Conservatives make up ground, but is it too little too late?
Poilievre was the most successful in beating debate expectations and tied Carney as the winner of the debate. The bigger story may be that not only did Singh fail to meet expectations among NDP party identifiers, he lost the debate to Carney.
Building on Wednesday’s topline release, these are additional findings from the most recent of three of online surveys sponsored and conducted by Innovative Research Group Inc. (INNOVATIVE).
The first fielded April 15-20 with N=2000, the second fielded April 17-20 with N=1000, and the third fielded April 21-23 with N=1200. Results are weighted by age, gender, region, education, and self-reported federal past vote to ensure that the overall sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population according to Census data.
Yesterday we discussed the topline ballot of the race, time for a change attitudes, and potential impacts of record-setting advance ballots here.
This week we see the Liberal and Conservative decided vote converging in the 38/39% range. Crucially we see Ontario becoming a marginal tie in all three cases, with all that implies for seat count. We see the NDP at 11% in these studies, which is a few points higher than some of our colleagues – and if that number is high on Monday the second-choice data on the remaining NDP voters makes it clear that the beneficiary is likely to be the Liberal Party.
The debates seem to have been a significant factor. Almost 3-in-10 (29%) of respondents to our post-debate survey reported watching at least some of one of the two debates and more than 4-in-10 (42%) at least heard something about them. Of those who did hear something, Carney more or less met expectations, with 23% saying he did better than expected, 44% as expected, and 21% worse than expected. Poilievre did noticeably better, with saying he did 27% better than expected and only 19% worse. Unfortunately for Poilievre only 11% of self-identified Liberal voters thought he exceeded expectations, the same number of Conservatives who thought Carney exceeded expectations, while 30% of NDP voters watching thought Carney exceeded their expectations.
The most important issue among Canadians has hardly moved throughout the campaign, with 46% saying cost of living in March, and 44% now. What has changed as the campaign has moved along is the relative share of attention for the parties.
When the campaign started 63% of respondents said that they had RSH something about Carney and the Liberals in the last few days – that number is 46% now. Poilievre and the Conservatives opened the campaign at 45% and have retained that level coming in at 43% this week. That awareness continues to leave voters feeling more favourable toward Carney and the Liberals (+15 this week). While Poilievre and the CPC have risen from -8 to +1, they still trail the Liberals in campaign impact.
Canadian attitudes to Trump and his administration remain effectively unchanged since the beginning of March, with 12% excited and 62% afraid about his election. Given Trump’s renewed commentary about Canada yesterday that may be a renewed factor heading into election day. At the Provincial level net approval for how their provincial government is handling issues related to Trump’s administration has sunk seven points in Ontario (to +38) and Alberta’s government continues to lag behind the rest with a near-even +5% net approval.
The dominant Liberal position in share of attention and issue salience from March has faded, and the Conservatives have started to make up ground. The Debate performance seems to have helped Poilievre as well, though there is no evidence that Carney did his party’s prospects any harm. The Conservatives are making a late surge – but it needs to be a large one to be enough, given seat distribution and the fact that over 7 million Canadians have already voted.
The Conservatives face a steep final hill on this campaign, a challenge made more difficult by the continued struggles of the NDP. While the Liberals have some explaining to do about Carney’s earlier call with Trump, the fact that President Trump appears to be talking about Canada again leave the Liberals in a strong position for success on election day.
Click here to read the full report!
