Liberals Lead PCs Despite “People’s Guarantee”

The Ontario Liberal Party and Progressive Conservative Party are in a statistical tie

Campaign Research’s Omnibus Poll is an online survey conducted among a sample of 1495 Ontario voters and consumers. Our most recent survey found that Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) leads over the Progressive Conservatives (PCs) in terms of voter intent despite the PC’s official launch of their election policy platform (OLP 35%, PC’s 34%). The Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) continues to trail both the OLP and PCs with 22% support of decided voters. Our latest study further indicated Ontarians’ intent to vote for the PCs decreased by 1% since November. The strongest supporters of the PCs are voters aged 55-64 as well as Ontarians 65 years of age and older (Age 55-64= 39%, 65+= 49%). Regionally, the greatest voter intent for the PCs came from the GTA (36%). The OLP’s strongest supporters are younger voters (Age 18-24= 49%, 25-34= 37%). Unsurprisingly, the OLP voter intent is strongest in Toronto (41%). It is also important to note that the gap that existed in the rest of Ontario in November (outside Toronto and the GTA) between the PC’s and the OLP has narrowed; in fact, the difference between the OLP and the PCs is only 1% in favour of the PCs (OLP= 34%, PCs= 35%).

Since our last public opinion poll in November, the PC party held their Policy Convention in Toronto, which featured Patrick Brown and the PCs launching their election platform, “The People’s Guarantee”. Respondents were asked to look at the front cover of the Platform document with only the Title: “The People’s Guarantee” and the photo of Patrick Brown. We asked people whether they had recently seen the image and if they could identify the individual on the cover of the Platform.

A sizeable portion of Ontarians (29%) have seen the image. A small majority (52%) of the electorate identified the individual on the cover of the platform as the PCs leader Patrick Brown. Slightly more Ontarians (58%) associated the image with the PCs.

Campaign Research also set out to understand whether the image resonated with the general public. Did the much-vaunted image do anything to move the electorate to the PCs camp? Campaign Research leveraged various diagnostics to help us understand whether the image captivated Ontarians.

In short, the image did little to sway voters to the PCs. Our results indicated the following:

• 40% disagreed that the image increased their interest in the person in the picture

• 41% disagreed that it increased their interest in the political party

• 40% disagreed that the image made the person seem different from other politicians

• 58% agreed that the image could have been for any party and/or politician

• 45% disagreed with the statement that they would like to have a beer with the person in the image

“When analyzing our research in its totality, what we’re seeing here is that despite being able to breakthrough to a sizeable number of Ontarians, the image did little to excite the electorate or draw positive attention to the PC party.This is especially evident in the statistical tie we now see between the Liberals and the PC Party.So far, the hype and coverage of the PC Party Convention, did little to engender the PC Party and it’s leader, Patrick Brown, among the electorate.” – said Eli Yufest, CEO of Campaign Research

METHODOLOGY

This online poll was conducted by Campaign Research as part of its monthly omnibus study between December 3rd to 6th 2017, The study was conducted among a random sample from an online panel of 1,495 Ontario voters whose incentives for participation were handled by the panel provider and who were selected to reflect Ontario’s age, gender and regional distributions in line with 2016 Statistics Canada census data.

A probability sample of this size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5%, 19 out of 20 times. Data was weighted by age, gender and region in the Province of Ontario according to 2016 Statistics Canada census data. If you require more information, please contact us as it is available upon request.

The following screening question was asked in order to determine eligibility for participation in the study

"Are you 18 years of age or older and eligible to vote in federal elections?"