Ekos poll: part 2

Unlike one blogger, I don't think Rae has this one sown up. I mean, page 14 of the report is enough to tell you that. As much as people like to say they like Rae as their second choice, when down to him or Iggy, it's a really tough choice.

If I wasn't so busy the next few days/weeks, I'd love to parse through everything in big detail, making my own conclusions. Unfortunately, I don't have that time, so here are some other points from this:
- Undecideds are very high for second/third choices. From that, we can't really extrapolate that 60% of Dion's supporters would go Rae if Dion dropped out. If those 39% follow Dion if he went to endorse Kennedy, for example, then that's a big swing.

- We can't equate the 2 tables of showing up and first ballot support, since I'm sure if you broke it down, of those who said they probably won't show up to the convention, probably 90% of them are also those who don't support their candidate anymore.

- However, very good news that Kennedy ranks highest among those who feel they will show and among those who still support him. We may not be the largest contingent, but we're sure as hell the most passionate ones.

- The lower contenders have much higher rates of undecided second choices than the top ones. 2 possible things we could read from that: they're keeping a tight lip or they're going to follow their leader. You'd think by now they'd have decided who to support, since they know their candidate won't win. By that, it's going to be big to get those endorsements, then.

- Even if Dion is a bit ahead in the "growth potential", when you count up to 3rd choice, you're adding errors together, so your MOE goes to about 4%, which when you actually count it up in percentage points, ends up being nearly the difference between Dion and Kennedy. Now, maybe my math might be off by a bit, but it's still very close between those 4 at the top. And when you factor in that you've got 30-40% undecided for 2nd and 3rd ballot support, there's a lot of delegates in play.

- I don't like how for "least favourite" they only seemed to ask people about 1 person. It should have been a "list everyone who you do not want to win". I'm pretty sure there are many people who said "Volpe" who might also not want Iggy or Rae to win.

That's my main take on it for now. Sure, the poll looks nice for Dion, but there's still way too much uncertainty. I think it's gonna be huge who the bottom 4 end up supporting. It's gonna be an intense time when we get down to 4 people. Somewhat interestingly, when we get to that point, and down to the last ballot, we're gonna see a lot of completely hammered Dion or Kennedy delegates, which could make for some interesting choices (hey, if Hedy Fry can get a vote in our riding when people are presumably sober, what will happen when the drunks get to voting?).