Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 61, October 2012
The executive summary of the newsletter:
October saw six four polls published – two Roy Morgan polls a One News Colmar Brunton poll and a 3 News Reid Research Poll.
The average of the public polls has National 13% ahead of Labour in October. In September it was 12%, so the gap has slightly increased. However the centre-right would have had just 56 out of 120 seats in October and the centre-left (including NZ First) 62 seats.
Australia now has the Labor Party leading or tied in the polls.
In the United States all three “polls of polls” show Obama marginally ahead in the popular vote and with a more comfortable margin in the popular vote. Unless the Democrats have a poor turnout for the election (and the early voting has shown lower turnout for them, than previously), then Obama looks likely to be re-elected, but with a greatly reduced electoral college margin from 2008, when he won by 192 electoral college votes and 7.2% on the popular vote. The Republicans look likely to win at least 235 of the 435 House seats but only 46 or 47 of the 100 Senate seats.
Romney’s best chance of victory is to win Ohio (18 votes) and Colorado (9 votes). Pollster and RCP say that Obama is 2.6% to 2.8% ahead in Ohio and 0.3% to 0.6% in Colorado. It is fair to say that if Romney wins Ohio, he could well become President. But the gap behind Obama in that state has been persistent and fairly stable.
In the UK the Conservatives remain 10% behind Labour.
In Canada the Liberal Party have shot up 7% on the news that Justin Trudeau (son of Pierre) has announced his bid for the Liberal leadership. They are now tied for second place with the NDP.
The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. New Zealand continues to top both.
We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on National’s achievements, Kim Dotcom, John Banks, the drinking age vote, plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.
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