Catching up – Polls between March 8 to May 9, 2012

Instead of going through each poll one-by-one, I will leave a condensed summary of polls with some pithy commentary:

Mustel (March 5-19, 2012) – 518 sampled, 17% undecided, NDP 42%, BCL 34%, CON 17%, GRN 6%
Forum Research (March 16, 2012) – 1063 sampled, NDP 47%, BCL 21%, CON 21%, GRN 9%
Angus Reid (March 29-30, 2012) – 800 sampled, NDP 43%, BCL 23%, CON 23%, GRN 8%
Forum Research (April 11, 2012) – 1069 sampled, NDP 46%, BCL 23%, CON 23%, GRN 8%
Forum Research (May 2, 2012) – 1054 sampled, NDP 48%, BCL 23%, CON 19%, GRN 8%
Angus Reid (May 7-9, 2012) – 803 sampled, NDP 50%, BCL 23%, CON 19%, GRN 6%

I am wondering whether Forum Research and Angus Reid are using the same base of people when they do these surveys. Also, what was interesting was the big “miss” the pollsters had with respect to the last Alberta election – something they will be doing a post-game review on I am sure. From the days of “Dewey Defeats Truman”, pollsters do get it wrong occasionally and caution is thrown to the wind with respect to what that “19 times out of 20″ means when they publish results!

With respect to the last Angus Reid poll result, a 50% NDP popular support in the polls, suffice to say, would result in a crushing majority government. Even if the BC Conservative party disappeared tomorrow and 100% of the people voting Conservative voted for the Liberals (which in itself is a very flawed assumption), the NDP would be looking at a majority – about 50 out of 85 seats in the legislature (43 required for a majority).