Green party sees big jump in support
Two polls show Greens gaining significant ground while support for Liberals drops
The P.E.I. Green party has gained significant ground in voter support in P.E.I. jumping 15 points since October and is now in a virtual tie for second place with the Opposition Progressive Conservatives, according to the latest MQO poll.
The Liberals remain in the lead, but support for the Liberal party dropped by six points since October to rest at 37 per cent.
The Green and PC parties are now at 28 and 29 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, the undecided/ no vote group remained steady at 37 per cent. This places the number of undecided /no voters in a tie with the governing Liberals.
The NDP dropped by six points to six per cent this quarter.
Ratings for the leadership of Premier Wade MacLauchlan were unchanged this quarter with a mean rating of 5.3 on a 10-point scale.
MQO’s results are based on a telephone survey of 400 Islanders held between Jan. 15 to 20 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
The margin of error is higher among decided and leaning voter results — which are the numbers reported for the party results. The margin of error for these numbers is 6.1 per cent.
But the MQO poll is just one of two polls of P.E.I. political parties released Wednesday.
A national polling firm called Mainstreet Research also released poll results for P.E.I. showing the P.E.I. Green party, led by Peter Bevan-Baker, in the lead in P.E.I. at 36 per cent and the governing Liberal party led by Wade MacLauchlan in third place at 29 per cent.
The PC party led by James Aylward is in second place at 30 per cent, according to the Mainstreet poll.
There are a few major differences between the two polls, namely in the wording of its questions to Islanders.
MQO asked the question: “If a provincial election were held today, which party would you most likely vote for?” It then listed only the four registered political parties for pollsters to select.
MQO asked Islanders to rate MacLauchlan’s leadership in a separate question.
Mainstreet Research, meanwhile, asked the same question, but included the names of all the party leaders in the options for pollsters to choose from. Mainstreet did not ask separate questions to determine support for party leaders, as is done every quarter by Corporate Research Associates.
The margin of error for the Mainstreet Research poll is also smaller than the MQO poll at plus or minus 3.52 per cent and is based on a larger sample size of 647 Islanders.
But some are questioning the Mainstreet Research results, pointing to some controversy the firm faced last year after its polling results during the Calgary mayoral election turned out to be wrong. Others are pointing out the firm does not usually poll in P.E.I.
In its methodology statement, the company states the survey was not sponsored by any third-party organization.
MQO is a relative newcomer to polling in P.E.I. but has released quarterly poll results for the last year.
Corporate Research Associates (CRA), which has been conducting consistent polls in the Atlantic region for well over a decade, found the Liberals in P.E.I. had dropped to 37 per cent in its last poll of P.E.I. in November 2017, which was down eight points from August. This was the lowest level of support for the Liberal party in CRA polls in 13 years.
The November 2017 CRA poll found the PCs at 28 per cent and the Green party at 25 per cent.