Three in 10 Canadians say they would never vote Conservative: Nanos survey

Recent polling from Nanos Research shows Canadians believe a more socially progressive and economically centrist Conservative Party would make it more appealing.

According to the latest poll, commissioned by CTV News, when asked what would be the best path forward for the Conservative Party to make it a more appealing voting choice, 29 per cent of respondents said “be socially progressive and more centrist on economic issues.”

Meanwhile, 30 per cent said they would never vote Conservative.

Another 13 per cent said they would like to see the party become more socially progressive and right-wing on economic issues, 11 per cent responded socially conservative and right-wing on economic issues, eight per cent said socially conservative and more centrist on economic issues, while nine per cent were unsure.

“The key takeaway here is that only about 18 or 19 per cent of Canadians wanted to see the Conservatives become socially conservative,” Nanos Research’s Nik Nanos told CTV News Channel’s Power Play on Tuesday.

Regionally, respondents in Atlantic Canada said they desired a more socially progressive and economically centrist party, followed by Ontario, the Prairies, B.C., and Quebec.

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Quebec reported the highest number of respondents who would never vote for the party at just over 41 per cent.

The Conservative Party is undergoing its third leadership race in five years, with plans to elect a new leader on Sept. 10. Subsequent federal election loses have escalated calls for the base to identify what it stands for and resolve the tug-of-war between right and left-leaning factions.

“It’s going to be interesting to see whether the Conservatives continue to tack to the right or whether they want to take advantage of perhaps, not moving to the centre, but just moving towards the centre in order to appeal to a greater number of Canadians,” said Nanos.

METHODOLOGY

Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land- and cell-lines) hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,000 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between March 18 to 20, 2022 as part of an omnibus survey. Participants were randomly recruited by telephone using live agents and administered a survey online. The sample included both land-and-cell lines across Canada. The results were statistically checked and weighted by age and gender using the latest Census information and the sample is geographically stratified to be representative of Canada.

Individuals were randomly called using random digit dialing with a maximum of five call backs. The margin of error for this survey is ±3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The study was commissioned by CTV News and the research was conducted by Nanos Research.