Harper’s Tories Widen Lead Over Liberals In Latest Poll Despite Controversies
Posted November 2, 2010 2:56 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new poll suggests the federal Conservatives have slightly widened their lead over the Liberals, emerging seemingly unscathed from several months of political turbulence.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey puts Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives at 33 per cent to the Liberals’ 28 per cent.
That’s an improvement for the governing party over two weeks ago, when the Tories and Liberals were statistically tied at 32 and 30 per cent respectively.
The latest poll puts the NDP at 17 per cent and the Greens at 10 per cent nationally while the Bloc Quebecois continues to dominate in Quebec.
The telephone survey of 2,013 Canadians was conducted Oct. 21-31 and is considered accurate within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times in 20.
The results suggest Harper’s government has not been dented materially by a string of controversies, including questionable federal public works contracts, failing to win a seat for Canada on the United Nations’ security council and cancellation of the long-form census.
They also suggest that Liberals have been unable to sustain the momentum they briefly enjoyed in the wake of Leader Michael Ignatieff’s summer-long, cross-country bus tour.
Harris-Decima chairman Allan Gregg says sub-samples, which have a greater margin of error, suggest Tories have suddenly become competitive over the past few weeks in Toronto and other metropolitan areas, long bastions of Liberal support.
That movement came at the same time that Rob Ford was riding a wave of anti-elitist anger into the mayor’s chair in Toronto.
Further details of the poll are available at www.harrisdecima.ca.
