'Not a breakout budget': No post-budget bump in support for Liberals, says Nanos

TREND LINE: Nanos on latest political headlines Trend Line's Michael Stittle and Nik Nanos react to the federal budget, then discuss the upcoming Ontario election and CPC leadership race.

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals are not seeing any bump in support following the release of the 2022 federal budget that unveiled new spending on housing, national defence, and progressive policy commitments, according to pollster Nik Nanos.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland continue their cross-Canada post-budget tour to tout and re-announce elements of the budget, Nanos said that the spending document seems to have done little more than “feed and consolidate the progressive base that they currently have.”

“When you check out that trend line, and look at the Conservative trend line, the Liberal trend line, they're basically intertwined right now. And in the latest Nanos tracking that's just been released, there's been no material pick up for the Liberals,” Nanos said in the latest episode of CTV News’ podcast Trend Line.

“Sometimes there's a budget honeymoon because they're spending lots of goodies. In this case, no budget honeymoon has emerged so far in the tracking.”

Nanos said that the more moderate spending budget that shows the deficit is on a decline, appeals to their core supporters but didn’t include much that was new and could have potentially broadened their support.

According to Nanos’ latest ballot tracking, as of April 8 the Liberals and Conservatives were both at 33 per cent support, while the NDP were at 18 per cent. The shift from a week prior shows that the Liberals held steady at 33 per cent, while the Conservatives saw an uptick from the 31 per cent support as of April 1. Post-budget the NDP are down from 21 per cent a week prior.

“It’s not a breakout budget and there's no bounce in the numbers, that's for sure,” Nanos said.

Listen to the full episode of Trend Line with CTVNews.ca's Michael Stittle and Nanos Research's Nik Nanos wherever you get your podcasts or by clicking on the video at the top of this article.

You can find a new episode of Trend Line every second Wednesday on CTVNews.ca, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts