Election Writ 3/26: Why the NDP's number is the one to watch
Plus, a look at where the seat race stands in Nova Scotia.
The opening days of this election campaign haven’t exactly been quiet.
Mark Carney and the Liberals have had a few rough days in Quebec. The party got some blowback for its decision to decline the invitation (and fee demand) to the TVA debate. He got the name of one of his candidates, a well-known gun control advocate and survivor of the Polytechnique shooting, wrong, as well as mistakenly saying the notorious shooting occurred at Concordia. He’s also being dogged this morning over things that happened under his watch while with Brookfield.
Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre has had to deal with an unhelpful intervention from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and leaks of CSIS allegations that India worked to support his leadership bid in 2022. He also stood in front of a rather unfortunately-designed sign yesterday. Axe the Sales! Tax on Homes!
And over in NDP-land, Jagmeet Singh can’t escape questions about whether his party is about to be wiped out.
The polls haven’t yet reflected this volatility and the trend line continues to be a positive one for the Liberals. They’ve now hit the 40% mark in my Poll Tracker and would have a 65% chance of winning a majority government if the election were held today.
The NDP has also dropped below the 10% mark in the average. And they are likely to be pulled down further as more polls are published in the coming days.
The only two surveys added to the projection this morning come from the daily trackers by Liaison Strategies and Mainstreet Research. Liaison is showing an upward trend for the Liberals from 38% just before Sunday’s writ drop to 42% in its poll published yesterday. Over that time, the Conservatives have steadily polled at either 36% or 37%. But the NDP has fallen from 11% to just 7%.
In fact, the last 10 polls, coming from six different pollsters, have all put the NDP in single digits across the country. The New Democrats have only twice failed to earn at least 10% of the vote, in 1993 and 2000. It’s no coincidence that those two elections are also the last ones in which the Liberals got more than 40% of the vote.
The poor performance of the NDP is the key element of this campaign so far. The Conservatives registered 37% in the Liaison poll and 40% in the Mainstreet survey. Not since before the establishment of the modern(-ish) party system nearly a century ago have the Conservatives failed to win at least a minority government when hitting the 37% mark. It’s because the NDP is so low that this score is not good enough this time.
Since the creation of the NDP, the party’s average support in elections won by the Liberals has been 15.1%. In elections won by the Conservatives or PCs, the NDP’s average vote share has been 19.6% (or 17.7% if we exclude the 2011 Orange Wave). The New Democrats are well below the mark the Liberals need them to be lower than to secure re-election. They’re even further away from where the Conservatives need the NDP to be to have a hope that Poilievre could take office.
Keep an eye on that NDP number.