Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Leaderless Liberals Tied With Tories! Bob Rae Most Fit to Lead!

...says a new Strategic Counsel Poll done for today's Globe and Mail, which has both parties at 32%. The same poll has the NDP at 17%, and the Greens at 9%.

I couldn't see any national figures for the Bloc, but they are at 44% in Quebec.

In fact, the news is especially bad for the Tories in Quebec, where they are down to 16% of the vote. The Libs are looking relatively good, having bounced back to 28%, up seven points.

And there are also signs of a Tory decline in the West too, where they are down seven points from the election to 42%:

Mr. Gregg suggested the drop may be taking place in British Columbia, where the Tories have traditionally fluctuated in popularity.

The poll was taken during a week in which Mr. Harper announced the government's plans for new environmental legislation, which was significantly criticized.

“We know British Columbians are far and away the most environmentally concerned and sensitive,” Mr. Gregg said.

In a related poll question as to who would make the best Prime Minister, Bob Rae comes out with the best marks of the four leading Lib leadership candidates:

Although Mr. Harper is seen as the best prime minister when put up against any of the four leading contenders for the Liberal mantle, it is Mr. Rae who would make the greatest mark against him, according to the survey by The Strategic Counsel for the Globe and Mail-CTV News.

When Mr. Rae is figured into a race against Mr. Harper, the NDP's Jack Layton and the Bloc Québécois' Gilles Duceppe, 26 per cent say Mr. Rae would be the best prime minister of the four, while 36 per cent picked Mr. Harper. Mr. Layton was picked by 15 per cent and Mr. Duceppe by six per cent.

Of the other two main candidates, Stéphane Dion and Gerard Kennedy, 21 per cent would pick Mr. Dion over the others and 17 per cent would opt for Mr. Kennedy.

Iggy clocks in with 23%. Interestingly enough, it appears that Ontarions have forgiven Mr. Rae:

Perhaps most interestingly, criticisms that Mr. Rae would do worse in Ontario than his counterparts appear to be at least somewhat checked by the poll, which shows that 29 per cent of Ontarians believe Mr. Rae would be the best prime minister, well higher than the 22 per cent who picked Mr. Ignatieff and the 20 and 21 per cent, respectively, who picked Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Dion, respectively.

Go Libs! The only bad news is, as Ibbitson suggests in a related column, Harper will probably be too chicken to call a Spring election now.

2 comments:

Ted Betts said...

This is the poll from the guy who said he would put money on Rae leading after delegate selections. Hmmmm.

And how accurate can a poll be that concludes a Liberal party led by Dion and Kennedy would get 20% across the country. That result alone shows that this kind of poll is only about name recognition and nothing more.

That being the case, Ignatieff, Dion and Kennedy seem to have grown in their support levels from prior polling whereas Rae seems to have flattened. Indeed, he and Iggy are in a statistical tie. In the unreported questions, Ignatieff was seen as far ahead of any of them in terms of electability.

While you would think that would get me excited, I maintain that this type of poll is pretty meaningless.

bigcitylib said...

Well, remember, the second question asked was who would make a better prime minister. Scoring 20% on that question doesn't necessarily mean that, if Kennedy led the party, the party would only get 20% of the vote.

In the past, I think, Broadbent used to score highest on this kind of question.