FORUM POLL: Singh Surge Continues, Conservatives Drop, Liberals Lead

Concerning numbers for the Conservatives as they fall 5 points since the last Forum Poll.

A new Forum Research poll has reason for all the big parties to be very nervous.

Firstly, the Conservatives are down a full 6 points, having dropped from 35% to 29%.

That gives the Liberals a narrow lead, as they went from 28% to 30%.

The NDP is up to 20%, a surge of 7 points from the 13% they had last week.

The Bloc is at 7%, while the Greens have fallen from 12% to 8%, and the PPC are up 1 point from 3% to 4%.

In addition to the topline numbers, the Leader approval ratings are bad news for Scheer.

Scheers approval rating stands at 27%, while his disapproval rating is up to 57%, giving Scheer a brutal net approval rating of -30%.

Trudeau’s net approval rating is -14%, with 39% approving and 53% disapproving.

Jagmeet Singh’s net approval rating is now 52%, a surge of 17 points since the start of October. His disapproval rating is 27%, giving him a net approval of 25 points. Notably however, this poll was conducted before Jagmeet Singh said “we don’t respect Conservatives.”

According to Forum’s seat estimates, the Liberals are on track to win 133 seats, while the Conservatives are set to win 121. The NDP is at 46 seats, while the BQ is at 37 seats. The Greens are on track to win 1.

The Conservatives and Liberals will both be rightly worried about these numbers. For Scheer, his dropping approval rating and the 6 point drop in support is bad news, but it remains to be seen whether this is a poll outlier, or a trend. At this point, we need to see more polls replicating these findings before we can be sure of anything.

For the Liberals, they remain stuck far below their 2015 support levels, and with the Bloc surging in Quebec, they risk losing seats to both the Quebec separatist party and the surging NDP.

And for Singh, his popularity is up, but he is still far short of any type of outright win, and he will face more scrutiny in the next few days – in addition to the growing backlash he’s facing for his “we don’t respect Conservatives” comment.

Once again, yet another poll is showing Canada heading towards a divisive and chaotic post-election period, possibly portending a new era of instability for our nation.

Spencer Fernando