Mr Cunliffe the poll trend doesn’t lie

*Jadis post as DPF collecting info for a travel blog piece.

Audrey Young has a fascinating opinion piece today that calls out David Cunliffe’s spin on today’s demoralising Herald-Digipoll for Labour – that precarious drop into the 20s.

It was disappointing to hear David Cunliffe suggesting today’s Herald DigiPoll survey putting Labour at 29.5 per cent is off the mark.

On the one hand he said he accepted that Labour’s polling has suffered from him using a trust for donations to his leadership campaign.

The next thing he is touting his party’s own internal polling which apparently puts Labour at 34 per cent.

The fact is that if Labour’s own polling is 34 per cent, it is at odds not just with DigiPoll, but with two other recent polls: Roy Morgan on March 6 which had Labour at 30.5 per cent and the Ipsos Fairfax poll a month ago which had Labour at 31.8 per cent.

The DigiPoll result of 29.5 is not much lower in reality but falling into the 20s from 30 is like falling into a canyon and is devastating for any party with designs on Government.

I am wondering if Cunliffe, his closest advisors and others have only been presenting some of the truth of Labour’s predicament to caucus.  You see that ’34 per cent’ that Cunliffe talks about is entirely possible if we add in the ‘prompted’ voters.  A prompted result is where a voter who says they are undecided is asked who they are most likely to vote for.

Today’s report on the Herald-Digipoll result very clearly states that the 29.5 per cent result is of “decided voters only”.  The decideds are what matter at this point of the cycle and Cunliffe knows that.  If I were in his caucus I’d be asking to see the decided or unprompted numbers.

If I was in Labour’s caucus I’d also be asking why Labour is becoming less attractive to women and Aucklanders.  Two groups that are pivotal to the quest for the undecided vote.  If you aren’t picking up decided voters from those groups now then you are very unlikely to pick up votes from those groups closer to the election.

A 29.5% result is a big deal.  One public poll in the 20s sends the caucus and party activists into a bit of meltdown.  As Whaleoil points out electorate MPs run back to their seats, and activists only focus on MPs or candidates they think can win a seat. A 29.5% result also means that a 25% result is not that far away… and that is frightening.  A 29.5% result means that Matt ‘Game Changer’ McCarten hasn’t worked his magic (the way Bomber talked him up it sounded like we’d see a result day 2).

In all this National also has to be a bit careful.  National needs to retain women and Auckland voters and ride very high in the polls due to a lack of support partners.  National can chortle a bit and I am sure Bill English Is thinking “so much nice being this side of the result’ but National cannot get complacent.  It needs to defend its fine batting total and bowl Labour out.

Labour can get away with some low polling if the Greens also shoot up (as they have) so that the Left vote is still high or near to National’s vote.  If they can do that then it is still a close run race.  A true decimation is less likely on the Left as Labour has (and I think it will continue to) fragment into distinct parties or collections of interests.  We are seeing a re-organisation of the Left.  Yes, Labour could drop into the mid 20s but the Greens and possibly Mana will shoot back up.

The Right needs to continue to look at the total Left vote vs the National (plus two seats) scenario.  Right and Left need to run two very different strategies.