On budget day, Trudeau enjoys comfortable advantage over opponents: tracking

On the day of the federal budget, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enjoys a comfortable advantage over all of the opposition leaders, according to the latest Nanos weekly tracking.

The tracking released on Tuesday, for the period ending March 18, shows Trudeau has a 20-point advantage over his opponents.

More than half of Canadians (52.8 per cent) preferred Trudeau as prime minister, followed by 14.9 per cent who preferred Conservative interim Leader Rona Ambrose, 12.7 per cent preferred NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, 4.4 per cent preferred Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and 14.7 per cent were unsure.

When asked a series of questions for each party leader, 68.7 per cent of Canadians thought Trudeau had the qualities of a good political leader and 56.1 per cent thought Mulcair had the qualities of a good leader. Nearly four out of 10 Canadians (39.6 per cent) believe May had the qualities of a good leader, and 35.3 per cent thought Ambrose had the qualities of a good leader.

Methodology

The tracking is based on data from random telephone interviews with 1,000 Canadiansaged 18 years and older, using a four week rolling average of 250 respondents each week. The random sample may be weighted by age and gender, using the latest census information for Canada. The sample is also geographically stratified to be representative of Canada.

The interviews are compiled into a four week rolling average of 1,000 interviewsin which, each week, the oldest group of 250 interviews is dropped and a new group of 250 interviews is added. The current wave of tracking is based on a four-week rolling average of 1,000 Canadians (250 per week) ending March 18^th.

A random telephone survey of 1,000 Canadians is accurate within 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.

More survey details at Nanos Research.