Week in Polls: Manitoba PCs hold lead, NDP down nationally, margin narrows in Ontario

The latest poll out of Manitoba, which will vote on April 19, shows the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Pallister continuing to hold a wide lead over the governing New Democrats and surprising Liberals.

Mainstreet Manitoba poll

The new poll from Mainstreet Research put the PCs at 50%, down just one point from Mainstreet's previous poll of February 11. Rana Bokhari's Liberals were up three points to 23%, while Greg Selinger's New Democrats were unchanged at 21%. The Greens followed with 6% support, down one point.

These numbers have been holding steady for some time, as Mainstreet has pegged the three parties within a tight band of support over their last three polls: 50% to 52% for the Tories, 20% to 23% for the Liberals, and 20% to 21% for the NDP.

With half the vote and against a divided field, the PCs would win a big majority government with these numbers. And that should come as no surprise: in addition to their 27-point lead in the 'rest of Manitoba', they are also up 18 points in Winnipeg.

Seat and vote projections for the Manitoba election will be launching soon, likely after next week.

Liberals dominating in Forum national poll

New federal numbers from Forum Research show the Liberals with a big national lead as well as some impressive numbers at the regional level. The party suffering, though, is not the Conservatives, but rather the New Democrats.

Forum federal poll

The Liberals led with 49%, up three points from Forum's previous survey of December 6-8. The Conservatives were unchanged at 32%, which matches their election result, while the New Democrats were down three points to 10%.

That is half of the vote they took on October 19.

The Liberals put up some massive leads in this poll: 15 points in British Columbia, 16 points in Ontario, 37 points in Quebec, and 50 points in Atlantic Canada. The Conservatives were only ahead, though by 34 points, in Alberta, while the Prairies were a toss-up.

This is a very bad poll for the New Democrats, who ranked fourth in Quebec with just 11% (behind the Bloc, which was down to 13%). The best result for the NDP in this poll was in British Columbia, and there it only scored 14%.

Margin narrows in Ontario

Despite polls showing Kathleen Wynne being one of Canada's least popular premiers, her party is still running competitively with Patrick Brown's Progressive Conservatives in Ontario.

The new poll from Mainstreet Research (which quickly seems to be supplanting Forum as Canada's busiest pollster) puts the Tories at 36%, down four points from Mainstreet's previous poll of November 1. The Liberals were up five points to 33%, while the NDP was up one point to 26%.

These numbers match quite closely to a Forum poll from the end of December.

Regionally, the province is quite divided. Only in Southwestern Ontario, where the Tories are up by 10 points, and in Toronto, where the Liberals are up by six, does any party have a robust lead. Elsewhere, the margins are much closer: a four-point PC lead in Eastern Ontario, leads of two points for the Liberals in Northern Ontario and the Hamilton/Niagara region, and a lead of just one for the PCs in the 905 area code.

Lethbridge poll provides window on Alberta

Polling by Lethbridge College shows some interesting results in the city of Lethbridge, providing a bit of a glimpse on where things stand in the province today.

At the provincial level, the poll found the Progressive Conservatives leading in Lethbridge with 33% support, followed by the New Democrats at 26%, Wildrose at 22%, and the Liberals at 12%.

Compared with the provincial election results in the two ridings of Lethbridge East and Lethbridge West, this represents a slide of between 26 to 31 points for the NDP — a huge number. All the other parties have taken advantage, though primarily the PCs. They were up between nine and 12 points, the Liberals up between six and seven points, and Wildrose between three and five points.

The NDP also seems to be suffering at the federal level in Lethbridge. The poll put the Conservatives ahead with 50%, followed by the Liberals at 31% and the NDP at 8%.

The boundaries are not contiguous, but to put these numbers into perspective the Conservatives took 57% of the vote in the federal riding of Lethbridge in October. The Liberals took 19% and the NDP took 21%, suggesting that the federal NDP has also taken a tumble in the region.

Trump, Clinton heavily favoured in Super Tuesday

About a quarter of delegates for the Republican and Democratic primaries will be handed out over the next week, and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are poised to dominate.

Our go-to site, FiveThirtyEight, gives Trump some big leads in some of the states voting on Tuesday. According to their "polls-plus" forecast, Trump is up by 5.5 points in Virginia, 10 points in Georgia, 10.5 points in Alabama, and 25 points in Massachusetts. Oklahoma is a toss-up while Ted Cruz is up by 13 points in Texas.

On the Democratic side, Clinton is up by eight points in Massachusetts, nine points in Oklahoma, 32 points in Virginia, 33 points in Arkansas, 35 points in Tennessee, 36 points in Texas, and 49 points in Georgia. She is also ahead by 39 points in this weekend's primary in South Carolina.

Only in Vermont is Bernie Sanders forecast to win on Tuesday — by 74 points!

At the national level, there hasn't been much change in the last week. Trump leads with 35%, followed by Cruz at 19%, Marco Rubio at 16%, and Ben Carson and John Kasich at 8% apiece. For the Democrats, Clinton is ahead with 49% to 39% for Sanders.

My CBC articles this week

• The Pollcast: Super Tuesday could be decisive for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton - Joining me in this week's episode of the Pollcast is Keith Boag, the CBC's senior reporter in Washington. We discuss the state of the presidential race, and Keith has lots of fascinating things to say.
• Brad Wall retains wide but shrinking lead in new Saskatchewan poll - My analysis of the latest numbers from Mainstreet for the province. You can expect regular analyses from me on the provincial race at CBC Saskatchewan throughout the campaign.
• Justin Trudeau rates highly on economy and approval in new polls - I broke down the approval ratings data from the latest polls by the Angus Reid Institute and Forum Research. I also took a look at the 'Best PM' numbers from Nanos Research and Forum. You can check out my hit with Power and Politics at this link, too.
• Donald Trump could hold off Marco Rubio, polls suggest - My look at how realistic it is to think that Rubio could ride the establishment wave to beat Trump in a winnowed feed. Spoiler: it isn't all that realistic.

Tight race in Alberta in new polls as by-elections loom

With four provincial by-elections just around the corner in Alberta, two new polls suggest the race could be tight both province-wide and within the two cities at play.

We'll start with the poll from Lethbridge College, which reports on an annual basis. We last heard from the school in October 2013.

The poll pegs Progressive Conservative support to stand at 32.6%, down 3.5 points from where the party was a year ago. That marks the lowest that Lethbridge has registered PC support to be since 2009, when it started polling.

Wildrose was up 1.4 points to 30.8%, their highest score in Lethbridge polling. 

The New Democrats trailed with 16.8%, while the Liberals were at 12.8%. Support for other parties (which presumably includes the Alberta Party) was at 7%, up 1.4 points.

It is a close race, which is in step with the last two polls we have seen out of the province from Léger (31% to 26% in favour of Wildrose in June, 33% to 29% in August-September). While that is, relatively speaking, good news for Wildrose, this does still represent a level of support somewhat below where the party was in 2012. They have come into contention almost by default, as the PCs shed more than 10 points' worth of support.

At the regional level, the PCs enjoyed sizable leads in both Edmonton and Calgary, were tied with Wildrose in the northern part of the province, and well behind in the south.

But the results in Edmonton and Calgary are out of step with the recent Léger polls out of Alberta. The Tories have averaged just 27% support in those polls in Calgary, versus 42% according to Lethbridge. While both the NDP and Wildrose polled lower in the Lethbridge polls than in the Léger surveys, it is among Liberals that the difference is most important: an average of 23% instead of the 16% here.

In Edmonton, the PCs have averaged 22% against 28.5% for the NDP and 21% for the Liberals, instead of 33% here for the PCs, 24% for the NDP, and just 10% for the Liberals (Wildrose's support seems consistent).

Now, we could consider that perhaps the arrival of Jim Prentice has transformed things in both Calgary and Edmonton, as Liberals flock back to the PCs now that it is under a Red Tory. While that might be an intuitive conclusion, Lethbridge College showed higher results for the PCs than other polls did in October 2013, so we may be looking instead at a methodological quirk.

The other poll was conducted by ThinkHQ in its 'Eye on Alberta' regular report. Only the results of the poll in Calgary and Edmonton proper (not the metropolitan regions or CMAs, as Lethbridge College has it) were released to the public.

In Calgary, ThinkHQ puts Wildrose narrowly ahead at 38% to 36% for the Tories, with the Liberals well behind at 13% and the NDP at 8%. Since July, that represents a gain of eight points for the Tories, who have been picking up steam in the city for some time. The PCs were at just 20% in Calgary proper in March, while Wildrose has fallen 10 points since then.

The contest was a close three-way race in Edmonton, with Wildrose at 27%, the PCs at 26%, and the NDP at 25%. That marks a drop of five points since July for Wildrose, and a gain of four points for the Tories. Here again, the PCs have been rising, as they were at just 15% in Edmonton proper in March.

It seems that Prentice has had a positive effect on the Tories' numbers (though he only recently won, he has been the heir apparent for months). But he has still not put the party in a position to win a province-wide election - ThinkHQ mentioned in its report that Wildrose still held a provincial lead, and even with the numbers from Lethbridge's poll the PCs would only barely eke out a majority, if at all.

So the three by-elections in Calgary and the one in Edmonton should still prove a difficult test for the Progressive Conservatives. These were all relatively safe ridings, so they should still be favoured to win them all. But if Wildrose is as strong in Calgary as ThinkHQ suggests, the PCs will be hard-pressed to hold all four seats.

Detailed breakdown of Alberta federal support

On Friday, the Citizen Society Research Lab of Lethbridge College put out its yearly report on the voting intentions of Albertans. While the results are hardly surprising, they do give us the opportunity to look more closely at how support is divided throughout the province.

The poll by Lethbridge College is about a month old, despite it having been released only a few days ago. Lethbridge reports on a yearly basis, and compared with October 2011's results the Conservatives picked up 1.5 points to reach 59.2% support in the province. That puts them well ahead of the other parties.

The New Democrats slipped 5.6 points to 15.4% and the Liberals were down 0.8 points to 11.9%. The Greens were up 1.6 points to 7.5%.

Another 6% of Albertans, a gain of 3.3 points, said they would vote for another party. This is unfortunately high, and on first glance it appears to be the result of respondents saying they would vote for Wildrose. I say this because the best result for the other parties was in southern Alberta (11.7%), where Wildrose has its strongest concentration of support. If most of this "other" support is indeed for Wildrose, we can probably safely assume that those votes would go to the Conservative Party.

But I think pollsters should do a better job of weeding out these sorts of results, especially when they are using live callers (as Lethbridge did). A respondent who says they will vote for Wildrose is simply mistaken - they cannot vote for Wildrose in a federal election. I wrote about the odd results you can get from respondents back in 2010 when it comes to "the Others", and it just seems like a waste to even include them.

Back to the poll: Edmonton is the closest thing Alberta has to a battleground, and the poll suggests that the Conservatives had 52.8% support in the city. That puts them well ahead of the New Democrats, who registered 23.4%. The Liberals were third with 14.5%. This score for the NDP is not good enough to give them more than their one seat of Edmonton-Strathcona, so the Conservatives would likely win all but one of the seats in the province once again with these results.

The Liberals placed second in Calgary with 12.5% support, well behind the Tories' 67%. The New Democrats were third with 9.7%.

In northern Alberta, the Conservatives led with 60.4% while the NDP dropped 8.3 points over the last 12 months to 14.5%. The Liberals were third with 11.3%. In southern Alberta, the Tories led with 54.7% while the NDP was down 7.5 points to 14.5%. Excluding the high "others" result, the Greens placed third with 11.2% support.

Alberta remains the region of Canada most resistant to political change. The New Democrats could make big inroads in the next election in British Columbia, the Prairies, and Atlantic Canada, Ontario remains in flux among all three parties, and the Liberals are shaking things up in Quebec. Meanwhile, Alberta has hardly budged and the only real question at this stage is whether the New Democrats can manage to win a second seat in the province. Nothing lasts forever, though, and it is interesting to think about what it will take to finally move the dial a little.

NDP third in Quebec

When Forum Research last reported on the federal voting intentions of Quebecers, it made some waves by placing the New Democrats second behind the Liberals. Those waves continue to roll, as their latest survey of 1,589 Quebecers puts the NDP third behind the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals.

Forum was last in the field on February 6, and since then the New Democrats have slipped three more points to 22% support in the province, 21 points behind their May 2011 performance.

The Bloc Québécois has picked up nine points and stands at 29%, followed closely by the Liberals, down two points since early February.

The Conservatives are down seven points to 17%, while the Greens stand at 4%.

It might come as little surprise that a poll that found the Parti Québécois leading by nine points would also show decent results for the Bloc. Perhaps intentions are shifting back to the two sovereigntist parties in the province, or perhaps the poll's focus on provincial issues influenced respondents. However, the same has not appeared to happen in polls from CROP and Léger that survey the federal and provincial voting intentions of Quebecers at the same time.

Most significantly, the Bloc has moved ahead in the francophone electorate with 32% support, well ahead of the Liberals (23%) and the NDP (22%). Among non-francophones, the Liberals are dominant with 46% support to 22% for the NDP and 17% for the Conservatives.

The Bloc leads outside of Montreal and Quebec with roughly 33% support, compared to 23% for the Liberals and 22% for the NDP.

The Liberals are ahead in Montreal with 30% support to 26% for the Bloc and 24% for the NDP, while the Conservatives lead in Quebec City with 37%. The Bloc trails with 22% while the Liberals are third with 20%.

The significance of this poll is reduced by the fact that the NDP has not chosen its next leader - but it does give an indication of how low the party can dip if the choice does not jive with Quebecers. This same poll shows that Quebecers want Thomas Mulcair to lead the party. No other leader comes close to his numbers.

Just as the NDP's generally uniform support throughout Quebec in 2011 helped them win the vast majority of the province's seats, this uniformity means it loses the vast majority of their seats when they drop below their rivals.

With these levels of support, the New Democrats would be reduced to only four seats from their current haul of 58. The Bloc Québécois would fall just short of a majority with 37 seats, while the Liberals would win 22 and the Conservatives 12.

In other words, an unmitigated disaster for the NDP. Assuming nothing else would change outside of Quebec, this would reduce the NDP's representation in the House to only 47 seats, placing them third behind the Liberals, who would have 49 seats. There are, however, enough close races to make it possible for the NDP to retain its position as the Official Opposition, but this is a very simple demonstration of just how important their Quebec support is if the NDP is to keep that role.

Forum has been a bit of an outlier of late in Quebec, however, so we need some other results before we can confidently say that the NDP has slipped this much in the province. The most recent CROP poll would seem to suggest they haven't.

NDP second in Lethbridge

A poll from Lethbridge College on the federal voting intentions of residents in Lethbridge and Coaldale is also worth noting. The poll, conducted February 11-12 and surveying 738 people for an MOE of +/- 3.6%, found that the Conservatives are still comfortably ahead in the two cities with 53.1% support, down a mere 3.3 points since Lethbridge's last poll in 2011. (Note: Coaldale is located within the federal riding of Lethbridge, but parts of the riding, which stretches down to the American border, were not included in this survey.)

What's interesting, however, is how the New Democrats have moved into second in the area, as they have done in the province as a whole. The poll puts the NDP at 23% support in the region, up 12.6 points since a year ago. The Liberals have slipped 2.6 points to 17.9%.

Of course, this only changes the party the Conservatives hold a 30-point lead over. But this survey helps confirm the trend in Alberta that the New Democrats have become the alternative to the Tories in the province. They still have a long way to go, but an extra NDP seat or two in Alberta, particularly in Edmonton, is not impossible in 2015.

Alberta Tories in driver's seat

CTV released a new poll by ThinkHQ Public Affairs for the Alberta provincial election last week, and it echoes what some other polls have been showing. Also released last week were a few riding polls for Lethbridge, indicating that the Tories are on track to sweep the city after it was closely contested in 2008.

ThinkHQ found that the Progressive Conservatives lead with 42%, 13 points up on Wildrose who trail with 29%.

The New Democrats come in third with 13% while the Liberals are fourth with 12%.

This poll was added to the projection on February 25.

This seems to give further indication that the race in Alberta is much more competitive than some other polls have suggested. Nevertheless, the Progressive Conservatives are very comfortably ahead.

Their widest lead is in Edmonton, where the Tories have 40% support to 20% for Wildrose and the NDP. The Liberals trail with 17%.

The margin between the PCs and Wildrose is only six points in Calgary, with 41% to 35%. The Liberals are third with 14% while the NDP stands at 7% in the city.

I reverse-engineered the results in the rest of Alberta as ThinkHQ did not provide them in their report. By my estimate, this poll would have put the Tories at 45% outside of the two main cities. Wildrose would be at 31%, the NDP at 13%, and the Liberals at 6%. I emphasize that this is an estimate, but it should be correct to within a point or three.

Both Alison Redford and Danielle Smith have net positive approval ratings, with Redford scoring a +21 (53% approval to 32% disapproval) and Smith a +13 (43% approval to 30% disapproval). Brian Mason (-15) and Raj Sherman (-11) have net negative approval ratings.

We've heard from Lethbridge College before. Polls being produced by colleges and universities are wonderfully common in the United States, but unfortunately Lethbridge College seems to be the only Canadian school that regularly puts out polling data. They polled the two ridings in Lethbridge, of note due to Bridget Pastoor's floor-crossing from the Liberals to the Tories in 2011.

The chart compares the results of the Lethbridge polls to the current projections for these ridings. They line-up generally well, and aside from the NDP in Lethbridge East and the "Others" in Lethbridge West are all within the projected ranges. But since the results for the NDP and the Others in these two ridings are not within the ranges, I will be adding this riding poll to the projection. I have not done so yet, so this comparison between poll and projection does not include the riding poll data.

Riding polls are added to the projection to provide a benchmark for adjustments going forward. The projections for Lethbridge East and West will be weighted to partially include this poll, whose data will be adjusted as voting intentions shift at the regional level. In other words, riding polls are not added as a snapshot in time but rather a starting point for further shifts in support.

The poll itself shows that in Lethbridge West the Tories lead with 35.8%, well ahead of the Liberals (24.3%) and the NDP (20.6%). Compared to the 2008 election, however, the Tories are down eight points and the Liberals are down 11. Both Wildrose and the NDP have more than doubled their support, an indication of the changing landscape province-wide.

In Lethbridge East, Pastoor has taken a lot of her support with her to the Tories, as she stands at 45.6% to 23.4% for Wildrose and only 15.3% for the Liberals. The PCs have picked up six points since 2008 while the Liberals are down a whopping 31. But it appears likely that, as a result of Liberals moving over to the Tories, some Tories have moved over to Wildrose - they are up 17 points. The NDP is also up from 6% to 13.4%.

From a projection stand-point, I'm quite pleased that the mechanism I have for estimating the support of floor-crossers has worked so well in Lethbridge East.

Both the ThinkHQ and Lethbridge polls show that the Progressive Conservatives are still very much in control of the situation and that their brand is strong. But it also shows that Wildrose's increase in support is very real - from 7% and 6% in Lethbridge West/East they have gone to 15% and 23%, respectively. If this sort of increase occurs across the board, Wildrose will be able to do very well in ridings in which they have a solid base of support.

What these polls also show is that the race for third is not going well for the Liberals. Provincially they are at risk of dropping behind the NDP in the popular vote, as well as the very real possibility they will be the fourth party in the legislature when the dust settles. Their support in Lethbridge, just one example, has plummeted from 35% and 46% in the two ridings to only 24% and 15%. Considering the margin of error, they also at risk of falling behind the NDP in Lethbridge, after outpacing them by between 25 and 40 points in 2008. The race at the bottom may mark a shift in Alberta politics just as much as the race for the top.

Redford leading the way in Alberta

With Alison Redford at the helm, the Progressive Conservatives are back in their comfort zone, holding a huge lead over their rivals in Alberta.

As the MLAs begin what will be a short fall session in Alberta's legislature this week, many are already thinking about the next provincial election, rumoured to be called before June 2012.

The Wildrose Party, currently the third party in the legislature, does have a strong lock on second place in Alberta, and is likely to form the province's next Official Opposition. But this is a far cry from the double-digit lead Danielle Smith's party enjoyed for a brief period last year.

You can read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post Canada website here.

The article gives an overview of the three polls that have come out of Alberta in the past two months: one of them before the PC leadership race ended (ThinkHQ Public Affairs), one of them during the final round of voting (Lethbridge College), and one of them after Alison Redford was chosen as leader of the Tories.

That last poll is recent, as it was released on Saturday. Here are the details of the Angus-Reid poll.

It really is a race between the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose Party in Calgary and outside of the two main cities.

In Edmonton, the Tories have the edge but all the parties are competitive.

The Lethbridge College poll had similar regional results, except with Wildrose at somewhat lower levels of support everywhere.

No one can deny that Redford is, for now at least, popular. On the question of who would make the best premier, Redford topped the list at 32%, followed by Wildrose leader Danielle Smith at 15% and Raj Sherman of the Liberals at 8%.

Redford also has a 55% approval rating, compared to 35% for Smith. These numbers could hold, or they could change dramatically as her premiership gets going. But it appears that Albertans are going to give her a chance.

They might also give her another majority government. With these Angus-Reid numbers, the Progressive Conservatives win 72 seats. Wildrose takes eight and forms the Official Opposition, while the NDP wins four and the Liberals three.

The projection model for Alberta is in an early stage, and it will be tweaked and prodded to make it a regional model before the election comes around in 2012, if it does. Luckily, there is generally agreement on how to break down Alberta's results among the pollsters active in the province.

Stelmach still secure

A survey of 1,067 Albertans conducted in early October by the Citizen Society Research Lab of Lethbridge College has found that the Progressive Conservatives have shed almost one-third of the support the party had in the March 2008 provincial election.At 36.1 per cent, Mr. Stelmach has dropped 17 points, virtually all of which has gone to the Wildrose Alliance. This right-wing party, led by Danielle Smith, has the support of 24 per cent of Albertans. That is far more than the seven per cent the party earned a little over two years ago. Though the Wildrose Alliance did not win any seats on election night, the party currently holds four seats in the Alberta legislature as a result of defections and a by-election victory.

The provincial Liberals have lost about five points since 2008 and have the support of 20.7 per cent of Albertans, while the New Democrats have gained about three points and stand at 10.8 per cent support.

Other parties are at 8.4 per cent support, but as the provincial Green Party has dissolved and will not run in the next election (which must be held by 2013), much of that support will likely drift to the main parties.

Progressive Conservative losses throughout the province have been significant, with drops of approximately 15 points in Calgary and Edmonton and over 25 points in northern Alberta. While the Liberals have made some small gains outside of the two main cities, it is the Wildrose Alliance that has benefitted most from Mr. Stelmach’s difficulties. The party stands to take almost 30 per cent of the vote in Calgary and about 25 per cent in rural and small-town Alberta. Ms. Smith’s party is still having trouble breaking through in Edmonton, however, where the Wildrose Alliance has 16.3 per cent support. Nevertheless, that is a vast improvement over the two per cent the party received in and around Edmonton in the 2008 election.

The New Democrats have made gains in the province’s two urban centres. The party is running third in Edmonton with 19.8 per cent support, behind the Liberals at 24.2 per cent and the Progressive Conservatives at 33.3 per cent.

But despite having suffered double-digit losses throughout Alberta, the Progressive Conservatives are still poised to win a majority government thanks to vote splitting between the main opposition parties.

With these levels of support, Mr. Stelmach would be projected to win 59 seats in the Alberta legislature, which will see its current crop of 83 ridings increased by four before the next election. The Progressive Conservatives would likely take 32 of the 53 seats in and around Calgary and Edmonton, with 16 more seats coming in the north and 11 in southern Alberta. The Liberals would form the Official Opposition with 12 seats. Five would likely be won in Edmonton, four in Calgary, and three in the southern portion of Alberta.

The Wildrose Alliance would elect 11 MLAs, almost tripling the party’s current representation in the legislature. Ms. Smith would be shut out of Edmonton, however, with seven of her party’s seats coming in Calgary.

The New Democrats would win five seats, their best electoral performance since 1989. All five would be won in the provincial capital.

Though the Progressive Conservatives still hold the advantage in Alberta, the Wildrose Alliance has made the party’s future in the province more insecure than it has been for a long time. If the Wildrose Alliance remains a force to be reckoned with, the next election could be the first unpredictable campaign Alberta has seen in almost twenty years.

Trying out some new graphics - any thoughts?