The Manitoba Liberals have dropped seven percentage points with the election less than two weeks away according to a new opinion poll from a national research company.
Mainstreet Research’s poll released Thursday shows Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservatives leading the pack with 50 per cent of the votes from decided voters across Manitoba, up five per cent. Greg Selinger’s NDP have gained one per cent and sit with 24 per cent of the votes while Rana Bokhari’s Liberals sit with 17 per cent of the votes, down seven per cent. The Green Party sits with nine per cent, up one per cent.
“Over the last few weeks we have been able to observe PC support in Winnipeg. We see no indication that it is confined to a certain geographic area. PC support is wide and deep. The NDP are in an unenviable situation, there may not be much they can do, it’s now time to shore up as many of their incumbents as they can and hope for major missteps from the PCs,” Quito Maggi, President of Mainstreet Research said.
The Manitoba Liberals have seen their support drop after a number of missteps and bizarre moves.
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“I really think it’s a culmination of events. We have seen during the campaign a number of missteps by the liberals we haven’t seen that reflected,” David Valentin, Executive Vice-President of Mainstreet Research said of the Manitoba Liberals.
“Its all catching up to them all at once.”
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A number of candidates were dropped by the party after past controversies were brought to light. These include a past assault conviction for former Elmwood candidate and sexist tweets from former Southdale candidate.
READ MORE: Liberals drop Elmwood candidate after assault conviction revelation
The party lost four rural candidates due to improper address information on nomination forms and a last-minute candidate for the Liberals in the Brandon West riding also raised controversy after saying that closing hospitals would result in a reduction of healthcare wait times.
RELATED: Manitoba Liberal candidate says closing hospitals would reduce wait times
This will be the first time since 1999 that the Liberals will not run a full slate of 57 candidates.
The poll is considered accurate within +/- 2.28%, 19 times out of 20. Mainstreet Research surveyed a random sample of 1,844 Manitoba residents.
The Manitoba election takes place April 19.
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