Election Writ 4/21: Conservatives aren't closing the gap in Ontario
Post-debate polling suggests the dial isn't shifting.
The gap between the Liberals and the Conservatives has shrunk a little since the debates. But it hasn’t gotten any smaller in the one place where it matters most: Ontario.
Also in today’s newsletter: New polling out of the Greater Toronto Area and on Vancouver Island, plus Yves-François Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh play defense in today’s visits, while Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre make some ambitious stops.
The Liberals lead by just over five points in the Poll Tracker, 43.2% to 38% for the Conservatives. The NDP is still stuck in single-digits with 8.3%, while the Bloc stands at 25.2% in Quebec, 16.1 points back of the Liberals.
Three of the four polls included in the Poll Tracker update this morning show very similar results. Nanos Research, Liaison Strategies and Pollara Strategic Insights put the Liberal lead at between six and eight points, while Mainstreet Research moves back toward the consensus with yesterday’s two-point Conservative lead now a tie at 41% apiece.
Excluding Mainstreet, the three other polls put the Liberals between 43% and 44%, the Conservatives between 36% and 37% and the NDP between 8% and 11% — Liberal majority territory across the board.
Also published this morning but after my Poll Tracker update were polls by Research Co. and MQO Research. Research Co. put the Liberals ahead by five points, 43% to 38%, with the NDP trailing with 8%, while MQO had the gap at eight points, 44% to 36%, with the NDP at 10%. Mainstreet is on its own.
The three daily trackers suggest there has been some movement since the debate but it isn’t consequential. All three have the Liberals down (by between one and three points) since their last pre-debate poll. But they also have the Conservatives down (by one or two points) since then. The NDP is up two points according to Nanos and four points according to Liaison (and unchanged according to Mainstreet).
Perhaps we’re seeing a small NDP rebound out of the debate — we need to see that confirmed by other surveys (Pollara, MQO and Research Co. do not show an NDP bump, though they weren’t in the field at the same time as the trackers). But with both the Liberals and Conservatives slipping a little in the tracking polls, the only net effect is that the Conservatives have closed the gap by about one point. And it doesn’t look a lot like momentum. Here’s the recent trendline for Mainstreet, Nanos and Liaison. I don’t see much of a trend building:
The Conservatives need to get some momentum going into the final days — it’s very unlikely they will suddenly get a late campaign surge barring some unforeseen event. And the polls from Liaison, Nanos, MQO and Pollara this morning had some regional numbers, particularly out of Ontario, that are truly awful for the party.