05.06.2013 11:57 AM

Canada’s Nate Silver weighs in on B.C. ’13

Here.  Dix didn’t have a great debate performance, Clark did.  Also, going neg has worked for the latter – while refusing to do so hasn’t helped the former.

That all said, (a) NDP vote is much more efficient on the ground and (b) Mr. Grenier says closing the remaining gap is going to be pretty hard for the B.C. Libs.  I think Mr. Grenier is right.

12 Comments

  1. Iris Mclean says:

    My family and friends in BC tell me that it’s in the bag for the Dippers, and it was long before the writ was dropped.

  2. deb s says:

    yep its Dix, to lose he would have to be charged with abusing animals, pedophilia or drunk and major disorderly…Clark can chirp and cheer all she wants…she is done. im sure Nate is on the money for the numbers but election day is very soon, cant wait:)

    • Iris Mclean says:

      The only hope Clark has is if she can get the RCMP to stage a raid on Dix’s home. That tactic has worked before, but I think the cops will decline this time around.

      • deb s says:

        yes i agree and it will look ridiculous this time around…and even if the cops (and the media) bring camaras for a raid and find Mr Dix in drag…he still will be our next premier. If not I want a recount as I call fraud:)

  3. Canada has no Nate Silver. For one thing, the polling is too light here. Nate doesn’t make predictions unless he has data – (How many U.S. Congress races does Nate opine on? Not very many. Why? Not enough numbers.) 308 on the other hand – last year 308.com said my riding was going Wild Rose. 308 made that call based on a few Calgary-wide polls, which for all we know did not contact a single resident in downtown cowtown. When the real numbers came in, my riding went Liberal in spite of massive pressure to strategic vote for PC. Wild Rose came in third.

  4. Fraternite says:

    Comparing Nate Silver to Eric Grenier is just wrong, Warren.

    Silver is a great statistician. Grenier is a political fanboy. The only reason people seem to care about Grenier is because he was cagy enough to associate himself with Silver by lifting the blog name from him. Now if he started lifting the methodology, well, that would be another story…

  5. dave says:

    Down at the campaign office this aft cobbling together signs. Candidate was in and we chatted about the trade fair she attended in another community over the weekend. Told me about issues there. She left. I went on cobbling. Fellow even older than I came in and we cooperated, till he said, that’s enough. We talked about Wilson this morn asking voters to come home: Wilson, shilling for the people who stole his party from him. Then my comrade left. I sat around waiting for someone with a key to the place to come in. We really do not qualify for the name, ‘Red Hordes.’

  6. DJ says:

    No kidding. There is no mathematical scenario for Clark to win a majority. Harcourt won a massive majority with 41%; Glen Clark won a majority with 38%. Ipsos has the NDP 10 points ahead today. That’s huge in terms of seat distribution. Dix has made some gutsy pledges on energy, but he’ll have a mandate to say no to pipelines. This will help him as premier.

  7. Ed Frink says:

    The 1948 US Presidential election comes to mind. Republican candidate Thomas Dewey was all but assured of winning the election according to these very favorable conditions:

    -The Democratic party was being threatened from vote splitting from the left with Thomas Dewey’s socialist protest candidacy
    -The Democrats were also bleeding support to the right with it’s Southern faction (the Dixiecrats) running it’s own candidate Strom Thurmond to attract an even greater share of protest votes
    -Dewey had done reasonably well against the popular wartime President, FDR in ’44
    -The public was growing weary of 16 years of Democratic incumbency with the accumulation of scandals that had grown over the years.

    Polls had consistently shown that Dewey was a shoo-in. He refused to engage in any overt political attacks against Truman who was practically ascribing fascist and Nazi overtones on the liberal Republican candidate any chance he could. So assured he was of victory that Dewey was proclaiming banal statements like “Our future lies ahead”.

    Truman won decisively.

    • Ed Frink says:

      I’m not saying that the BC Libs are going to make a similar comeback, but going negative is very effective as in the case of Truman’s 1948 victory.

  8. Ed Frink says:

    Correction: the left-socialist candidate in ’48 was Henry Wallace (and not Dewey!)

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