Tory lead evaporates in Manitoba

The NDP and the PCs are now essentially tied:

The provincewide poll results show the NDP and the PCs remain statistically tied, with the PCs now sitting at 42 per cent (up slightly from 40 per cent in June) while the NDP now have the support of 40 per cent of Manitoba's decided voters (down slightly from 41 per cent in June).

While the PCs are ahead of the NDP for the first time since December 2008, it doesn't mean much because their lead is within the poll's margin of error of +/- 3.1 per cent.

From the Free Press. Interesting that the article says the Tories are ahead "for the first time since December 2008"; it implies that the author doesn't put much stock in Angus Reid's methodology for their online polls. In any case, this is good news for the NDP. Even better news is this:

Nearly one-half of voters in Winnipeg (46 per cent) said they would vote for the NDP while about one-third (35 per cent) would vote for a PC candidate. Only 14 per cent said they would vote for the Liberals while five per cent preferred other parties MacKay said in its polling.

And of course, if you win Winnipeg, you win the province.

Manitoba NDP back on top: poll

A new Probe Research/Free Press poll puts the NDP back at the top of the polls by a narrow margin:

NDP 42 per cent

Tories 39 per cent

Liberals 11 per cent

The province-wide omnibus telephone survey was taken between March 8 to 25 among a random and representative sampling of 1,003 Manitoba adults. The results are considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Thing is, the margin of error appears to be greater than the gap between the parties (though rounding might figure in the published results), so the NDP can't rest easy just yet. And another thing stands out:

Probe found that outside Winnipeg, fully one-half of rural voters back the PCs (51 per cent, up from 49 per cent in December), while support for the NDP has slipped from 39 per cent to 32 per cent.

In vote-rich Winnipeg, the NDP continues to have the support of 49 per cent of decided voters (down slightly from 52 per cent in December), while the PCs now sit at 32 per cent support (up two per cent from December) and the Liberals remain unchanged at 13 per cent. There are 57 seats in the Manitoba legislature: The NDP has 36 seats, the PCs 19 and the Liberals two.

In the short term, this is good news for the NDP, since a decline in rural support won't cost them very many seats (they don't hold very many of those seats anyway). However, if the Liberals start to surge back, things could change considerably. Fortunately, I doubt Jon Gerrard is the guy to do that.

Also, the timing of the poll is unfortunate, since it straddles last Tuesday's budget. I'd be interested to see the results of a poll conducted entirely after the budget came down, to see if it had an impact on public opinion.

Selinger is the most popular candidate with the public

A poll conducted for the Free Press by Probe Research suggests that Selinger is the most popular candidate among the general public. The poll was conducted prior to Swan's concession, and concluded that Selinger was the favoured candidate for 27% of Manitobans, compared with 12% for Ashton, 9% for Swan, and 3% for poor John Boehm (remember him?) That leaves a lot of respondents unaccounted for, of course. On the article there's a comment by "wolfrom" saying this means Selinger comes second to "none of the above", but this is unfair; looking at the details on Probe's own site (hat tip to Endless Spin Cycle for the link) we see that only 8% said "none of these", with the remaining 41% simply saying "don't know" or refusing to answer. Big difference.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that the general public is not selecting a leader; the NDP membership is (via delegates, of course). It does, however, mean that Selinger, if he wins, has a good chance of winning the public owner, contrary to some fears. Looking further at the results from the Probe site, Selinger is the favoured candidate among supporters of all the major parties; interestingly, Swan and Ashton do slightly better among Liberal and Tory supporters than among the general population. Furthermore, Selinger came out on top in every demographic category examined in the poll (broken down by sex, age, income, and education).

Of course, the $64,000 question is how this will sway people in the remaining delegate selection meetings (and in uncommitted delegates). It can't hurt Selinger's chances, at least.

"Steady as she goes" pays off

Manitoba's NDP government is again well on top of the latest poll:

From a dead heat to no contest.

The provincial New Democratic Party regained a 10-point lead in voter support in recent weeks after running neck-in-neck with the Conservatives in December, a new poll conducted for the Free Press concluded.

The omnibus survey from Probe Research found support at 46 per cent for Premier Gary Doer's NDP, compared to 36 per cent for the Tories under Hugh McFadyen. Jon Gerrard's Liberals landed 13 per cent support.

"It's really more like what we have been seeing for all this time," said Probe Research president Scott MacKay. After the blip in December, support for each party now is roughly the same as it was a year ago, he said.

In December, the Conservatives looked to be on the upswing, coming within two percentage points of the NDP and surging in popularity outside Winnipeg.

Pollsters suspected NDP popularity took a hit in rural Manitoba over the party's ban on further hog-barn construction.

But the Tories appeared to have lost December's gains in the latest numbers, with the NDP on the upswing after recent byelection victories in The Pas and Elmwood.

The premier's popularity doesn't seem to be flagging: Doer had the approval of two thirds of voters.

From the Winnipeg Free Press. I'm still pleasantly surprised when this happens; sure, the province is in good shape, but so was Saskatchewan under Lorne Calvert, and that didn't seem to help the NDP electorally. The fact that the opposition parties lack effective leadership probably has something to do with the results here.

Still, it's good to see that social democracy remains a going concern in this country.