Weekly Writ 8/28: Liberals beating the brand
Weekly Writ 8/28: Liberals beating the brand
Poll shows two Atlantic Liberal parties polling above their federal cousins. Plus, an Ontario byelection is called.
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.
It’s easy to say that the Trudeau brand is hurting Liberal parties across the country — so easy that I’ve said it myself on numerous occasions. But every now and then we’re reminded that voters can differentiate between federal and provincial parties that share a name.
Not always, of course. The B.C. Conservatives can probably credit their initial rise in the polls to brand confusion. But an upcoming election can concentrate minds.
Narrative Research released some polls for Atlantic Canada over the last week. I go into them in greater detail below, but the numbers show the differentiation that voters are able to make.
Narrative polled both federal and provincial voting intentions, so we can do a side-by-side comparison of data compiled by the same pollster in the same way. The numbers show that the provincial Liberals are out-polling their federal cousins in two provinces, while in the other two it’s the federal Liberals that are more popular.
Context is everything. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals poll more highly than their provincial counterparts in the two provinces where there are popular Progressive Conservative governments in place: Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. In the case of PEI, the provincial Liberals have been supplanted as the main alternative to the PCs by the Green Party. They’ve also been without a permanent leader for most of the last five years. In Nova Scotia, the Liberals still haven’t recovered from their 2021 defeat.
Where the provincial Liberals are doing better, there is either an unpopular, long-in-the-tooth PC government in power (New Brunswick) or the provincial Liberals are the incumbents themselves (Newfoundland and Labrador). While they face a tough road ahead of them, Andrew Furey’s Liberals are still in contention for re-election. Susan Holt’s Liberals in New Brunswick might rightly be called the favourites.
Of course, we don’t know if the provincial Liberal parties would be doing better across Atlantic Canada if the Trudeau Liberals weren’t polling as poorly as they are at the moment. But it wouldn’t be right to say that all provincial Liberal parties are struggling because of federal Liberal policies. Some are — or have ceased to exist, as is the case in Western Canada. But some of them seem to be doing just fine.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News of a snap byelection call in Ontario, a Liberal byelection victory in Newfoundland and Labrador and the first entrant into Manitoba’s PC leadership race.
Polls show the Sask. Party ahead and the New Brunswick Liberals in the lead. Plus, we have new federal numbers, B.C. numbers and polling results for both levels of government throughout Atlantic Canada.
Kamala Harris gains a small electoral college cushion in the U.S. election projection.
Provincial Liberals in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador on track to win if the election were held today.
Riding profile for Bay of Quinte, which goes to the polls on September 19.
The Liberals win the 1944 New Brunswick election in the #EveryElectionProject.