The federal NDP is seeing a surge among university-educated voters – jumping over ten points in just one week, according to polling data from EKOS.

The breakdown of a national poll shows the NDP leading at 36.8 per cent of support among university-educated voters, up from 25.9 per cent just a week earlier. The Conservatives are trailing behind at 26.1 per cent and likewise the Liberals at 25.8 per cent.

The numbers do need to be taken with the proper grain of salt. With a sample size of 803, the university cohort results come with a +/-3.5 percent margin of error 19 times out of 20. That said, the swing reflects what was going on in Alberta ahead of the NDP provincial win there, EKOS pollster Frank Graves said.

“We saw that happening in Alberta as well, it was one of the three keys to the NDP victory – it was a huge advantage with university-educated voters,” Graves said.

“I suspect the same thing is driving it – maybe not the Alberta election but an early common cause,” he added.

Graves said that historically, the Liberal party has been most successful at appealing to university-educated voters, but he suggests there are a number of factors that could point toward the shift.

“We know the university-educated was strongly opposed to Bill C-51. It may be that with the passage of C-51 and the Liberals, albeit qualitative support of that legislation, contrasts with the very clear denunciation of the legislation by the NDP,” said Graves adding that it’s not the only factor.

Graves said the more educated portion of the population: those who have post-secondary degrees, college degrees, and science professionals, have not been a target for the current government.

“The government works on an anti-intellectual populist front,” he said.

“The environment is not seen as particularly important, it’s not clear they are on the same side as climate change, they shut down the long-form census, and as well is the tendency to parody the intellectual class as latte-sipping feeble people who don’t know what they are doing,” said Graves.

He said educated professionals, particularly those in science-based sectors may be “bridling at the fact of the indifference of knowledge and the hostility in the current government.”

Graves called the university-educated voting population a “large movement,” and said if they show up to vote it could be mean a significant offset to the senior vote, which is a large voting demographic the Conservative party depends on for support.