Poll shows B.C. voters feeling more favourable toward Liberals

A new poll shows an uptick of support for the B.C. Liberals after last week’s throne speech.

Whether the promises made in the speech are the cause of the movement isn’t clear, but the change is significant given the tight result of the May 9 provincial election and subsequent polling that suggested B.C. voters were ready for a new face in the premier’s office.

Mainstreet Research’s poll from June 26-27, done for Postmedia News, suggests support for the Liberals is up seven points from their last poll, taken May 11-13 just after the election, to 45 per cent, and both the NDP and the Greens are down five points, to 34 and 17 per cent, respectively.

The poll shows 43 per cent of decided and leaning voters in Greater Vancouver now support the Liberals, up from 36 per cent.

Most of the Liberals’ gains among decided and leaning voters come at the expense of the NDP, which received 37 per cent support among Greater Vancouver voters in the latest poll, down from 45 per cent in May. Support for the Greens is down two points, to 17 per cent.

Quito Maggi, president of Mainstreet Research, said he believed the “throne speech bump is a real thing,” given polling numbers have previously said 60 per cent of voters didn’t want another Christy Clark-led government

The throne speech had issues that were clearly important to younger voters he said — who he described as “least partisan-entrenched” — even if they weren’t originally campaign promises for the Liberals.

Two ideas pitched in the throne speech have strong support: 71 per cent of respondents said they either strongly approve or somewhat approve of the idea of the government spending $1 billion over four years on child care and early childhood education, and 77 per cent of Greater Vancouver respondents said they strongly or somewhat approved of the government moving to work with mayors on improving transit. A further 54 per cent said they strongly or somewhat approved of the removal of tolls on the Port Mann Bridge.

The newest poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.41 per cent, 19 times out of 20.