The NDP has moved ahead of the PCs for the first time in Innovative Research Group Inc.’s (INNOVATIVE) 2018 Ontario election tracking. More significantly, the NDP is showing a much firmer base than earlier in the campaign4, now rivaling the PC base of support.

Today INNOVATIVE released the results of a post-debate online poll conducted from May 27th (immediately following the final debate) to May 29th, 2018 with tracking drawn from our monthly Canada This Month surveys. While the survey remains in field, INNOVATIVE pulled the results of the first 958 respondents. The sample has been weighted down to N=800 using Census data to ensure the sample is representative of Ontario voters.

At 36%, the NDP have a marginal 2 percentage point lead over the PCs (34%) while the Liberals have dropped to a campaign low of 22%.

The Liberal decline comes despite a strong debate performance by Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne. While Wynne and NDP leader Andrea Horwath are virtually tied on which leader did best, Wynne is far ahead among those who actually watched the whole debate.

There are several developments in this survey that are good news for the NDP and bad news for the PCS.

1.) The NDP base has grown dramatically and now is marginally larger than the PCs.

2.) The PC’s pool of support has narrowed while the NDP’s has broadened. The PCs have gone from leading or tied in 4 value clusters at the start of the campaign leading in 2. The NDP has gone from leading in 2 to leading in 4.

3.) The NDP are narrowing the PC lead among the two struggling middle-class segments that allowed the Ford PCs to expand their support early in the campaign above the ceiling the PCs had faced in earlier campaigns.



There are nine days left in this election. In the 2012 Alberta election, the Wildrose Party dropped 10 points and the PCs gained 10 points in the last 10 days. So change is possible. However, we are seeing a significant increase in the number of voters who say they have heard enough to make up their minds AND we are seeing a particularly large jump in New Democratic voters who say they have heard enough.

For the full report please fill out the form below.







The full report includes detailed polling results & analysis on:

Provincial Vote & Party ID,

Issue Salience [Added May 31st],

Party Leaders [Added May 31st],

Party Image [Added May 31st],

Alienation Segmentation,

Value Clusters,

Political Attitudes [Added May 31st] and,

The May 27th Leadership Debate

For further information on these analyses or to explore how our segmentation analysis can help you tackle your pressing public or market issues please call us at 416.642.6340 or send us an email.

Methodology