2019 Federal Election | Where Next? | 2019-10-15

October 15, 2019

An online survey of 2,394 adult Canadians was conducted between October 8th and 10th.

Where does the election go now? It has been an eventful campaign so far, but the question now is where will this all take us?
Both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have made big personal breakthroughs. Singh, in particular, is building capital not just within NDP partisans but among other parties’ supporters as well. As a result, more voters are considering the NDP as their second choice. The NDP second-choice measure is up dramatically. However, the actual NDP vote is not. In fact, when we group seats by patterns of party competition, the NDP’s national uptick is not showing up in the seats where it is most needed.
Blanchet and the Bloc are having more success in translating momentum into seats. We did a big Quebec oversample after the TVA debate so we were able to break our Quebec results into four regions. The Liberals look strong in Quebec because they do so well in the Allophone/Anglophone seats in Montreal. While earlier in the campaign the Liberals were ahead among francophones, they are now are in a neck and neck battle with the Bloc. Even in the Conservative bastions, Quebec City and the Beauce, the Bloc have surged into a strong second. The NDP will be lucky to hold on to a handful of seats with unique local dynamics. They could be wiped out there entirely.
On the main battle, the Liberals are denying the Tories significant gains out of Quebec. The Liberals are losing some in the Atlantic and Ontario, and maybe some in Vancouver’s suburbs. But nowhere near enough for the Conservatives to move ahead. But there is still room for surprises. There are three factors in particular worth watching.