On IE9 and IE11 I'm seeing the error message Object doesn't support property or method 'contains'. This is shown in the IE11 error console:

Would it be that there is a problem with SVG elements on IE?
Also:
> $('p')[0]
<p class="...">...</p>
> $('p')[0].contains
function contains() { [native code] }
> $('circle')[0]
[object Object]
> $('circle')[0].contains
undefined