Provincial Liberals’ popularity surges to 52 per cent

Support for the Liberals jumped significantly in October at the expense of the Progressive Conservative party in Newfoundland and Labrador, MQO Research said in its most recent quarterly poll, released Tuesday.

MQO Research said it spoke with 600 residents to gauge the political temperature in the province for its October edition of the quarterly political poll Atlantic Matters.

Among decided and leaning voters, support for the Liberals jumped 17 percentage points since July, to 52 per cent, MQO said.

Support for the PCS dropped significantly to 31 per cent — down 17 percentage points since July.

NDP support declined 1 per cent since July, to stand at 15 per cent.

The undecided/no vote group was down significantly, to 36 per cent — down six percentage points since July, MQO reported.

Meanwhile, things are looking up for Premier Dwight Ball — ratings for his leadership increased from 4.0 in July to 4.6 this quarter, based on results from the poll respondents.

Newfoundland and Labrador residents were less pessimistic about the economic outlook for the province in October, MQO said. About 45 per cent said the general economic outlook has been getting worse over the past three months, down from 56 per cent in July.

Federally, the Liberals widened their lead in Newfoundland and Labrador, MQO said.

Among decided and leaning voters, Liberal support jumped six percentage points to 70 per cent, while Conservative support held steady at 21 per cent. NDP support dropped six percentage points to eight per cent, and support for the Green party was little changed at zero per cent. Ratings of government performance under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, held steady with a mean score of 6.1 this quarter, MQO said.

The Atlantic Matters poll was conducted by telephone from Oct. 12-19 and included 600 randomly selected eligible voters from across the province.

The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points 19 times out of 20. Among decided and leaning voters, the margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 5.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.