November polls: NDP up, Conservative down, Liberals and BQ stable

By Tom Parkin

Compared to the April 28 general election, the average of results from November’s publicly-released poll show the top moves are:

• Conservatives down 3.8 points to 37.5 per cent support
• NDP up 2.7 to 9.0 per cent
• Liberals down 1.8 to 42.0
• BQ up 0.4 to 6.7 per cent.

NDP gains from Liberals, Conservatives lose to everyone

Unfortunately, not many pollsters help us understand where these gains and losses are coming from or going to. Angus Reid’s November 17 poll is the only survey that provides cross-tabs of current vote intention against past vote, showing shifts between the parties, from previous non-voters or into the undecided column.

A further step determines the net gains between choices. For example, since the last election, while 21 respondents moved from the NDP to the Liberals, 72 switched from the Liberals to NDP, a net gain of 51 for the NDP.

Net score below can be summarized as:

• NDP made large net gains from Liberals and smaller net gains from Conservatives
• Liberals made net gains from Conservatives but lost to NDP, BQ and others
• BQ gained from Conservatives and Liberals
• Conservative lost to all of the above, including others (assume PPC) and undecided.

An NDP focus on Conservatives to unlock Liberal strategic voting?

Carney’s rightward orientation and move to absorb Conservative support has given the NDP some space for a rebound, but the strategic conditions the NDP faces are not substantially changed. The challenge isn’t so much to gain Liberal support as to hold it.

Though Conservative support is bleeding, at 37.5 per cent they remain a threat. Given that Poilievre seems uninclined to change his polarizing style, the Liberals’ ability to demand strategic voting, regardless of their rightward repositioning, remains intact.

But the Liberal focus on gaining Conservative support opens an interesting possibility for the NDP: to also court past Conservatives, but a different demographic than the more affluent voters the Liberals are poaching. The most obvious group for the NDP to pursue would be the blue collar Conservatives Poilievre has worked hard to gain.

A successful class-based attack on Poilievre would not only make direct gains at Conservative expense but also, in pushing down their support, unlock NDP voters from Liberal strategic voting.

And if nothing else, a more class-forward approach would align the federal NDP with its labour allies and provincial NDP sections, almost all of which face the challenge of gaining with blue collar Conservatives if they are to win or hold government.