Election Writ 3/30: Is the race stabilizing?
Liberals and Conservatives appear to have hit their cruising altitudes.
As we enter the second week of this election campaign, there is some indication in the polls that things might be settling into a new normal.
It’s a normal that would produce a Liberal majority government, but it’s also a normal that means it wouldn’t take much to change the outcome of this election significantly.
For us election nerds, today’s a good day because a new daily tracker has been added to the mix! In addition to the daily polls from Liaison Strategies and Mainstreet Research, today marks the launch of a new tracker from Nanos Research (for CTV and The Globe and Mail).
I’m very pleased to see this addition to the daily polls. Three trackers will make it easier to triangulate new trends. And it means we have an entirely different methodology in the field every day. Liaison uses interactive voice response (automated phone calls) and Mainstreet uses SMS text messages that invite respondents to participate in an online survey. Nanos uses traditional live-caller telephone polls and is also including an online panel component in their sample. With a third (and fourth) mode of contact added to the daily poll releases, we’ll be less likely to be led astray by mode effects in the polls.
We don’t yet have a sense of the trend line from Nanos as it is reporting for the first time. Nanos finds the Liberals leading with 42% to 37% for the Conservatives. The NDP trails in third with 11%. This is broadly in line with all of the polls we’ve seen over the last few weeks.
One exception is a new poll by Abacus Data, with puts the Liberals and Conservatives tied at 39% apiece. Abacus has been showing a closer race than other pollsters, however, so this is not a particularly surprising result.
But it does look like things might be stabilizing — and that the Liberals are potentially coming down from some highs.
Both the Liaison and Mainstreet trackers suggest the Liberals are down from the first days of the campaign. If we compare today’s two surveys conducted between March 27 and 29 to where things were in their previous surveys conducted between March 24 and 26, we find that the Liberals are down two (Liaison) to three (Mainstreet) points.
The NDP is up one point in both of these polls while the Conservatives are heading in different directions — up one point for Liaison and down one point for Mainstreet. Needless to say, these are not significant movements.
But the net result is that the Conservatives have closed the gap by two to three points in the trackers.
This does not mean that the Conservatives are closing the gap — but it does indicate that the trend of the Liberals growing their lead over the Conservatives might be stopping. We shouldn’t react too strongly to what the trackers show. Back in 2021, the daily trackers were showing greater poll-to-poll movement than was probably actually happening in public opinion. The online polls were following the same overall trend as the trackers but did not show the same daily (or even weekly) swings that the trackers were showing. So, let’s not jump to conclusions.
My read on this is that we might be settling into a contest that is somewhere around a three-point Liberal lead. In that environment, we should expect to regularly see polls published showing anything from a tie to a six-point Liberal lead.
And that is what we’ve seen over the last few days. Liaison has the Liberal lead at four points, Mainstreet puts it at two, Nanos has it as five and Abacus shows a tie.
As the Liberals have a good shot at a majority government even when tied with the Conservatives, this new normal is a winning one for the Liberals. But if the range of this new normal ticks down by a couple of points, the odds of a minority government (either Liberal or Conservative) will increase. Conversely, if the range ticks up, then the Liberals will be virtually assured of a majority.
I’ll be very curious to see the next set of numbers from Ipsos, Léger and the Angus Reid Institute. We haven’t yet seen polls from them conducted entirely after the writ drop, but their last surveys put the Liberal lead at between six (Léger and Ipsos) and eight points (ARI), wider than other surveys at the time.
Carney’s leadership advantage holding
What’s bolstering the Liberal lead in voting intentions is Mark Carney’s edge over Pierre Poilievre on leadership.
Of the three major party leaders, Carney is the only one with net positive approval ratings. According to Mainstreet, 50% of Canadians have a favourable view of Carney while 43% have an unfavourable one. The split is 45% favourable to 50% unfavourable for Poilievre.
According to Abacus, 42% have a positive impression of Carney and 31% have a negative impression. Carney’s positives have increased by five points since he became prime minister. His negatives have only increased by one point. Poilievre, meanwhile, has a 38% positive to 45% negative score.
Perhaps more important is Carney’s lead on who Canadians prefer as prime minister. According to Nanos, Carney enjoys a 16-point lead over Poilievre on this score — far greater than the Liberal Party’s five-point lead over the Conservatives in the very same poll. Carney has a double-digit lead over Poilievre in Ontario, Atlantic Canada, Quebec and B.C. and is only behind by two points in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba (which Nanos groups together).
Carney also leads among both men and women and across all age groups. His lead among Canadians 55 and older is a crushing 28 points. This points to Carney making the Liberals’ numbers buoyant rather than weighed down and prone to dropping.
Another thing that works to the Liberals’ advantage is the growing unpopularity of Jagmeet Singh. This is a new development, as Singh was the more popular leader in the last two campaigns. According to Mainstreet, just 32% hold a favourable view of the NDP leader while 58% have an unfavourable view. Abacus finds similarly bad numbers for Singh with just 29% positive impressions against 42% negative impressions. And Nanos Research finds that just 4% of Canadians prefer Singh as the next prime minister. These are not signs that the NDP is poised to bounce back.
THE WRIT’S CAMPAIGN BUS
We here at The Writ give the bus driver Sundays off. He’ll be back on the road tomorrow!
Where the leaders are: Mark Carney is staying in Ottawa today. Pierre Poilievre is off to the GTA with stops in North York and Mississauga while Yves-François Blanchet is in the Eastern Townships and Victoriaville. Jagmeet Singh is travelling around the Lower Mainland with stops in Port Moody, Burnaby and Vancouver. Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault are also in Vancouver.
TODAY in the #EveryElectionProject
On March 30, 1988, the Manitoba New Democrats chose Gary Doer as their new leader. He replaced Howard Pawley as premier and was off on the campaign trail within a few weeks. The Manitoba NDP was deeply unpopular at the time, but Doer’s energetic campaign saved the party from absolute catastrophe. You can read about the leadership race in more detail here.
And on this day in 1996, the Nova Scotia New Democrats selected Robert Chisholm as their new leader, replacing Alexa McDonough who had left to run the federal party. Chisholm would lead the NDP to official opposition status in the next election in 1998. Ever since, the Nova Scotia NDP has always managed at least 20% of the vote in provincial elections, a threshold the party had never crossed before 1998.
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