Stable but Narrowing Conservative Lead as NDP in a Holding Pattern Well Back of Leaders

[Ottawa – October 6, 2015] The Conservatives hold a stable but narrowing lead over the Liberal Party which has been moving up in the past week. The NDP, meanwhile, has declined and the party is plateaued right now.

There has been some confusion regarding the differing results being published by various pollsters in recent weeks. However, we have seen a clear and sustained Conservative lead and we are confident that this is not some statistical anomaly. We saw Conservative Party starting to rise on the 12th of September, moving into a clear lead on the 16th, and holding that lead for 20 consecutive days. It is unclear whether these numbers would produce a majority or not, but it is certainly within the realm of plausibility.

The regional races are showing important movements. The Liberals and Conservatives are statistically tied for the lead in the critical Ontario contest while the NDP seems to be falling out of the race here. Quebec is now a dead heat with the Conservatives and NDP tied and the Liberals up somewhat. Alberta and Saskatchewan have gone solidly blue and British Columbia sees a tight four-way race with the NDP holding the lead. The Green party continues to do well in British Columbia.

The Conservatives lead with men and continue to do well with older voters, but they are now doing well with boomers and have a clear lead with the Generation X cohort. The most striking demographic gap, however, may be the less-well-educated who have flocked to the Conservatives. The Liberals, meanwhile, are recovering the university educated vote. In addition to the older and younger fault lines separating Conservative Canada, there is a large gap across education. This will be important to watch.

Methodology:

This study involved a blended sample collected using two separate methodologies: Computer Assisted Live Interviews (CATI) and EKOS’ proprietary 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 October 3-5, 2015. In total, a random sample of 1,658 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey (1,069 by HD-IVR, 589 by live interviewer). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 2.4 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 6, 2015)

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