Conservatives Hold Lead in Slightly Narrowed Race

[Ottawa – October 2, 2015] With just 17 days until Election Day, the Conservative Party holds a clear (albeit somewhat narrowed) lead. Our poll of last week was controversial at the time as no one else was showing a clear Conservative lead. Our internal daily tracking (now being shared after the fact) shows that the Conservative Party has held the lead for 15 consecutive days and they now find themselves in roughly the same range as where they were at this stage of the 2011 election campaign.

A brief note on some methodological issues is in order. We have added in a parallel live interviewer stream to strengthen the reliability of our polling. The results are largely similar but we are tinkering with some variations in cellphone coverage, which seem to be affecting a couple of parties’ support levels. We will be increasing the cellphone portion of our live interviewer and reporting the integrated results as of next week. We are also tentatively planning to begin providing the rolling polling numbers (late afternoon) early next week.

The most notable finding in our regional results is the rise of the Conservative Party in Quebec and the corresponding decline in NDP fortunes. While the NDP still has a clear lead in the province, their advantage has narrowed from a commanding 21 points as late as two weeks ago to a much less comfortable seven-point lead over the now-second-place Conservative Party. While we do not have compelling direct evidence for this argument, we would speculate that these movements are related to concerns over cultural issues related to Niqabs and refugees.

In Ontario, the race seems to be tightening with both the Liberals and the NDP up over the past week. Atlantic Canada remains firmly in Liberal hands while renewed Conservative strength in Alberta is quickly dashing the opposition’s hopes of making inroads in the province. British Columbia has morphed from clear NDP lead to a much murkier three-way (and even four-way in some ridings) race.

It is also highly notable that Conservative support rises dramatically as you move from younger to older Canada. While this is hardly a new finding (indeed, Conservative support has been more heavily concentrated in older Canada since the party’s formation), it is important because there are more seniors than there were in 2011. The Conservatives also do extremely well with the less educated, but they are still holding their own when it comes to university graduates.

In the end, we would argue that Stephen Harper’s success stems from his ability to sway the public conversation towards values and cultural issues (e.g., terrorism, Niqabs, etc.). Our previous research has shown that the Niqab ban and more closed attitudes to refugees and immigration are much more strongly supported in precisely the demographics where the Conservatives have risen.

The race is anything but settled and is still very much open, but as long as the focus remains on these issues, the opposition may be unable to change the channel to the issues that they want to talk about (for example, the economy and middle class). The opposition parties need to raise the volume on economy and consider their own values narrative about how core progressive values are threatened.

Methodology:

This study 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 field dates for this survey are September 23-29, 2015. In total, a random sample of 2,609 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 1.9 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.

Click here for the full report: Full Report (October 2, 2015)

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