Campaign Research has conducted a national public opinion poll of 3,147 Canadians. Last week, before the English Leaders’ debate we picked up on a significant increase in Jagmeet Singh’s “job approval” rating. After the English Leaders’ debate, we wanted to see if this increase was: a) continuing or not, b) how significant the increase was relative to others, and c) if the increase would impact the “Best Prime Minister” question.

Jagmeet Singh’s “job approval” rating continues to increase and is literally “soaring”, like we have never seen before. Singh has gone from 22% (job approval) in early September to 33% in early October and since the English Leaders’ debate, has soared up to 49%. Elizabeth May has also seen a slight increase from 39% to 41% while Justin Trudeau is steady at 31%. Andrew Scheer is down 2% and now at 27%.

Trudeau’s “job disapproval” rating remains at 54%, and his net “job approval” rating sits at -23%, no change from early September. Scheer’s “job disapproval” has risen to 53%, and his net “job approval” rating is now -26%, down 11 points from early September. May’s “job disapproval” is steady at 24%, and her net “job approval” rating is now +17%, no change from early September.

Singh’s “job disapproval” has dropped, yet again, to 22% and his net “job approval” rating is an incredible +27. This is up from -13% (a net gain of 50 points from early September). This is great news for Singh and the NDP heading into the last 10 days of the campaign.

Singh enjoys positive “job approval” ratings from both men and women and across all age categories. There is also a significant “net” gap between positive and negative approval ratings with women. Women are more positive and much less negative about Jagmeet Singh and how has performed in the campaign thus far:

Singh’s job approval is high across the country, particularly in the battlegrounds of Ontario and BC. This could spell trouble for the Liberal Party of Canada:

On the question of “who would make the best Prime Minister”, Justin Trudeau is down 3% from the start of the campaign with only 23% of Canadians believing he would make the best PM. Andrew Scheer is also down 3% from the start of the campaign and now sits at 20%. While Jagmeet Singh is up to 15% overall, up from 7% at the start of the campaign and 5% higher than 1 week ago.

What is even more interesting, is where Singh is performing best on the question of “best Prime Minister”. He is now tied with the other Leaders in Atlantic Canada and BC. Singh’s rise could really shake things in these (and other) regions:

“Jagmeet Singh has caught fire! He is on a trajectory to become the leader on the question of “who would make the best prime minister” and no one knows, with any certainty, where or how far this could go at this point. With 11 days left in the campaign, it is not out of the question that Jagmeet Singh and the NDP could again, switch places with the Liberal Party of Canada as they did in 2011. No one wants to be first to say Prime Minister Singh, but he may end up being the number 1 choice for a plurality of Canadians in short order”, said Nick Kouvalis, Principal of Campaign Research Inc.

Nick can be reached at nkouvalis@campaignresearch.ca

METHODOLOGY

This study was conducted by Campaign Research between October 8th and 10th, 2019 through an online survey of 3,147 randomly selected Canadian adults who are members of Maru/Blue’s online panel Maru Voice Canada and were provided with various incentives to respond. The panelists were selected to reflect Canada’s age, gender and regional distributions in line with 2016 Statistics Canada census data. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size has an estimated margin of error (which measures sampling variability) of +/- 1.75%, 19 times out of 20.

The results have been weighted by age, gender, and region (and in Quebec, language) to match the population according to 2016 Census data. Certain areas or groups may be oversampled but have been weighted to reflect their proportion of Canada’s population. This is to ensure the sample is representative of the entire adult population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

The following screening question was asked in order to determine eligibility for participation in the study

"Are you 18 years of age or older and eligible to vote in federal elections?"