Justin Trudeau is poised to move back into 24 Sussex Drive following Canada’s 42nd federal election Monday, as the newest Ipsos poll suggests the Liberals have staked out a seven-point lead ahead of the Conservatives.
The new poll conducted on behalf of Global News suggests 38 per cent of decided voters prefer the Liberal party. Thirty-one per cent of voters are planning to cast a ballot for a Conservative candidate, while 22 per cent of voters support the NDP. The Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party are tied with four per cent national support.
WATCH ABOVE: New Ipsos poll shows Liberals still in the lead ahead of Election Day.
“It looks like the Liberals are going to win. We’re going to have a Trudeau at 24 Sussex again; the question is how big will they win?” Darrell Bricker, the CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs said in an interview Sunday. “Right now it probably looks like a minority but it’s all going to come down to turnout and actually getting those votes in the ballot box for the Liberals.”
Liberals poised to win 140 seats, according to latest seat projections
Seat projections released by the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy (LISPOP) on Sunday suggest the Liberals are in the lead but still 30 seats from the 170 seats needed for a majority government.
The seat projection is drawn from a set of polls conducted between Oct. 13 and Oct. 17 and suggests the Liberals have enough support to pick up 140 seats in an election – 25 more than the Conservatives 115, and 61 more than the NDP. The NDP was projected to win 130 seats in the first seat projection of the election campaign.
Nearly half of the Liberals seats, according to LISPOP, come in Ontario where they’re poised to win 68 seats, compared to the Tories’ 38 and the NDP’s 15. The Tories are set to dominate Alberta however with 29 of the province’s 34 seats.
The NDP still leads in Quebec where LISPOP projects the party could pick up 40 seats, significantly more than the Liberals’ 22, the Tories’ 13 and the Bloc Quebecois’ three seats.
British Columbia remains the closest race, according to the LISPOP projection, with the Liberals projected to pick up 15 seats, just two more than the Conservatives and NDP who are each projected to win 13 ridings. The Green Party picks up one seat in B.C. – its only seat in Canada.
Liberals pick up support in Ontario, Quebec in latest Ipsos poll
According to the latest Ipsos poll, the Conservative strength is, once again, dependent on Alberta where the party commands 57 per cent popular support. That’s more than twice as much as the Liberals who are at 25 per cent.
The Tories also lead in Saskatchewan and Manitoba with 37 per cent support – just one percentage point more than the Liberals’ 36 per cent support.
But the Liberal party has picked up ground in nearly all other provinces, including Quebec, which at the beginning of the campaign was the seat of the NDP’s support. Now, the Liberals lead the province with 31 per cent support, three percentage points more than the NDP’s 28 per cent, and 10 percentage points more than the Conservatives.
But the party’s lead in the province might not translate to seats.
The Liberals have a 12 point lead in Ontario, Canada’s most vote-rich province. The Liberals enjoy 44 per cent support in that province, ahead of the Conservatives’ 32 per cent, and 24 points ahead of the NDP who have 20 per cent.
In the much-sought after 905 and 416 – Toronto and its suburbs – the Liberals have 47 and 50 per cent support from decided voters, according to the Ipsos poll.
“So [the Liberals are] not only doing well in the downtown and the 416, they’re also doing well in the 905,” Bricker said.
“If that happens, they’re going to have a very good night because what typically occurs in an election campaign is that group, in the 905 in particular, votes as a block and they move in one direction.”
The Liberals also lead in British Columbia with 40 per cent support – 12 percentage points more than the Tories’ 28 per cent, and 15 more than the NDP’s 25 per cent. The Green Party enjoys most of its support in B.C. with eight per cent support.
All three of the main political parties have, at some point in the campaign, led the polls. The NDP started the campaign strong with 35 per cent national support but have since faltered, losing strength in Quebec due, in large part, to their stance on the niqab issue.
The Conservative vote has been the most stable throughout the campaign, fluctuating only six points between 27 and 33 per cent of national support. In Sunday’s Ipsos poll, the Tories enjoy 31 per cent of national support.
What’s motivating voters? Change
Both the NDP and the Liberals used the word “change” heavily in their campaigns and the desire for someone other than Stephen Harper to occupy 24 Sussex seems to be motivating a significant portion of voters, according to the new Ipsos poll. Sixty-seven per cent of respondents to the poll agreed it is “time for another federal party to take over” and only 33 per cent said Harper deserves to be re-elected.
But while the Tories are seven points back from the Liberals, the party’s supporters are traditionally the most likely to get out and vote – their motivation is also shown in the Ipsos poll with 70 per cent of Conservative voters saying they are “absolutely certain” of their choice on election day. Just 61 per cent of Liberals, and 56 per cent of NDPers can say the same.
“Typically in a Canadian election, about 60 per cent of the population in the last five elections have shown up on Election Day,” Bricker said.
“If there’s going to be more, because it’s a change election, that’s something that will probably benefit the Liberals and we might see their support go up. If it’s around the 60 per cent number that we typically see, the race could tighten up a bit between the Conservatives and the Liberals.”
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.”
The Ipsos poll was conducted on behalf of Global News between October 15 and October 17, with a sample of 2,503 Canadians, including 1,502 from Ipsos’ Canadian online panel who were interviewed online and 1,001 by live-interview telephone dialing. The poll is considered accurate within +/- 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
View the full Ipsos tables below:
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