Political Ambivalence towards the Parti Quebecois and its Electoral Consequences, 1970-2003

Abstract

Political ambivalence towards the Parti Québécois remains a basic characteristic of Quebec electoral politics, but no attention has been paid to it by analysts. Yet the notion of ambivalence is central in Zaller's new synthesis concerning the nature of mass opinions. The ambivalence towards the Parti Québécois stems from opposite forces, that is, attraction towards it and reservations concerning its sovereignist option. While the analysis shows that those who do not reveal their vote intentions to pollsters are always a source of the underestimation of support for the Quebec Liberal Party, independently of ambivalence, the latter remains a more critical factor in many respects. First when in an election a high degree of ambivalence prevails, vote intentions for the Parti Québécois are highly overestimated in polls, which leads vote intentions for the Liberal Party to be more underestimated than usual. Second, because of this ambivalence, the Parti Québécois never reaps the benefits which satisfaction or dissatisfaction towards incumbents should yield, while the Liberal Party often does better than prevailing levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction would entail. On the basis of that analysis, new solutions are proposed for the correction of systematic poll errors in Quebec elections, solutions which could be relevant in other similar instances. The possible importance of ambivalence in other electoral settings is finally mentioned.