The polls did not predict the result of the Canadian elections. They were projecting a Liberal government, sure, but they were predicting a Liberal minority government, which is slightly different than what actually happened. Of course, the polls also predicted that Atlantic Canada would not be painted bright red pretty much immediately, so election night did open with an indication that they were not exactly going to determine the course of the evening.
This is far from the first time that the polls predicted results that didn’t quite align with the only poll that matters. Close races have gone the way of significant majorities for different parties across the country. You can predict a rough trend, but the actual election tends to go to an extreme rather than what the polls are suggesting are going to happen.
It’s tempting to say those polls are pointless, but that’s not entirely true. Instead, the polls function in a way that isn’t really related to actually predicting election results. Instead, they have been used as a way to bring out support of the different parties and encourage their supporters to get out and actually vote in the election itself.
A close election is one people are more likely to vote in. If Liberal supporters think there is a chance they can take power, as the polls suggested they would, they have incentive to get out to their local polling station to do what they can to make that happen. In the case of the most recent election, that’s what happened, as it seems every Liberal in the country got to the polls. But it could work to benefit any party that was in play. Conservative supporters certainly showed up to attempt to stem the tide of red in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
But one could argue that the polls have been used to determine the end results. Look at the NDP, which were cut down significantly in the end results. They might have started the election in a strong position, but the polls showed them in a distant third by the end of it. While a close race was nothing if not encouragement for the Liberals and Conservatives, for the third party in the running, it might have actually been the reason for their significantly smaller number of seats. It may have even pushed traditional NDP voters to move towards the Liberal party, if your party has no hope there is incentive to vote for what is the next best thing. As the saying goes the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the biggest enemy of the Conservatives was the Liberals by the time voting started. It stands to reason that some friends of the NDP went a few shades darker on the red in order to ensure that they would not have to worry about a Conservative government once the smoke cleared on Monday evening. Add in the factor of strategic voting, and the polls are becoming part of the decision making process for many of the country’s voters.
It’s entirely possible that the polls are part of the reason why the Liberals were able to get a majority government, even as the polls themselves predicted that was a highly improbable outcome. Every Canadian voter had a different reason to support their party of choice, but for the people who simply wanted to go with the party with the best chance of ousting the Conservatives, the polls indicated it was the Liberals, so those polls had to be a factor.
