EKOS poll gives Sask. Party big edge with decided voters
REGINA A new poll puts the Saskatchewan Party 25 points ahead of the NDP among voters who’ve made up their minds three-anda-half months before a provincial election.
Published on Friday, the EKOS telephone poll reached the same provincewide results as an Angus Reid web survey released one month ago. EKOS randomly sampled 1,240 Saskatchewan residents from June 16 to July 9.
Of decided voters, 57 per cent intended to vote for the Saskatchewan Party, compared with 32 per cent for the NDP. But 23 per cent of voters are undecided. If that group is factored in, the gap between the parties drops to 19 points.
Twelve per cent of decided voters told EKOS they would vote for another party.
The Saskatchewan Party led in every age group and every region across the province among decided voters. It dominated in rural areas with a crushing 55-point advantage. In Regina, the Saskatchewan Party led 50 to 39. It was ahead 46 to 37 in Saskatoon.
There was essentially no gender gap in the party preference results, though women were about twice as likely to be undecided. NDP support increased with educational attainment. But the Saskatchewan Party still enjoyed a six-point lead among decided university-educated voters.
An election is set for Oct. 26 of this year. The poll results from EKOS are slightly more favourable to the NDP than election results from 2016, when the party won just 10 seats. Just over 62 per cent of voters supported the Saskatchewan Party in that election, compared with 30 per cent for the NDP.
Saskatchewan Party led in every age group and every region across the province among decided voters
EKOS called the NDP support “stagnant” in a web post detailing its results.
The poll used a system where respondents punch in their preferences through the keypad of their phone, rather than tell an operator. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, though it is higher for the results broken down by sex, age, education and region.