Do you follow Nik Nanos’ weekly tracking poll of federal party support? It’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it such as preferred Prime Minister and Nanos’ weekly “Power Index”. However, the number I’m mostly interested in is federal party support, which he does both nationally and broken down by region. There are interesting results both nationally and regionally for the Greens in this poll.
Nationally, the federal Green Party has hit 7.57%, their highest level in Nanos’ polling since spring 2015. The federal Greens were polling down around 3% nationally prior to the BC election in May, but have more than doubled their support since then, perhaps due to the media coverage the BC Greens gave the green movement, and perhaps by reminding voters that it’s possible for a small party with just a handful of seats to play a significant role in a legislature.
The federal Green Party’s support in BC doesn’t account for all of the federal party’s improved fortunes, but it does make up a good chunk of it. How much improved? Enough that they’re in a statistical dead-heat with the federal NDP province-wide, with the federal Greens enjoying 21.28% BC support and the federal NDP at 20.89%. In the same poll the federal Liberals are at 32.11% in BC voting intention (off their recent high of 43%) and the federal Conservatives are at 23.22%. Those numbers would probably result in multiple seats in BC for all four parties.
BC voting intention has been up and down since the October 2015 federal election, but if you draw a trend-line the NDP and Conservatives have bounced around in a relatively tight range and have trend-lines that are virtually flat. However, the Green Party’s trend-line is up and the Liberals’ trend-line is down. My personal (and untested) theory is that this is partly a consequence of Trudeau’s reversal (some would say betrayal) on electoral reform having a slow but steadily toxic effect on their BC support.
Also of note is that this most recent Nanos poll has the federal Greens at their highest level of support amongst males that I’ve yet seen, having almost caught the NDP nationally in support with men.
For those interested in the national picture, it’s not very competitive. The Liberals remain well ahead in Atlantic Canada, and the Conservatives remain well ahead on the prairies. The Bloc is offering some competition in Quebec, but not much (41% Liberal to 27% Bloc, with the others all well back). Ontario looks to be competitive between the Liberals and Conservatives, but only BC seems like it’s going to have a healthy assortment of three and four-way races.
I am again reminded of how badly we need electoral reform in this country so that people can feel free to express their true beliefs at the ballot box, rather than compromises for a candidate that may not be their first choice but that they feel might be more electable.
The Grass Is Greener.ca 