Several federal polls released this week put the Liberal party well ahead of the Conservatives nationally, with pollsters pointing to the ongoing trade dispute with the United States as a factor in the numbers.
Nanos Research’s rolling tracking, updated Sept. 8, has the Liberals at 47.3 per cent support against 31.3 per cent for the Conservatives and 10.8 per cent for the NDP, a gap the firm puts at 16 points. On preferred prime minister, Nanos has Carney at 55.2 per cent and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre at 21.3 per cent. The tracking is based on a four-week rolling average of telephone and online interviews with 1,000 Canadians.
Other pollsters released similar findings over the same week. According to a roundup published by Canadian Polling, Liberal support across five firms — Nanos, Liaison, Abacus, Ipsos and Spark — ranged from 44 to 49 per cent, with the Conservatives between 29 and 33 per cent and the NDP between 9 and 13 per cent. The roundup put the national Liberal lead at roughly 15 points and said Spark’s tracking showed Carney’s approval rating at a new high, though it noted Spark did not provide regional numbers in time for the analysis.
The regional picture is more mixed than the national numbers suggest. The Canadian Polling roundup reported the Liberals ahead by four points in Atlantic Canada and by one point in British Columbia, and behind by a point in Quebec. In Alberta, the Conservatives held a two-point edge, and the party’s lead in the Prairies was unchanged from prior polling.
Nanos puts its own margin of error at plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, for the full sample; regional and subgroup breakdowns carry wider margins. Pollsters have used varying methodologies and field dates this week, and the numbers have moved before over the course of the trade dispute with Washington — a reminder that a single week of polling is a snapshot rather than a settled trend.
Sources: Nanos Research; Canadian Polling.
