WATCH: An Ipsos poll for Global News found the Conservatives and Liberals would both get 31 per cent of the vote while the NDP would get 30 per cent, if an election were held tomorrow. Eric Sorensen breaks down the numbers.
OTTAWA —When Alberta elected an NDP majority last month, the federal wing of the party was looking to ride on Premier Rachel Notley’s win. While the federal NDP’s popularity has increased since, it has Quebec to thank, not Alberta, a poll released Monday suggests.
“It’s not as if Alberta went all NDP and it influenced the rest of the country,” said Ipsos Senior Vice President of Public Affairs John Wright.
“It’s that Alberta was able to elect a majority NDP government because the conservative vote was split.”
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The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News shows the three major federal parties are in a statistical tie, despite the fact the NDP continues to lag far behind Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in Alberta. Nationally, the Conservatives (down four points since the beginning of April) and Liberals (down two points) are both polling at 31 per cent, while the NDP (up five points) stand at 30 per cent.
The federal NDP’s leapfrog in 2011 from fourth party to official Opposition was largely due to what was coined the “orange crush” in Quebec. Now, the party is polling at 41 per cent in the key province, giving it a 16-point lead over the Liberals, who have 25 per cent. The Conservatives are polling only 11 per cent there, and the Bloc Quebecois at 20 per cent.
Alberta was able to elect a majority NDP government because the conservative vote was split.
– Pollster John Wright
“We’re going back to the genuine roots of the NDP surge in the last election,” Wright said. “This is where the Liberals and the NDP are really at battle with each other and the Bloc. Quebec is its own world but it has huge implications for the formation of the government.”
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If the NDP can hold the Liberals at bay in Quebec, the pollster said, they can more or less deny the Liberals a majority anywhere else.
Aside from the spread Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair’s party is enjoying in Quebec, however, its popularity isn’t catching on in the rest of the country.
In fact, other than a slim three-point lead in British Columbia, the party isn’t really in the race yet anywhere else, the poll shows.
Quebec is its own world but it has huge implications for the formation of the government.
– Pollster John Wright
Ontario has been said to be where the Conservatives can either win or lose the election. But only the Liberals are giving the governing party a run for its money there; the two parties are in a statistical tie at 36 per cent for the Conservatives and 35 per cent for the Liberals. In Ontario, the NDP trails at 24 per cent.
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And things aren’t looking much better for the Liberals. Aside from holding on in some Ontario regions, the Atlantic provinces make up the only other region where Trudeau’s party is polling strongly —but those provinces don’t have many seats to offer.
Justin Trudeau and the Liberals continue to lead out East, polling at 51 per cent compared to the Conservatives’ 24 per cent and the NDP’s 21 per cent.
“Those aren’t enough to win a country,” Wright said. “The numbers there skew the national vote, showing the Liberals hold a high percentage of the national vote. But they haven’t really consolidated, except in the Maritimes, into some seat gains.”
Exclusive Global News Ipsos polls are protected by copyright. The information and/or data may only be rebroadcast or republished with full and proper credit and attribution to “Global News Ipsos.” This poll was conducted between May 27 and May 29, with a sample of 1,003 Canadians and is accurate to within 3.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
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