Exclusive: More food polling numbers

You may have read about yesterday’s Harvey’s hamburger poll, but that was just the first of what will be a bountiful harvest of food-related polling numbers. My sources in the mysterious world of public opinion measurement have forwarded me the results of a couple of polls to be released in the coming days, and I’m going to share the high-level results with you.

The first poll is the East Side Mario’s Vegetable Lasagna poll, which asked Canadians which federal political leader they’d most like to invite out for a dinner of vegetable lasagna. Dion did better here than he did with the hamburger crowd, but still lagged behind the leader. And Harper suffered a serious setback with the veggie crowd. Here’s the numbers:

Jack Layton: 30 per cent
Elizabeth May: 28 per cent
Stephane Dion: 25 per cent
Stephen Harper: 11 per cent
Gilles Duceppe: 6 per cent
Sample size 1000 Canadians MOE: +/- 5 percentage points 19 times out of 20

These results aren’t overly surprising, after all vegetarians tend to be lefties and Harper eats nothing but Alberta beef.

The next poll is the La Boulangerie Quiche Loraine poll, which asked Canadians which federal political leader they’d most like to share Quiche Loraine with.

Stephane Dion: 37 per cent
Stephen Harper: 29 per cent
Jack Layton: 15 per cent
Giles Duceppe: 14 per cent
Elizabeth May: 5 per cent
Sample size 1500 Canadians MOE: +/- 4 percentage points 19 times out of 20

Here Dion scored very well, though he still lost to Duceppe in the Quebec numbers. Harper showed surprising strength with quiche eaters as well. Much of May’s support came from vegans, which hurt her quiche numbers.

So, I think the results of these surveys when viewed together show us that Canada is indeed a diverse, multi-gastronomical mosaic, unlike the gastronomic stewing-pot of the U.S., for example. And clearly no political leader has had much success growing their support beyond their gastronomic base.

And doing so is fraught with challenge. If Harper, for example, starts eating vegetable lasagna in public, that may cost him support with his beef-eating base that will think he’s gone sissy. Unless, of course, they recognize the vegetable-eating is only part of the majority quest, and part of his hidden dinner agenda. His frequent quiche photo-ops, though, have yet to pay dividends, despite the ADQ’s breakthrough.

UPDATE: Just in case it's unclear, those last two polls are made up. No one likes vegetable lasagna. But the hamburger one though is totally real.

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