Poll in Saanich Gulf Islands

A poll was done by Oraclepoll for the Greens in Saanich-Gulf Islands and it has found the Elizabeth May in the lead.

• May 44.5%
• Lunn 37.8%
• Loring-Kuhunga - 9.1%
• Herrington - 8.5%

The sample size was of 389 people, with 328 expressing an opinion.

Riding level polls are always 'interesting' because it is very hard to make sure you can get a representative sample.   I do not get any sense that they the pollster adjusted for age, community, or other factors to reflect the riding.   I wonder about this because I have never heard about this company and have no idea what their track record is in polling.

When one polls a whole province or a whole nation, the vagaries of the local situations balance themselves out.  When polling at the riding level, it is really hard to get a good result because it is harder to get the accuracy needed to represent the public in the poll.

I also find it interesting the poll was done April 18th and 19th but not released till today, in fact did not hit the media till about 3pm.

This poll is the only poll they list on their website has having done.   They claim they have done riding level polling before.

That said, the race is clearly closer than I thought.   Specifically the NDP vote is lower than I thought it would be.  The poll was taken a week ago and before there was much of any NDP surge in BC.  I wonder if there is a follow through here or not?

I will be adjusting my take on the riding to giving May a chance.