VanRamblings’ believes that Quitto Maggi’s Mainstreet Research poll on the positioning of the four main political parties in our province to be so much malarkey.

Unlike the Abacus poll we quoted yesterday that gives David Eby’s BC NDP a solid five-point lead over John Rustad’s upstart BC Conservatives — which ran only 19 provincial candidates in the 2020 British Columbia election, with 35,902 votes cast across the province for candidates running with the party, securing a paltry 1.91% of the popular vote — yesterday’s Mainstreet poll gives the BC Conservatives a 3-point lead in the popular vote, well within the poll’s multi-point margin of error.

On Tuesday, VanRamblings suggested that the Mainstreet poll was little more than a push poll, designed to influence prospective voters still sitting on the fence as to who they will cast their ballot. Further, Mr. Maggi’s Mainstreet Research polling has consistently over the years undercounted support for John Horgan or David Eby’s BC NDP provincially, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party, federally.

Further, the Abacus poll, unlike the Mainstreet poll, results were broken down by region, giving David Eby’s BC NDP an insurmountable nine-point lead across Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island, well outside of the 3.2% margin of error …

Out of a potential British Columbia voting population of more than four million adults who are eligible to cast a ballot at advance polls this early October, or on Election Day, October 19th, Mainstreet’s survey interviewed only 962 respondents, employing wildly unreliable automated telephone interviews as Mainstreet’s sole source of information, without any reference whatsoever to voter intention.

Further, Mainstreet’s published survey results fail to break down respondent response by the area of the province where respondents live, be it in the Metro Vancouver region, on Vancouver Island, the Okanagan, the Interior or the North.

Now, as it happens, the BC Conservatives have in their employ Canada’s best Conservative pollster, Dmitri Pantazopoulos — about whom we will write another day. Only the BC Conservative election team, and leader John Rustad — and certainly not everyday British Columbians — will see the results of Mr. Pantazopoulous’ intricate and wildly reliable daily polling results, intensive nightly surveys of those who live in each of British Columbians’ the ridings Mr. Pantazopoulos has deemed — and  targeted — as winnable for John Rustad’s BC Conservatives, the 50+ ridings that would give Mr. Rustad the winning Legislative majority, and government over the next four years.

Dimitri Pantazopoulos (above) will play a key role in determining the outcome of the 2024 BC election

The role of a prescient Mr. Pantazopoulous in determining the outcome of 2024 British Columbia election is a column VanRamblings will save for another day.