Conservatives
catch up to Liberals
Hung parliament seen
TORONTO November
20th, 2014 - In
a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1500
Canadian voters, just more than one third will vote Liberal if the election
were held today (36%), while just one third will vote Conservative (33%), and
this is a virtual tie at this sample size. This stands in contrast to last
month, when the Liberals held a statistical lead (38% to 34%, respectively).
The NDP is static at just less than one fifth of the vote (18% now, 19% last
month). The Green Party has seen their vote share double, from one twentieth
(4%) to one tenth now (8%). Few will vote for the Bloc Quebecois (4%) or for
any other party (1%). The Liberal vote is the "stickiest", in that
more past Liberal voters will vote for their party (83%) than will
Conservatives (77%) or New Democrats (54%). As many as one third of past NDP
voters will vote Liberal this time (31%) as will half this proportion of
Conservatives (15%).
Hung parliament seen
If
these results are projected up to seats in the current 308 seat House of
Commons, the Conservatives would take 125 to 124 for the Liberals. The NDP
would claim 52 seats, the Bloc Quebecois 6 and the Green Party would retain
their one elected seat.
Leader approval scores stable
Stephen
Harper and Justin Trudeau garner the same levels of approval this month as last
(36% and 44% now, 34% and 44% then), while Thomas Mulcair's approval has
declined slightly (from 42% to 38%). Net favourable scores for each (approve
minus disapprove) are -19 for Harper, and +5 for the other two candidates.
"Stephen Harper has been dealt
an uncharacteristically strong hand of cards recently, and he's playing them
well. Opposition leaders always have difficulty gaining traction in wartime;
there's little they can disagree on with the government without seeming
unpatriotic or insufficiently supportive of the troops," said Forum
Research President, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff.
Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum
Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416)
960-9603.
