The demographics around the anti-prorogation anger

In an interview with Kathleen Petty yesterday on CBC Radio's The House, pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research made some interesting points about what his research is showing him about the growing discontent with the Stephen Harper Conservatives around the decision to shutter parliament for two months. The short of it: it's not just the usual suspects that are annoyed, and it goes deeper that the prorogation.

Here's a transcript. Emphasis is mine:

KATHLEEN PETTY (HOST):
Well apparently, Michael Ignatieff is not alone; In a national poll released by the firm EKOS, two thirds of respondents didn't think the move was crazy, necessarily, but they did know the Prime Minister shut down Parliament, and of those, nearly 60 percent were opposed to the prorogation. Frank Graves is the president of EKOS; he joins me in the studio. Good morning, welcome to "The House."

FRANK GRAVES (PRESIDENT, EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES):
Good to be here.

PETTY:
So, is it the number or is it the demographic behind that number that really tells the story, here?

GRAVES:
Well, I think they're both interesting, but perhaps a more interesting thing, which hasn't really been discussed at this point, is the demographic. There's another very interesting feature to the demographic, but I think the most striking one is the... how much this issue has caught the attention of the most educated portions of the electorate and the "baby boom" cohort, which as we know, has been an extremely influential and large portion of the electorate, ones that all show up to vote, ones who have an inordinate level of influence. You could argue that this particular group has exerted almost a stranglehold over the political system for a long time. This group has been pretty solidly onside with Mr. Harper for some time, now. They came onside in the last election and were one of the keys to this success which almost propelled him to a majority victory. So, the fact that they're now having second thoughts about this particular issue... I think this particular issue has become a bit of lightning rod which is capturing a broader sense of disaffection on a number of other issues which have occurred previous to it, but it is something that probably signals greater importance as time goes on, or it could potentially do that.

PETTY:
It also speaks to whether it can be sustained, it seems to me. Because if you're talking about people who are influential and who are opinion leaders, then the ability to sustain a dissatisfaction or unhappiness with prorogation... it seems to me that the likelihood is higher in that case.

GRAVES:
Absolutely, and I think just to add further credibility to that thesis, it's my sense that we've seen a bit of a turnaround in some of the elite intelligentsia coverage of Mr. Harper, which has moved from this very fawning applause that we saw concurrent with the NAC performance - which also, coincidentally, coincided with him moving into majority territory, he was around 42 points, then. Today, he's around 33 points, but it does seem that there's now... We have front page editorials from the Globe and Mail, we have him pilloried by The Economist -

PETTY:
And we've got a trend, and that's the other interesting part. You talk about the NAC performance, but as you take a look at your polling over a period of time, the gap between the Tories and the Liberals used to be wide.

GRAVES:
Almost insurmountable; You had a daunting 15-point lead which was understating the Conservative edge, because the Conservatives have a much more committed voter base, so in fact, when they were running 41-42 points, our calculations are that they would have produced a very decisive majority in the neighbourhood of 180 seats at that point. Today, these numbers would suggest that they're at least as close, probably... no they are closer to actually sitting on the wrong side of the House than they are to that goal of forming a majority.

PETTY:
But these numbers aren't just because of prorogation; it's a cumulative effect to which prorogation has sort of added an extra push, in your view.

GRAVES:
Yeah, but it seems to me that now, this latest issue shouldn't be judged just in terms of, "are people really that upset about prorogation?", or has it become something which captures a broader critical mass of concerns about -

PETTY:
Emblematic.

GRAVES:
Yes, and you're quite right. The decline that we'd seen in sort of... "propeller head" terminology was a monotonic progressive straight-line decline. It was up here or... it wasn't oscillating up and down, it was on a very well- behaved statistical pattern. It seemed to have stopped when Parliament recessed, and this newest episode... remember, over the Christmas period, there's really. .. nothing else happened that would explain why we saw a further three-point drop, which in our samples, which are very large, was highly statistically and substantially significant. So, the only thing that plausibly explains it, and when you link it back as well to concerns about this and look where the attrition occurred, it was this same group that we were talking about before, the "boomers", the educated, and so forth, who seemed to have had some serious second thoughts. That may not be permanent, but it's something which is perhaps more important than the usual sort of three-point fluctuations that you might see on a day-to-day basis.

PETTY:
Okay, well you've given us stuff to watch for, and we will watch for it. Frank, thanks very much.

GRAVES:
Okay, my pleasure.

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