Race for leadership too close to call: poll

With Parti Québécois members soon to start voting for a new leader, Alexandre Cloutier and Jean-François Lisée find themselves noseto-nose in support among party supporters, a poll shows.

A quarter of those polled say they have not yet made a choice — meaning it’s currently impossible to say who might win Oct. 7.

Conducted for Le Devoir and the Journal de Montréal, the Léger poll shows Lisée has picked up six percentage points in the last month of the campaign, while Cloutier has lost eight percentage points.

According to Léger, Cloutier has 31 per cent of support, while Lisée sits at 29 per cent.

Candidate Martine Ouellet has been the loser in the constant Cloutier-Lisée duel, losing eight percentage points in a month. Her support is at 12 per cent. She placed third in the 2015 race with 13 per cent.

Trailing is the outsider, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, with three per cent.

“What has emerged is the possibility of Alexandre Cloutier not winning,” said Léger pollster Christian Bourque. “In the last week, a majority of members find themselves recalculating their options.

“There are doubts about the Cloutier candidacy.”

Bourque says Lisée has two cards up his sleeve in this, the closest leadership race in the party’s history.

Given his political experience, he is seen by 39 per cent of sympathizers as the most apt to tangle with Premier Philippe Couillard. Forty-two per cent of those polled who normally vote for the Coalition Avenir Québec see Lisée as the best potential leader of the opposition, which means he might be able to woo them off the CAQ’s political fence.

The other bad news for Cloutier is that some who initially said they supported him now have slipped into the undecided category

On the other hand, 32 per cent of those polled who are faithful to Ouellet, a sovereignist hardliner, indicated Cloutier as a second choice.

It’s clear the second choices are now critical in determining the outcome.

The poll predicts Ouellet will be eliminated on the second ballot, and it will take the second-choice votes to break the tie between Cloutier and Lisée.

Based on current numbers and calculating for second choices, Bourque’s simulation of the outcome would have Cloutier winning with 37 per cent of the vote and Lisée second with 33 per cent.

The Internet poll of 991 people was conducted Sept. 26-29. With a sample this size, the margin of error would be 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The election outcome will actually be determined by card-carrying PQ members. They start voting Wednesday. On their ballots they are asked to make a first, second and third choice.

The outcome of the vote will be announced Friday, Oct. 7, at a rally in Lévis.