Weekly Writ 6/25: Has the Liberal polling pendulum swung back?
After a dip, polls suggest the numbers might be swinging back to normal for the Liberals.
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There’s been some recent discussion — here and elsewhere — about whether we’ve seen signs of softening in support for the Liberals and Mark Carney.
It did seem like there had been a softening a few weeks ago. That softening, however, did not endure. Instead, it seemed more like the Liberals hit a new cruising altitude in the polls.
But are they now starting to bounce back as the pendulum swings again?
Over the last week, in addition to the two tracking polls from Nanos Research and Liaison Strategies, we had two new national polls from Abacus Data and Léger (for Postmedia), as well as a Manitoba-only poll from Probe Research (for the Winnipeg Free Press). The growing discrepancies in the polls we were seeing a few weeks ago don’t see so noticeable now.
The Liberals ranged between 43% and 48% in these four national surveys, a far more reasonable spread than the 40% to 50% scores we were seeing when Léger was last in the field. Léger is, again, the high Liberal score, but a five-point divergence in results is well within the margins of error of these surveys. Similarly, the Conservatives are consistently between 32% and 37%. Only the NDP remains a bit of an enigma.
Léger continues to put the NDP at just 6% support, matching the party’s result in the 2025 election. Liaison has the NDP at 14%, meaning there’s an eight-point gap between these two polls for this party. That is less explainable with simple sampling error. The other two polls, however, don’t argue for one side or the other. Abacus has the NDP three points higher than Léger does at 9%, while Nanos has the NDP three points lower than Liaison does at 11%. It’s an almost perfect spread — let’s split the difference and say the New Democrats are at 10%.
In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois managed between 24% and 26% in the Léger, Liaison and Abacus polls. (Nanos paywalls its regional results.)
What’s interesting about these polls is that we see some pretty consistent, if marginal, trends toward the mean. Léger has the Liberals coming down two points from the high of 50% in its last survey, while Liaison and Nanos have the Liberals gaining two or three points from where they put the Liberals two and four weeks ago, respectively. Abacus, which was closer to the two tracking polls last time, has the Liberals moving up one point and toward the Léger number.
What this says to me is that, in the end, perhaps not much has really changed in Liberal support when we look at the bigger picture. The tracking polls, which had the Liberals drifting to the low-40s, have the Liberals moving back toward the mid-40s. And Léger, which had the Liberals hitting the psychological threshold of 50%, has the Liberals moving back toward the mid-40s, too.
If it’s a reversion to the mean, it does appear that the mean might have shifted a little. If you look at polls in April and May, sub-45 scores for the Liberals were the rarity. Somewhere around 44-45% might be the new mean for the Liberals, when a few months ago it was more around 46-47%. But, as softening goes, that’s pretty modest.
Other indicators in the Léger, Abacus and Liaison surveys also point toward a reversion to the mean. Léger has the Liberal Party down two points since its last survey, but has government satisfaction back up three points to 57% after showing a dip last time. Abacus also shows government approval up three points to 55%.
Liaison, meanwhile, has Mark Carney’s approval rating up two points over the last two weeks to 57%, with disapproval down three points to 36%. Again, in isolation these are not significant movements, but in the context of other movements it looks like a return to “normal”, even if that normal is a little new.
If the pendulum is moving in the positive direction for the Liberals, it seems to be moving in the negative one for the New Democrats. Nanos and Liaison both have the NDP down slightly from their previous independent samples, as does Abacus. The shifts are not statistically significant, but in the broader context of the NDP having scored highs of 14% and 16% in the Nanos and Liaison polls, the party might be coming back down to earth as the Liberals move back up.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are immobile. That inertia has been steady throughout the last few months.
Les chiffres : Le calme avant la tempête
Cette semaine au balado Les chiffres, Philippe et moi discutent de l’état des lieux des formations politiques en ce début de saison estivale au Québec. Nous décortiquons les derniers sondages Léger et Pallas Data, puis explorons les possibles stratégies des partis pour la précampagne.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News of a PC victory in Nova Scotia that might be a relief to Tim Houston, and the setting of a date for a provincial byelection in Manitoba.
Polls galore, with new numbers on Alberta’s ties to Canada and Canadians’ trust in media, as well as polls out of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Ottawa.
#EveryElectionProject: Booze on the ballot in P.E.I.’s 1927 provincial election.
Upcoming milestones for Claudia Chender, Carla Beck and Doug Ford.
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
PCs take seat in Nova Scotia byelection
It’s been a challenging year for Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, as polls show support for his party slipping and his own approval ratings down to just 34% in the latest Angus Reid Institute poll, the lowest its been since he took office. But the results of a provincial byelection in the riding of Chéticamp-Margarees-Pleasant Bay should give the PCs some hope that things might not be going so poorly after all.