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.