Liberals Rapidly Gain Ground In Latest Polling
Alberta and Atlantic Canada see dramatic shifts, while Ontario remains remarkably stable
With a flurry of new polling in the past week and a half, it’s worth it to take a step back and see how these polls compare to themselves mere weeks, and in some cases months, apart.
Writ large, polling has improved quite a bit for Liberals in the last little while, with the Liberals either rising independently, or more frequently, diverting away from a slipping Conservative party.
Nationally, the lowest Liberals were polling in the previous batch of polls was 39%, while the highest they registered in that same period was 43%, while the Conservatives were anywhere between 34% and 42%.
Today, the latest poll has the Liberals polling as low as 41% nationally, and as high as 51% in rare cases. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have dropped, now polling between 32% and 37%, firmly dropping out of the forties.
While the two major parties shift about nationally, the NDP hasn’t seen much in the way of newfound fortunes thanks to that, with their polling largely staying flat, or more often than not, dropping compared to the previous batch of polls in January and beyond.
One province in particular that has really been moving the dial is Alberta, which has seen a veritable explosion in support for the Liberals in the latest polls. Polling for the Liberals used to range between 25% and 32%, but that has widened and risen to between 26% and 45%.
The only major outlier among Alberta subsamples is Abacus, whose latest poll from February 10 still found the Conservatives at 61% and Liberals at 26%. That’s in stark contrast to more recent polling from Mainstreet, which has the Conservatives at 48% and Liberals at 45%, or even Angus Reid, which finds the Tories at 44% and Grits at 40%.
Why the Liberals have been rising so quickly in Alberta is anyone’s guess, but we’re assuming it’s due to the ongoing Alberta separatist movement that’s been getting much more air time as of late. Couple that with a general sense of Canadian patriotism and how often Canadians tend to rally around the federal government, especially a Liberal government, in times of uncertainty, and it makes a little more sense.
Whether this polling in Alberta holds or quickly returns to normal as the year marches on, we’ll have to see. For now, let’s take a look at some of the other polling trends across the country.
