Gee I never saw this coming..
canada.com
Tories keep Alberta stronghold, trail everywhere else: poll
The Canadian Press
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
CREDIT: CP PHOTO/Tom Hanson
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper
OTTAWA (CP) — A new poll suggests Alberta is the only remaining bastion of federal Conservative party support, with the leaderless Liberals leading in every other region of the country.
The survey of 1,026 Canadians by Decima Research was taken in the four days after the Conservative government’s controversial decision last week to break an election promise and tax income trusts.
The Conservatives still lead nationally, with 31 per cent support among decided and leaning voters, according to the Decima poll. The Liberals were next with 28 per cent, followed by the NDP at 18, the Bloc Quebecois at 10 and the Green party at nine per cent.
But just as Liberals used to get a “false sense of confidence” from national numbers skewed upwards by their Ontario dominance, pollster Bruce Anderson said in an interview Wednesday “the Alberta numbers for the Conservative party can give people a misimpression about how they’re doing in the rest of the country.”
Tory support in Alberta remains sky high around 65 per cent, he said. But the Liberals lead the Tories by an average of three percentage points in the rest of Canada, including positive margins in every region, including British Columbia.
That’s a big reversal for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s party, which enjoyed a 10-point lead over the Liberals outside Alberta at the time of the Jan. 23 election.
“The Conservatives are back to a level they were in the run-up to the last election,” Anderson said in commentary released to The Canadian Press with the poll.
“And in recent weeks they have seen their lead among women, urban voters, older voters and high income households dissipate.”
Tory support among high-income Canadians and those over age 50 — while representing very small samples in the latest poll — spiked downward to an extent that the numbers were worth highlighting, said Anderson.
“They’re neck and neck with the Liberals,” he said, noting Conservatives had enjoyed a 10-point advantage in these high-voting constituencies for most of the year.
Anderson attributes at least part of the decline to fallout from the income trust decision, which cost investors — including many seniors’ retirement portfolios — billions of dollars in short-term losses last week.
Nonetheless, the poll suggests the income-trust hit to the government “isn’t cataclysmic.”
What might be of more concern to Conservative supporters is the steady weight on public opinion of issues like the Afghanistan military mission, environmental policy and perceived ties to the weakened U.S. administration of George W. Bush.
None of the other traditional political parties has benefited, however.
“The Greens are biting from everybody,” said Anderson.
The poll is considered accurate to within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times in 20. |
