The Trudeau Liberals are even struggling in their traditional strongholds.
On the same day as their big cabinet shuffle, the Trudeau Liberals awoke to see a new Abacus poll showing them a full 10 points behind the Conservatives.
According to the survey, the Conservatives are at 38% nationwide, a surge of four points from Abacus’ June 27 poll.
Meanwhile, the Liberals have fallen one point to 28%.
The NDP has 18%, a two point decline from the previous Abacus poll.
Bloc support is unchanged at 7%.
Provincial breakdown
The key area of concern for the Liberals – aside from their overall national deficit – is that they are even struggling in traditional Liberal strongholds.
For example, the Liberals lead the Conservatives by just one point in Atlantic Canada, and trail the Conservatives by six points in Ontario.
Here’s the full provincial breakdown:
B.C. – Conservatives 39%, NDP 25%, Liberals 23%
Alberta – Conservatives 55%, NDP 19%, Liberals 15%
Saskatchewan/Manitoba – Conservatives 53%, NDP 22%, Liberals 19%
Ontario – Conservatives 39%, Liberals 33%, NDP 19%
Quebec – Bloc 32%, Liberals 30%, Conservatives 20%, NDP 10%
Atlantic – Liberals 37%, Conservatives 36%, NDP 19%
It cannot be understated how bad these numbers are for the Liberals. While this is of course just one poll, Abacus is generally pretty accurate, and they may be picking up on a further shifting of the public mood against the Liberals.
Liberals trail amongst all demographics
If the regional breakdown is bad for the Liberals, the demographic breakdown is no better:
They trail the Conservatives by 5 points among Canadians aged 18-29, 14 points among Canadians aged 30-44, 15 points among Canadians aged 45-59, and 4 points among Canadians aged 60 and up.
The Conservatives lead the Liberals 42%-28% among men, and 32%-28% among women.
Positive ratings of Trudeau hit new low
51% view Trudeau negatively, while 29% view him positively. That’s a new low in Abacus surveys dating back to June of 2021.
Meanwhile, 37% view Pierre Poilievre negatively, compared to 31% who view him positively.
That gives Poilievre a -6 net rating, while Trudeau has a -22 rating.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is viewed most positively with 36%, compared to 31% who view him negatively. This continues the long-term trend of Canadians rating Singh favorably without that translating into increased support for his party. In fact, Singh’s positive ratings have been trending down for a while.
In October of 2021, 46% rated him positively, while just 25% rated him negatively. Since then, Singh’s negatives have been slowly climbing, while the number of Canadians rating him positively has declined.
Just 19% want to re-elect Trudeau
The poll also asked if it was time for a change, or whether Trudeau should be re-elected.
Just 19% said they wanted to re-elect Trudeau, compared to 50% who say it’s time for a change. The only glimmer of hope for the Liberals is the 31% who said it’s time for a change but don’t think there is a good alternative.
However, even 33% of Liberal supporters are saying it’s time for a change while believing there is no good alternative, so the Conservatives can potentially make significant inroads there.
Small margin for error
The ‘efficiency’ of the Liberal vote is oft-touted. The Liberals have managed to come close to a majority of seats in the past two elections, despite winning just 34% and 33% of the popular vote in the last two campaigns.
However, the thing about having an ‘efficient vote’ is that it means you’re winning a bunch of seats by narrow margins. That also means your margin for error is quite small. So, if the Liberals lose a few points and the Conservatives gain a few points – as we see in the Abacus poll we’re discussing today – things can change quickly and a whole bunch of Liberals seats will fall.
Spencer Fernando
