MacKay most popular among leadership hopefuls
A majority of likely Conservative voters and the general public believe Peter MacKay is the top choice to be leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, according to a Maru/ Blue opinion poll conducted for the National Post.
The poll also found that people are warming up to his main rival Erin O’Toole and lesser known candidate Leslyn Lewis.
Impressions of MacKay have mostly stayed the same and any improvement among voters in the last few months has been counterbalanced by people who say their impression of him has gotten worse, according to the poll.
But in general, the poll shows that MacKay, who held several top cabinet roles in Stephen Harper’s government, is the primary favourite in the race.
“The presumption is that Peter MacKay is the front runner,” said John Wright, the executive vice president at Maru/Blue Public Opinion North America. “And a lot of that has to do with the fact that he’s got the most exposure. You look at the numbers regionally and he’s got a lot of good recognition.”
Fifty-five per cent of likely Conservative voters say MacKay is their top choice, with O’Toole at 25 per cent, Lewis at 11 per cent and Ontario MP Derek Sloan also at 11 per cent.
The party reported this month that 269,469 members were eligible to vote in the race before the Aug. 21 cutoff. The new leader will be announced after the votes are counted, although the party doesn’t know how long that will take given the added difficulties of tallying ballots during a global pandemic.
The pollsters conducted the same poll among likely Conservative voters and the general public and found similar results, although non-Conservative respondents were less likely to favour Sloan and more likely to favour Lewis.
MacKay was the top choice of 51 per cent of the Canadian public, with O’Toole collecting the support of 25 per cent of respondents.
The favourability ratings among Conservative voters for the second-tier candidates reflect the wildly different tone of their campaigns. Lewis, a Toronto lawyer, has portrayed herself as a happy warrior who will reach out to voters who aren’t accustomed to voting Conservative, while Sloan has run a polarizing and controversial campaign.
Lewis is the runaway leader in terms of favourability among people who plan to vote Conservative in the next election and who know enough about the candidates to have an informed opinion. Only 16 per cent of people polled have an unfavourable impression of Lewis, giving her a net favourability score of 48 points.
“She has favourability and that came down to the fact that the more you get to know her, the more you think you like her. There’s a likability aspect to this,” said Wright.
Sloan, on the other end of the spectrum, is viewed as unfavourable by 48 per cent of potential Conservative voters. Along with his relatively low favourability rating of 52 per cent, that puts the Ontario MP at a net favourability rating of four, which is 36 points lower than MacKay and 44 points lower than Lewis.