Who is Andrew Scheer? Almost a third of Canadians don’t know
The new Tory leader sees little post-vote bump
Who is this Andrew Scheer guy, anyway?
About a third of Canadians aren’t familiar enough with the name to be able to answer that, and almost another third don’t know what to make of the new Conservative leader, a new Mainstreet Research/ Postmedia poll shows.
The Conservative party is seeing a small boost in support after the weekend’s leadership election, based on a phone survey of 2,800 Canadians conducted Sunday and Monday: one percentage point among all voters, and two percentage points among decided and leaning voters, versus numbers from May 14 and 15.
The little uptick is within the poll’s margin of error — plus or minus 1.85 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. But the takeaway, says pollster Quito Maggi, is that the party’s voter base is steady despite Scheer, a Saskatchewan MP and former Speaker of the House of Commons, being relatively unknown.
“He’s not going to see the same bump that most leaders get post-leadership convention, just because of that factor that nobody knows who this guy is, outside of people who follow this stuff, and obvious partisans,”
Maggi said.
“The good news is that it didn’t go down because he’s less known,” he added. “It’s where do they go from here. … They kind of have a rush job to do in terms of getting Canadians to know Andrew Scheer.”
More people like Scheer than dislike him. The poll found 21 per cent had favourable views on the 38-year-old leader versus 16 per cent unfavourable. About 33 per cent said they are not familiar with Scheer, while 30 per cent were unsure about their opinion.
In Saskatchewan, where he is better known, 59 per cent of respondents liked Scheer, 25 per cent had unfavourable views, 10 per cent were unsure and just six per cent weren’t familiar.
In Quebec, where it is believed support from dairy farmers helped secure his victory, more than threequarters of respondents either didn’t know him or weren’t sure, while 12 per cent liked him and 13 per cent disliked him.
Nationally, the Liberals still have a significant lead, though Tories are ahead in Alberta and Saskatchewan: 35 per cent of respondents said they’d vote for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals; 29 per cent would vote for Scheer’s Conservatives; and 14 per cent would vote for Tom Mulcair’s NDP. Four per cent would vote Green; three per cent would vote Bloc Québécois; and 14 per cent were undecided.
Mainstreet also polled respondents on two questions related to free speech on university campuses.
Half were asked whether universities should prohibit photos of aborted fetuses on campus. A full 72 per cent of respondents said they think the photos should not be allowed, while 19 per cent said they should and nine per cent were unsure.
Other respondents were asked whether the federal government should withhold grants from universities that “cannot ensure freedom of speech on campus,” a policy that Scheer campaigned on during the leadership election. Scheer’s idea was favourable to 38 per cent of respondents and unfavourable to 45 per cent, while 17 per cent were unsure.
These results have an increased margin of error of plus or minus 2.62 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, because each question was posed to half of the group.
Mainstreet/iPolitics polling had consistently showed libertarian candidate Maxime Bernier as the front-running leadership candidate going into last weekend. In scenarios run by Mainstreet, Scheer won 15 per cent of the time, but always at a narrow margin. Saturday’s result was 51 to 49 per cent for Scheer.