[Ottawa – December 17, 2009] – The overall political landscape continues to drift back to a familiar steady state with no party poised to disrupt the pattern of minority governments. The most recent poll confirms that the steady but mild erosion of Conservative fortunes is a stable pattern and the new normal no longer has the Conservatives knocking on the door of a majority. To the contrary, they are back firmly in minority territory and they have surrendered their advantage of having been seen as moving the federal government in the right direction.
The numbers are now deadlocked and at 35.9, the Conservatives are polling below their results in last year’s election. Despite this steady decline, there is little evidence that the Liberals are poised to displace the CPC as they seem to be frozen at around 27 points. So a much less formidable gap than a couple of months ago but the narrowing is exclusively a product of declining CPC fortunes rather than rising Liberal tides. Moreover, the CPC advantage is fairly stable and they perform well in most demographics and regions, though they are once again experiencing serious difficulties in Quebec.
Also of interest is the widening gender gap. While the Conservatives continue to do well with men and with Canadians over 45, the Liberals have almost pulled even with the women’s vote and lead the under 25 vote. This is an interesting segue to the issue of how Canadians look at various measures to increase voter participation, something we discuss in a separate release for CBC’s Power and Politics on Thursday, December 17.
Click here for the full report: full_report_december_17
Prproguing Parliament likely cause of the pole results
Dahl Hallman,
This article appears based on poll results obtained before proroguing was announced. The Conservatives were already having their support erode even before they put Parliament in a lock-out.