Defining – and courting – the ‘middle class’ vote

WATCH ABOVE: Earnscliffe Strategy Group’s Elly Alboim takes a look at how each federal party is fighting for middle class votes and tells Tom Clark no party needs the entire group to win the fall election.

On the surface, it looks like all three parties are going after the same vote in the lead up to the next federal election, scheduled for Oct. 19. Even though the Conservatives, NDP and Liberals are all using the term “middle class,” though, each is targeting a different type of individual and family, said Earnscliffe Strategy Group’s Elly Alboim.

That’s because the concept of the middle class is really more of a state of mind than anything else, he said, which leaves it up to each party to determine what “middle class,” and which vote, it wants to woo.

“They’re all different,” Albioim said of Canadians in the middle class. “They’re single-parent families, double-income families, there are people with lower income and higher income.”

Looking closer at each party’s strategies and announcements reveals the difference — that each pool the parties are drawing from have unique qualities.

WATCH: Frank Graves, president of EKOS, explains why his research shows Canadians are not optimistic about the future of the middle class and how politicians could turn things around

The Conservatives, for example, are looking to attract suburban Canadians of primarily nuclear families with two parents, one of whom stays home so the couple can income split, Albiom pointed out.

“They’re looking for families with children and they’re not spending much on lower income Canadians,” he said.

The NDP, meanwhile, released a new TV advertisement this weekend, in which leader Thomas Mulcair tells viewers he was “raised on middle class values” and “will work to strengthen” it.

WATCH: Tom Clark takes a look at how Canadians define the middle class and why many worry the group is shrinking and becoming increasingly pessimistic.

But can simply identifying as a member of the same class attract votes?

Albiom said he isn’t certain that strategy can work.

“I’m not sure simply saying you’re middle class suddenly creates an affinity among all those people who say they’re middle class,” he said, offering a similar uncertainty for the Conservatives’ approach.

“I’m not sure that simply paying for hockey games and art lessons is enough to convince people that you have their interests at heart.”

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Despite all the talk about the middle class, only Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has offered a hint at who he believes falls into that category.

There’s a reason, said EKOS Research president Frank Graves, for political parties to shy away from defining it.

“One of the reasons all the parties chase the middle class is because it’s the largest spectrum,” he said. “There have been times when 80 per cent of Americans and Canadians have identified themselves as middle class.”

But that number has recently dropped to just below 50 per cent, he said, citing recent polling his firm conducted.

“Interestingly, none of those were moving upward to the upper class. The movements were all into the working class and the poor,” Graves said. “After a period of stagnation for a lot of people, a declining and pessimistic middle class has replaced that optimistic and growing middle class. And people look at the future very darkly.”

So which party garners the most votes from appealing to the middle class lies in which party can convince the most people their party is the one that can re-start progress.