The most important, most anticipated public opinion poll in politics will be out on Saturday night.
But taking for granted the breathless media coverage that will accompany — CNN has scheduled an entire hour of programming to its release — the polling industry is urging everyone to take a deep breath.
The hype surrounding this year’s pre-caucus poll is palpable, and for good reason. The Des Moines Register/CNN/Medicom survey of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers doesn’t only capture the state of play in the all-important first voting state. It has the power to fuel a candidate’s 11th-hour momentum — or damage a contender who under-performs expectations. J. Ann Selzer, the Iowa-based pollster who has worked for the Register for decades, is a minor celebrity in politics and widely regarded as one of the top survey researchers in the country.
And because the race is so close and crowded — the previous Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll showed the top four candidates separated by only 6 points — the planned release at 8 p.m. Central Time will have political operatives and observers glued to their TV screens and frantically refreshing their web browsers.
But not so fast, pollsters say: Even Selzer’s gold-plated poll shouldn’t be taken as gospel for what is going to happen on Monday night. That’s because, in addition to all the pitfalls that face pollsters around turnout and the composition of a primary electorate, caucuses present their own unique challenges.
The American Association for Public Opinion Research, the leading organization of pollsters, sent a press release to reporters this week urging “pundits and journalists not to rush to judgment on the performance of polls in the aftermath of the Iowa Democratic [c]aucuses.”
“The Democratic caucuses are not ‘just like’ a primary election,” said Nora Cate Shaeffer, a University of Wisconsin professor and pollster who is serving as the association’s president. “The results of the caucuses are more complex than a simple vote count.”
Even Selzer, the dean of Iowa polling, warns that the caucus process — from the elimination of candidates who aren’t “viable” in the initial vote, to the public expressions of support and persuasion on the floor of the precinct — means that her polls can only measure voters’ initial preferences. Those raw votes will be made available by the state Democratic Party for the first time, but the winner will be declared based on a calculation of how many delegates each candidate will win to the state convention later this year.
“The caucuses are designed for people to change their mind in the room on caucus night,” she told POLITICO. “That has always been true, and our polls can only hope to show what they intend to do.”
Going into Saturday’s release, polls generally show a close race among the top four candidates, with either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders leading the reliable public surveys. But Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren are still well within striking distance — though they are hovering around the 15 percent viability threshold in individual precinct caucuses.
The first challenge for pollsters isn’t trying to discern what’s going to happen inside the room — it’s who’s going to show up in the first place.
There are 615,000 registered Democrats on Iowa’s voter rolls. But even by the most bullish of estimates, more than half of them won’t venture out on Monday night. Democrats in Iowa have been debating for weeks whether turnout will challenge the roughly 240,000 caucus-goers in Jan. 2008, when then-Sen. Barack Obama finished first.
How many people will turn out is only part of the challenge. Pollsters are also grappling with who, specifically, will show up. Polls show Sanders is the top choice among younger voters, who have been less likely to participate in past caucuses. Biden, meanwhile, leads among older voters.
According to entrance polls conducted before the 2016 Democratic caucuses, just under six-in-10 caucus-goers were aged 50 or older.
Age isn’t the only factor. Some pollsters use past voting history to determine whom they survey, even though records aren’t available for who has participated in caucuses. Monmouth University — which found Biden narrowly ahead of Sanders in a recent survey — restricts its universe of participants to those who have voted in recent primaries or the 2018 general election (or who have registered since the last election).
A New York Times analysis found that Biden has an advantage among voters who have cast ballots in primaries, but were less likely to go to caucuses. Sanders, meanwhile, is running stronger among those who say they are likely to caucus, regardless of their past vote history.
“Caucus electorates are the most difficult to model in polling,” Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray said in releasing the school’s latest poll this week. “The smartest takeaway from this, or any Iowa poll for that matter, is to be prepared for anything on Monday.”
The Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll doesn’t take into account past voting history: It includes all registered voters who say they are very likely or will probably go to their caucus.
“We work with the Iowa secretary of state’s voter list, so you need to be registered to vote and not be considered an inactive voter,” Selzer said. “We make no other presumptions about who might show up on caucus night beyond what they tell us.”
Selzer’s track record is part of her mystique among many political professionals and reporters alike. Her final poll in 2016 showed Hillary Clinton 3 points ahead of Sanders, and now-President Donald Trump leading Sen. Ted Cruz on the Republican side. It turned out that Clinton edged out Sanders as the poll predicted, but Cruz defeated Trump.
The 2008 caucuses are perhaps her crowning achievement. Her final poll showed Barack Obama opening up a lead over Clinton and then-Sen. John Edwards — and also correctly foretold a turnout surge that Clinton’s campaign dismissed.
Selzer’s most recent poll, conducted Jan. 2-8, showed Sanders at 20 percent, Warren at 17 percent, Buttigieg at 16 percent and Biden at 15 percent. The next-closest candidate was Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, at 6 percent, though other surveys have showed Klobuchar with more support.
That survey did not point to record-breaking turnout, Selzer has said, though she warned that a surge of new caucus-goers sometimes isn’t apparent until the final days.
Between the crowded field and the looming viability threshold, there is little precedent for how Monday night could play out, said Joe Lenski, an executive vice president at Edison Research, which will conduct entrance polls on Monday night for a consortium of news organizations, including ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News.
“We have never had a situation where you’ve had four, maybe even five, candidates all bunched up, sniffing the threshold,” Lenski said.
The closest analogy, Lenski said, is the 2004 Democratic caucuses, when there were also four top candidates: Edwards, John Kerry, Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt.
Selzer’s final poll nailed the order: Kerry first, followed by Edwards, Dean and Gephardt. But, notably, the race wasn’t as close as it looked in the poll, which had the top four candidates within 8 percentage points. Kerry pulled away, while Edwards claimed a solid second place. But Dean and Gephardt sagged — and Gephardt, the congressman from neighboring Missouri, finished with fewer than 12 percent of delegates.
How much of that movement was late momentum and how much was voters rearranging during the caucus process isn’t clear — the state Democratic Party didn’t release an initial, raw vote count in 2004. But Lenski said he doesn’t expect any dramatic swings in the closing days before Monday’s caucuses.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of late movement here,” he said. “This is different than ’04 in that I think all these candidates are much better known.”
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
