Poll: Turns out Nobody Likes Ignatieff

The Canadian people don’t like Ignatieff. Pollsters know it.

New poll gives Harper’s Tories a majority

Posted: October 08, 2009, 2:01 PM by Mary Vallis

A new Ekos poll released this morning suggests Stephen Harper and the Conservatives could win a majority government if Canadians voted in an election today.

The poll found 39.7% of respondents would vote for the Conservatives, up 3.7 percentage points from the previous week. Meanwhile, 25.7% of respondents said they would vote for the Liberals, down by four points from the polling firm’s data from the previous week (29.7%).

What’s more, the results peg Mr. Harper’s approval rating at 39%, while Mr. Ignatieff trails significantly at 19%. A majority of respondents — 51% — said they disapprove of the way Mr. Ignatieff is handling his job.

“The Liberals are now in danger of branding themselves as the party of political instability, or the party of election threats,” said Paul Adams, executive director of Strategic Communications for EKOS Research Associates. “Every time people wake up and pay attention to Michael Ignatieff, it’s because he’s threatening an election. It’s pretty clear from everybody’s polling, not just ours, that Canadians don’t want an election.”

“It’s allowed the Conservatives to brand themselves around being stewards of the economy and the government more generally,” Mr. Adams added.

Mr. Harper’s approval experienced a “little bit of a jump” after he took the stage a the National Arts Centre and played a Beatles tune on the piano over the weekend, Mr. Adams said.

The pollsters call the results a “dramatic setback” for the Liberal Party.  The results suggest the Liberal Party’s traditional lead among women, immigrants and university educated voters has been “erased,” they say.

The poll showed 12.5% of respondents would vote for the NDP (up from 13.9% the previous week). The Green Party and the Bloc each claimed the support of 9.7% of respondents.

Forty-one percent of Canadians named economic issues as the most important election issue, while 33% said it was social issues and another 17% named fiscal issues.

The poll was conducted between Sept. 6 an Oct. 6, 2009 and includes responses from 3,333 Canadians. the results are considered accurate within 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The full report can be found here.

—Mary Vallis, National Post