We are at the end of week 2 of the “Send ‘Em a Message” Survey on Policy Channel.
The analysis done of the top relative priority issue still shows the Managing the Environment is #1 with a weighted score of 22.88 – twice as high as the next priority issue Ensuring Access to Quality and Timely Healthcare weighted at 11.45. The 3# issue of Focussing on Quality Education K-12 with a weighted scoring of 10.04.
This priority is reflected in the recent Ipsos Reid traditional national poll results pegging 26% of Canadians saying the environment is the top priority issue that Canada’s leaders need to pay attention to. Ipsos Reid notes this is the first time since 1990 the Environment is the top priority issue for Canadians. The times they are a changin'.
Last week we reported Managing Growth and a Diversified Value Added economy and the third and fourth. Things have changed. Scoring in #3 position is a Quality K-12 Education and Managing Growth is now weighted as #4. Diversification and Value Added Economy has fallen down to #8 in the weighted score ranking.
Continuing at the very bottom of important issues in the survey are Lowering Taxes and Resolving Problems Facing Aboriginal Albertans. Both of these are recently identified with Dr. Oberg’s campaign. He is big on tax cuts in his policy. No new voter traction will be coming from an Oberg promise to lowering taxes according to this weeks survey results.
Aboriginal Albertan’s issues are not on the radar screen of Albertans in this leadership campaign. They will have to do more than just a candidate endorsement to get some traction and momentum on their issues for any candidate endorsement to make a difference to the voting intentions of the rest of Alberta.
Responses continue to come into the “Send ‘Em a Message” survey but participants are mostly from Edmonton and Calgary and region. We will be reaching out to rural Albertans this week to get more participation from them. It will be interesting to see how that changes anything in the survey results. We know from Environics Research work that rural and urban Albertans hold the same social values but the intensity and priority might be different. Time will tell. Take the time and do the survey and come back to this Blog for a further updates and commentary on the survey findings.
Who created this survey - it's a little odd.
ReplyDeleteGo to my July 30 and Aug 3 postings for some context on the research technique. We did a similar survey that was scientific on the qualities Albertans wanted in their next leader using a variation on this kind of technique.
ReplyDeleteIt is "odd" because it is not opinion polling. It actually uses something called conjoint analysis with the issues trade off decisions you made to determine the highest and lowest relative priority of the various issues.
It also measures the intensity of the value judgements you make between issues and combines this information into a list of issues that are high or low value drivers.
We know for the data so far that the Environment is not only #1 in the list it is also seen by people as about twice as serious a concern for them than access to timely health care, the #2 issue.
For a candidate that means if they were seen as equally committed and credible on both these issues the environment would generate twice the voter support the health issue would. Obviously to be credible on only one of the issues would not result in a victory. The likelihood of being understood and identified with all 15 of the issues surveyed would likely only confuse people with too much information. Paul Martin had everything as "very, very important" last campaign, remember? Not enough focus to be understood and appreciated.
Rememeber Harper focused at the end of the last election campaign on only 5 issues that he wanted to be identified with. Guess why! They were high value and big payoff issues for his base support and likely the swing voters inclined towards him.
Hope this helps - now please send your friends and family to the site to do it too. Thx for participating.