Halfway through N.S. election, Stephen McNeil’s Liberals are out front — despite themselves

OTTAWA — At the midpoint of the Nova Scotia provincial election, the incumbents — Premier Stephen McNeil and the Nova Scotia Liberals — have a comfortable lead despite themselves.

Though they’ve bumbled and stumbled through the first two weeks of the campaign, the Liberals find themselves two weeks out from election day with a 10-point lead on their nearest rival, Jamie Baillie and the Progressive Conservatives.

And yet, though they are behind by 10 points or more according to a new poll published Sunday by Mainstreet Research, Baillie’s PCs as well as Gary Burrill’s New Democrats may be able to take advantage of the stumble-prone Liberals and close the gap in time for election day on May 30.

Nova Scotia gave McNeil a convincing majority in 2013. Four years later, there is a reasonable chance he will return only to lead a minority government and, if the stumbles continue and an opposition party can find some wind for its sails, there’s an outside chance McNeil will find himself back on the opposition benches.

2:45 Nova Scotia provincial election see’s incumbents have comfortable lead despite themselves: Akin

The first Liberal gaffe came in the campaign’s opening days as reporters tallied up the gender diversity scorecard of all parties. It was McNeil himself who stuck his foot in it after reporters told him his party was running fewest female candidates. Just 12 women are running for the Liberals in the province’s 51 ridings.

“I want women in seats that we can win,” McNeil said by way of excuse, a remark immediately characterized by his opponents as condescending.

Then, the next week, voters learned that one of McNeil’s key campaign aides had pleaded guilty in 2014 to a domestic assault charge. That aide, Kyley Harris, was working in the premier’s office at the time of the assault and was fired for waiting a few days before telling his bosses about the charge. In 2015, Harris received a conditional discharge and was re-hired by the Liberals to do research for the provincial caucus.

5:42 Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil responds to Liberal campaign staff controversies

But putting Harris on the campaign team not only brought criticism from McNeil’s provincial opponents, it also made the floor of the House of Commons, where federal Conservative leader Rona Ambrose denounced Harris’ elevation to McNeil’s inner circle, saying it sent a “terrible message” and that Liberal leaders needed to “walk the talk” on violence against women.

That was on May 4. A week later, Harris resigned his position on the campaign and another precious campaigning day for the Liberals was wasted as they spent much of it again explaining why Harris had been on the campaign in the first place, rather than talking about their own policies.

Harris’ resignation came immediately on the heels of the other big Liberal stumble of the campaign’s early days, when the party’s candidate in Pictou East was fired for once saying dumb things on Twitter. Matt MacKnight was dropped after Global News discovered tweets MacKnight posted in 2013 in which MacKnight used derogatory terms for those with Down’s Syndrome.

2:09 Conflicting statements on Harrietsfield cleanup prompts more questions

But it hasn’t stopped there. On Friday, McNeil and his candidate in Halifax Atlantic — a riding very much in play this election — were caught out with misleading statements about the cleanup of a contaminated site in Harrietsfield, N.S.

The candidate, Brendan Maguire, posted a video on Facebook saying that “a commitment has been made that the city and the province will be working together to clean up the … site.”  Asked about this commitment, McNeil backtracked a bit, saying only, “We are talking to the municipality about options for cleaning up the site.”

Turns out neither McNeil nor Maguire were correct. A spokesman for the city of Halifax, Brendan Elliott, went on the record to say no such talks had been held and no such commitments made. “We have not had any conversations with respect to the municipality participating in a cleanup of the site,” Elliott said.

READ MORE: Complete Nova Scotia election coverage

By themselves, none of these gaffes would cause serious harm to any campaign anywhere. But the cumulative effect could be dangerous for the Liberals.

“This is not a narrative the Liberals can allow to continue if they want to stay in the lead,” Quito Maggi, president of pollster Mainstreet Research, said Sunday.

Mainstreet did a poll of 1,000 Nova Scotians on both landlines and cellphones on May 10 and 11.

It found 40 per cent of decided and leaning voters would pick the Liberals, 30 per cent would pick the PCs, and 24 per cent would go NDP. Green Party support stood at just 5 per cent.

The pollster says the results are accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. (Mainstreet, it should be noted, was active in the recent British Columbia election and its final vote intention numbers were largely in line with actual event.)

The most recent daily tracking poll done by Corporate Research Associates for the Halifax Chronicle Herald also shows a gap over the weekend between the Liberals and the PCs of better than 10 points. That gap, though had narrowed to 5 points in the days after the MacKnight and Harris revelations.

The question now is whether Baillie and Burrill can pick up their games in the final two weeks.

Baillie had a rough time of it towards the end of last week when he presented the costing proposals for his campaign commitments — costing estimates that were light on key details.

Burrill gets his big chance to start down the home stretch with a bang when he releases his party’s platform Monday morning. After former premier Darrel Dexter took the NDP from first to third in 2013, expectations for the NDP in this election are modest.

But if Burrill and the NDP can chip away at enough Liberal seats in Halifax and hold in some tight three-way races like the one in Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River, Burrill just might find himself as leader of the opposition in the next Nova Scotia legislature.