Without Significant Changes, Doug Ford on Track for Majority Government

[Ottawa – June 1, 2018] As we enter the final week of the campaign, the Ontario NDP have started falling back, while the Ford-led Progressive Conservatives have opened up a clear, four-point lead. The Liberals are stuck at 19 points with no plausible path to victory.

Making matters worse for the NDP, the regional distribution of the party’s vote does not appear to be very seat-efficient. In particular, the PCs have a huge advantage in rural and suburban areas, which will yield a major seat efficiency advantage come Election Day. More troubling for the NDP, however, is their overrepresentation with the more economically vulnerable groups and younger voters, both of which have historically lower voting rates.

Nevertheless, there is still significant room for change. Indeed, the proportion of respondents who remain undecided is high at 10 points, which is uncommonly high for such a late stage of an election campaign. In any case, without a significant disruption, Doug Ford is now ticketed to be Premier with a commanding majority.

Methodology:

This survey was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The figures in this report are based on a three-day rolling sample. Each day, a new day’s worth of interviewing is added and the oldest day is dropped. The field dates for this survey are May 29-31, 2018. In total, a random sub-sample of 990 residents of Ontario aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.

Please click here for the full report.

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