TORONTO -- New polling numbers show extremely tight races in the battleground provinces of British Columbia and Quebec.
Pollster Nik Nanos said that, according to a three-day rolling average released by Nanos Research on Saturday, “minority fever” continues to grip the election.
It’s a virtual three-way tie in B.C., where the NDP leads with 28.9 per cent of support, followed by the Liberals at 27.1 per cent and 25 per cent for the Conservatives, with a margin of error of 2.8 per cent.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh campaigned Saturday in B.C. – a strategic move that Singh hopes will give his party the edge it needs on Monday.
“It makes a lot of sense that Jagmeet Singh is in British Columbia because it might be the best province for him right now to hold on to as many of those New Democrat seats as he can,” pollster Nik Nanos told CTV News Channel.
In Quebec, the Liberals have held onto their lead with 36 per cent support, but the Bloc Quebecois has surged to 31.1 per cent support. The NDP has seen a bump in recent weeks, but still is only polling at 13.2 per cent, following by 10.3 per cent support for the Conservatives and 7.7 per cent for the Greens.
In People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier’s home province, he holds 0.9 per cent support.
The big story in Quebec is the sudden rise of the Bloc, Nanos said.
“I’m calling it a ‘Bloc Buster’ because at 31 per cent, it’s quite likely that the Bloc will win a significant swath of seats – probably more than 20, which in a minority government could be critical in terms of who could form the next government after the election,” he said.
Nationally, the Liberals are leading – but just barely – with 32.6 per cent support, followed by 30.3 per cent for the Conservatives, 18.4 per cent for the NDP, 9.3 per cent for the Greens, 7.1 per cent for the Bloc and 1.9 per cent for the People’s Party.
Liberal Leader Trudeau continues to lead in preferred prime minister polling, with 32.5 per cent, followed by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer at 24.8 per cent, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at 18.8 per cent, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May at 7.9 per cent, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet at 3 per cent and People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier at 1.6 per cent.
Another 12.2 per cent of respondents said they were unsure.
That’s a significant drop for Scheer, who reached 30.7 per cent earlier in mid-September.
“The last week has not been good for Andrew Scheer, just in terms of the proportion of Canadians who think he would make the best prime minister. And that’s been on the decline,” Nanos said.
The new numbers are based on a three-day rolling average ending on Friday, Oct. 18.
Election day is Monday, Oct. 21.
METHODOLOGY
A national dual-frame (land+cell) random telephone survey is conducted nightly by Nanos Research throughout the campaign using live agents. Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprised of 1,200 interviews. To update the tracking a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of error for a survey of 1,200 respondents is ±2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
