46             49              53                3           
 Colmar Brunton        Polls since 2014 Election:                          
   2015                                                                                                
  CB  (Feb 2015)            47              51              52               4           
  CB  (April 2015)          48              50              52               2           
  CB  (May 2015)           48              50              52               2          

  CB  (July 2015)            53              48              48               5          
  CB  (Sep 2015)             51              48              48               3          
  CB  (Oct 2015)             52              48              48               4           
   2016                                                                                                 
  CB  (Feb 2016)             50              48              49               2           
  CB  (April 2016)           47              52              52               5           
  CB  (May 2016)            50              49              50               1          
  CB  (Sep 2016)             50              50              51            Equal      
  CB  (Nov 2016)            49              51              51                2          







______________________________________________________________________________

(2) Specific


 L+           = Labour + Greens
  Rank           = Strength of L+G support
 NZF             = New Zealand First
 Oppo           =  Lab+Green+IMP+NZF
 Nat               = National
 LG/N          = National's percentage point lead over aggregate Labour + Green support
 Govt             = Nat+ACT+Maori+UF


 CB  One News Colmar Brunton



                             L+G    Rank    NZF    Oppo      Nat   LG/N   Govt     
   2014 Election      36       (5)          9          46          47       11        49        
   Colmar Brunton Polls since 2014 Election:                                           
    2015                                                                                                          
  CB  (Feb)              41       (3)          6          47          49        8         51       
  CB  (April)            40       (3)          7          48          49        9         50       
  CB  (May)             41       (3)          7          48          48        7         50       
  CB  (July)              45       (1)          7          53          47        2         48        
  CB  (Sep)               44       (1)          7          51          47        3         48       
  CB  (Oct)               43       (2)          9           52          47       4         48        
   2016                                                                                                            
  CB  (Feb)               40       (3)        10           50          47        7        48       
  CB  (April)             38       (4)         9            47          50       12       52       
  CB  (May)              41        (3)        9            50          48        7        49       
  CB  (Sep)               39        (4)       11            50          48        9        50      
  CB  (Nov)               39       (4)       10            49          50       11       51       








Saturday 19 March 2016

Heading South ?



Commenting on Kiwiblog a couple of days ago, Right-Wing Blogger and National Party cheerleader, Keeping Stock suggested "Labour's poll ratings are heading south at an alarming rate".


But is this true ?


Are Labour's numbers in free-fall ?




          One News Colmar Brunton      - Labour Support                   
  2015       Feb  31          April  31           May  31          July  32        
                 Aug  32            Oct  31                                                        
   2016       Feb  32                                                                                

Nope. Not for Colmar Brunton.







               Herald-DigiPoll         - Labour Support             
  2014        Dec  29                                                                
  2015        April   29            Aug  31              Dec 31          

In a word: No.   Nay.   Nyet.   Nein.   Nicht.   Not for Herald-DigiPoll either.









                        3 News Reid Research       - Labour Support                
  2015       Jan  29       May 30        July  31        Sep  33         Nov  32   

Fraid not  ...     Well   ...   not unless you consider the definition of "heading south at an alarming rate" to encompass a one point fall on the previous poll and a one-to-three point increase on those immediately prior to that.









                     Roy Morgan    - Labour Support                                          
  2014        Oct 23             Nov 24              Dec    27                                    
  2015        Jan  26            Feb  30           March  31          April   28         
                   May  26         June  26              July  32           Aug    27         
                   Sep  31            Oct  29               Nov  30              Dec  29        
   2016        Jan  28            Feb  27          March  28                                  

Slightly more promising for Keeping Stock.   But, nah sorry, still no fluffy toy.

Labour's certainly down on its July apex of 32% and, indeed, on the 7 Roy Morgans in which it scored above 28%. Then again, it's up on another 8 polls where it rated 23-27%, including the latest survey's immediate (February 2016) precursor. No doubt about it - the Party's suffered a mild decline on most of its mid-late 2015 numbers in the Roy Morgans. But can we really say that they're currently "heading south at an alarming rate" ?  Wouldn't have thought so. More a kind of roller-coaster ride that's recently levelled off mid-way between the highs and lows.


So, for three of our four major public pollsters, Not even remotely !!!

For the other ? Not really. You'd be stretching your definitions to breaking point.



And then, of course, there's the arguably more important question of the Opposition Bloc's poll numbers ... last two polls (Feb Colmar Brunton and March Roy Morgan) put them back in front.
Translation:  Winnie kingmaker once again.



(NOTE: The Tables above include all polls carried out by New Zealand's leading Public Pollsters since the September 2014 General Election. No Colmar Brunton or Reid Research polls were conducted in late 2014, and no Herald-Digis or Reid Research polls have yet been undertaken this year)




Meanwhile, leading National Party Spin-meister, Matthew Hooton, has also been weaving one or two colourful wee rhetorical strategies around the notion that Labour are in free-fall. In Hooton's case, though, the focus is on data from Labour's private pollster UMR Research.

Part and parcel of his on-going strategy to de-stabilise the Labour leadership by talking up rumours of caucus discontent (a strategy that Hooton, Slater and Farrar have been assiduously pursuing for some time now, just as they did during the tenures of Little's three immediate predecessors), Hooton argues that:  "Alarm has been raised after Labour's private polling showed it was down to just 30% in February, from 35% before Christmas. Worse, those voters have not gone to the Greens but slipped back to National so that the gap between left and right is now wider than a month before Labour's last election debacle".

(Working as a double-act, Farrar then blogs approvingly, liberally quoting Hooton, while adding (as he so often does) his own carefully-misleading and de-contextualised comments and poll stats).

For starters, you can see that 30% is, in fact, entirely in line with Labour's recent numbers among New Zealand's leading Public Pollsters - who, as we've seen have recorded pretty stable support for the Party over recent months (and, of course, an Opposition Bloc lead in the latest two polls).

Particularly interesting, too, that when Labour politicians told the media that their internal poll put them on 35% - as they did in December - you could hear Hooton, Farrar et al scoff from a mile away: "Yeah Right". Yet the moment these Right-Wing commentators get wind of a possible decline for the major Party of the Left, the numbers of  Labour's private pollster very suddenly become absolutely sacrosanct.

Much more importantly, though, it has to be said that Hooton's pulling a bit of an old swifty here.

The 35% figure in UMR's December poll was very much an outlier. UMR poll on a monthly basis and in a clear majority of their polls through 2015 (including the four immediately preceding the December one), Labour were sitting on 31% (and were on 32% in most of the remainder). This notion of some sort of dramatic fall is, therefore, unmitigated nonsense.

He's also being a little playful when he seeds the idea that: " ... the gap between left and right is now wider than a month before Labour's last election debacle."

First, Hooton fails to define precisely what he means by Left and Right. Is he, for instance, including Colin Craig's Conservatives in his definition of Right ? What about NZ First and, most importantly, the Maori Party ? And is IMP counted among the Left ?

Here are the 2014 General Election Party Vote percentages:

Labour+Green 36     Left 37      Oppo 46           Govt 49        Right 53

So the Left-Right gap was either = 12 points (Left vs Govt), 13 points (Lab+Green vs Govt),  16 points (Left vs Right) or 17 points (Lab+Greens vs Right). All depending on how Hooton defines his terms.

And here are the UMR figures a month out from the Election (I'm presuming these are the stats Hooton is referring to, albeit without ever detailing - as you'll see, for obvious reasons):

UMR one month before 2014 General Election:

Labour+Green 42      Left 45      Oppo 51          Govt 46        Right 49


So, in fact, all he's saying is: the current gap is more than 1 solitary percentage point (Left vs Govt), or more than 4 points (Lab+Green vs Govt) and (Left vs Right) or more than 7 points (Lab+Greens vs Right). In other words, despite what Hooton is carefully trying to imply, the Left-Right gap  (however defined) is significantly less than the one that occurred at the 2014 Election.



Monday 14 March 2016

Next National Leader



I see there's been a smattering of discussion at Public Address on (amongst other things) leadership succession in a post-Key National Party.

Here are the findings of Public Pollsters over the last 5 years.


   HD   = Herald-DigiPoll

    FI    = Fairfax Ipsos

    CB   = Colmar Brunton


(Note: Only One News Colmar Brunton provide Don't Know figures. With the other polls, I'm reluctant to simply subtract the aggregate potential leader figures from 100% to reach a Don't Know figure because I can't be sure there weren't other Nat politicians receiving smaller shares of support who were excluded from the tables in the respective poll reports)


                                      Next National Party Leader Polls                                  
         Poll                                                   Politician                                             
 HD  (Aug 2015)       English 30       Joyce 14       Bennett 11       Bridges 7         
                                                                                                                               
  FI   (Sep 2014)        English 33       Joyce 22       Bennett 11       Bridges 9        
                                                                                                                                 
 CB   (Sep 2014)        English 28       Joyce 16       Bennett 7         Collins 2         
                                                                  Woodhouse 2        Don't Know 41       
                                                                                                                                
 CB   (July 2013)        English 23       Joyce 16       Collins 11       Other 5            
                                                                                             Don't Know 45            
                                                                                                                                
 HD   (June 2013)       English 30       Joyce 25       Collins 13                               
                                                                                                                                 
 HD   (Nov 2011)        English 27       Joyce 19       Collins 16      Brownlee 11    
                                                                                                                                 

Joyce's stocks appear to have taken a bit of a tumble (albeit in the context of a long-term roller-coaster ride), Bennett's nowhere near as popular as many pundits seem to assume, nor is Bridges. Collins and Brownlee were contenders back in 2011, but the Oravida (May 2014) and Dirty Politics (August 2014) scandals pretty much did for the reputation of the former while the latter's gone completely off the radar. That leaves Wild Bill English as the perpetual frontrunner. Interesting, given his unpopularity back in the early Zeros, leading National to its historic low of 21% at the 2002 General Election. The Finance Minister and Deputy PM appears to have rehabilitated his reputation as a future leader. Bear in mind, though, that less than a third of respondents choose English (there's always a significant Don't Know factor) and, if the Sep 2014 Colmar Brunton is anything to go by, less than a quarter of non-National Party supporters favour him. .




The Sep 2014 Colmar Brunton supplies not only Entire Sample figures (Total) but also the breakdown specifically for National Party supporters (National). They've also provided enough detail to allow me to calculate potential leader figures among the supporters of all parties other than National (Other Parties). This segment (making up roughly half of all respondents) is dominated by Opposition party supporters but also includes those voting for the Conservatives, the minor parties of Government and the Undecideds.

Colmar Brunton also supply stats for those demographics more likely than average to support (variously) English and Joyce.


       Next National Party Leader       Colmar Brunton  (Sep 2014)               
     Politician                Total                  National              Other Parties       
     English                       28                         33                            23                   
     Joyce                          16                          23                            9                   
     Bennett                        7                           7                              7                  
     Collins                         2                           2                              2                  
     Woodhouse                  2                          1                               3                 
     Other                            4                          3                               5                 
     Don't Know                 41                        32                             50                 
                                                                                                                          
   Above Average Support for    English                                                       
     Wellington residents     39                                                                           
     Men                               34                                                                           
    Above Average Support for    Joyce                                                         
     Age 55 +                        24                                                                          
     National Supporters       23                                                                           
     High Income                  22                                                                          
                                                                                                                          







Addendum

Latest Poll from Labour's UMR:

                                      Next National Party Leader Polls                                  
         Poll                                                   Politician                                             
 UMR  (Oct 2016)       English 21       Joyce 16       Bennett 11       Collins  6