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The pollster that got the Nanaimo byelection wrong says the BC NDP is leading

Back in January of this year, Mainstreet Research released a poll saying the BC Liberals had a “13-point lead” over the BC NDP in the Nanaimo byelection. I put the number in quotation marks because that ginormous lead turned out to be wrong.
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Back in January of this year, Mainstreet Research released a poll saying the BC Liberals had a “13-point lead” over the BC NDP in the Nanaimo byelection.

I put the number in quotation marks because that ginormous lead turned out to be wrong.

Like, really wrong.

When the ballots were counted just days later, the BC NDP’s Sheila Malcolmson had smoked BC Liberal candidate Tony Harris by 10 points – garnering nearly 50 per cent of the popular vote.

I mention this because Mainstreet has shaken off that poll and waded back into provincial politics again with a new poll claiming the BC NDP have “extended their lead over the BC Liberals and would be close to winning a majority if an election were held today.”

I wanted to give things context before listing all of Mainstreet’s results because political polling can be, uh, unreliable.

Mainstreet might find this blog unfair, but I think people have a right to read it with more context. Media outlets, including ours, also need to be more cautious about reporting on these polls.
Mainstreet released today its latest UltraPoll, a “conglomeration of 10 provincial polls. The poll surveyed 923 British Columbians between March 20th and 21st 2019. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.23% and is accurate 19 times out of 20.”
Among decided and leaning voters, the BC NDP lead with 39% support (+2% from Mainstreet's January poll), while the opposition Liberals with Andrew Wilkinson at the helm have 32.4% (-2.5%). The BC Green Party with Andrew Weaver as leader have 13.3% (-1.3%), while the BC Conservatives with interim leader Scott Anderson have 12.1% (-0.9%).

It should be noted that Mainstreet technically got a different poll correct when it released results of polling about the Burnaby South byelection back in January. That poll had federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh leading by more than 10 per cent (albeit against then-Liberal candidate Karen Wang before her campaign imploded) and, of course, Singh won the byelection handily.

Personally, I wish pollsters wouldn't do this kind of polling. As we've seen, they can be unreliable - just ask Adrian Dix about that supposed huge lead he had in 2013. And I don't think they really serve any purpose. But that's my opinion.

Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44