Liberals hold edge as CPC leadership race gets under way

New federal polls were published in the past two weeks. Here is a short recap:

  • First, Mainstreet Research measured the Liberals on majority territory with the support just under 40% of respondents. The same poll tested potential CPC leadership candidates and found Peter MacKay to be performing best, which should rejoice CPC supporters considering MacKay officially lauched his campaign earlier this week. The poll report can be found here.
  • Léger was on the field last week and has the LPC and CPC in a virtual tie at 31 and 32 per cent respectively. Léger has the Bloc in first place in Quebec, just ahead of Trudeau's Liberals. The poll also contain very interesting data on the delicate issue of medical assistance in dying. Here is the report. 
  • Finally, Abacus Data released its latest findings and has the Liberals in first place with 34 per cent. See Abacus report and full tables here. 

The complete list of federal polls can be found on this page. Please note that Nanos polls are not listed on 338Canada as to respect the firm's paywall.

We throw this fresh data in the 338Canada model and present today a brief federal projection update for January 26, 2020. The model's methodology is described here.

Here is the popular vote projection:



The Liberals still have the support of about a third of Canadian voters. The leaderless Conservatives are right behind though with 31 per cent. Considering the uncertainty of these measures, we can say the LPC and CPC remain (still!) in statistical tie.

Here is the national seat projection:



These averages remain close to the 2019 election results. As you can see below, even though the LPC has an average lead of 40 seats ahead of the Conservatives, the confidence intervals still overlap significantly. As it as the case last fall, the Conservatives hit a ceiling due to the poor numbers in Central Canada.



Should Peter MacKay win the CPC leadership next June, we should see a bump for the Conservatives in Atlantic Canada (the "native son" theory...), which would mostly hurt the Liberals in the region. But we may be getting ahead of ourselves here, so we shall see how it all unfolds soon.

Please remember: These numbers do not represent a prediction of the future, but rather describe the current political landscape according to the data made available so far. These numbers will change over the course of this term. And we will be on top of it.


The 338Canada district projections have been updated. You may find the complete map here.

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Philippe J. Fournier is the creator of Qc125 and 338Canada. He teaches physics and astronomy at Cégep de Saint-Laurent in Montreal. For information or media request, please write to info@Qc125.com.


Philippe J. Fournier est le créateur de Qc125 et 338Canada. Il est professeur de physique et d'astronomie au Cégep de Saint-Laurent à Montréal. Pour toute information ou pour une demande d'entrevue médiatique, écrivez à info@Qc125.com.