The Liberals may have a harder time getting their supporters to vote on election day, according to data from Datagotchi, an Internet poll conducted by researchers at Laval University.
Respondents who are supporters of the CAQ, PCQ, QS or PQ have between 91 and 92% chance of going to the ballot box. Among the Liberals, it drops to 85%.
If these numbers are higher than typical voter turnouts, it’s because the people who bother to fill out the Datagotchi tend to be more politicized than average, says the app’s co-creator and PhD student. political science Catherine Ouellet. So we can’t expect that many people to move, but the comparisons between the parties should remain much the same.
“It will be a challenge for the Liberals, who, obviously, will have to perform to win certain counties”, comments the professor of public communication at the National School of Public Administration Philippe Dubois. They will not only have to convince voters to support them, but also encourage them to bother to go to the polls.
The two experts did not comment on the reasons that would explain the lack of liberal enthusiasm.
Seduce Steve, Heather and Dougie
Political parties in Quebec target their potential voters according to a variety of characteristics. So the car you drive, the coffee you buy, or your favorite song can indicate whether you’ll be wooed by election ads, or ignored.
The researchers behind Datagotchi put themselves in the shoes of political strategists and used the same tactics to create four profiles, based on respondents’ preferences and habits. Their goal ? “To show that lifestyle is a marker of political behavior”, but also to raise awareness of how our data can be used to influence us, according to Ms. Ouellet.
It was Stephen Harper’s campaigns in the 2000s that got the ball rolling in Canada, she says. The Conservatives had then identified the types of individuals to seduce, such as “Steve and Heather”, a couple in their forties, Protestants and parents of three children, or “Dougie”, a single man working at Canadian Tire and interested in little about politics.
The researchers were inspired by this way of doing things to try to guess who would be targeted by the different parties in Quebec, based on the responses of more than 7,000 participants.
Understanding Jonathan, Stephanie, Michael and Philippe
Here, for example, is Jonathan, a 39-year-old man who loves the great outdoors. Jonathan, of course, doesn’t exist in real life, but he represents a group of people who tend to have a lot of common interests. His name was chosen from those that were most popular in the year of his birth.
Jonathan likes hunting and fishing, much more than the average Quebecer. He has a pick-up truck and does motor sports regularly. He lives in a single-family house, buys his coffee at Tim Hortons, his clothes at big-box stores, and prefers beer to all other alcohol.
If we look at the voting intentions of people with a profile similar to Jonathan, we see that 51.5% of them intend to support the Conservative Party (PCQ), 17.6% the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) and 14 .6% the Parti Québécois (PQ). By comparing with the entire population, we are far from the 39% that the survey aggregator Qc125 predicts for the CAQ.
Thus, men of this age who have a life similar to that of Jonathan are likely to be targeted by the PCQ more than by any other party.
Stéphanie, at 32, is young and urban. She doesn’t have a car, preferring to use public transit, which is much more accessible in town (she lives in Montreal or Quebec). She lives in an apartment with her cat and often visits museums, thrift stores and independent cafes.
Stéphanie has a 40.8% chance of voting for Québec solidaire (QS). Otherwise, it will probably be for the PQ (22.3%) or the PLQ (19.9%).
Michael, on the other hand, resembles Stephanie in several aspects. Montrealer, he also favors public transit, and at 35, he is only a few years older than her. But unlike Stephanie, Michael is English-speaking and a newcomer. He is from the LGBTQ+ community and goes to Starbucks when he wants a coffee.
He is resolutely in the camp of the PLQ (59.2%), but it is not impossible that he turns to the PCQ (19.9%) or QS (12.13%). That said, he is also the least likely to vote.
For his part, Philippe, 51, is a young retiree who lives in a detached house. He doesn’t smoke or frequent cafes so much, but wouldn’t say no if offered red wine.
Philippe is not yet sure of his choice. He tends towards the more nationalist parties, whether the CAQ (26.9%) or the PQ (21.5%), but could just as well choose the PCQ (20.5%), the PLQ (17.7 %) or SQ (13.4%).
Ignore Zoe
The fact that these four profiles have such different voting intentions, “it proves the political strategists right,” notes Ms. Ouellet.
However, she specifies that it is not the habits of life that decide her ideology; rather, they give clues about the environment in which we live and the social groups to which we belong.
These are “rare empirical data that suggest that this approach is really effective,” adds Professor Dubois.
While “the sovereigntist-federalist axis is becoming less and less decisive” and that “we no longer have large mass parties like we had at the time”, concentrating all its efforts on “the electoral targets which seem the most profitable” is often the only way to win, “rather than proposing major social projects”, he explains.
He is also worried about a “perverse effect” of this marketing-style approach, where instead of addressing all citizens, “we decide not to contact people because they are not paying enough electorally “.
Ms. Ouellet cites “the character of ‘Zoë’ from the Harper Conservatives, who did yoga, studied sociology, drank lattes and on whom no resources should be spent, because the Conservatives knew that with this woman, there was no potential electoral gain. »