Even as Stephen Harper repeats his mantra that he knows best how to manage the economy, the ground is shifting under his feet. The Hill Times reports that:
The Conservatives are bleeding support from older voters, Ontarians and ethnic Canadians who helped the party win a majority government in 2011, say pollsters, noting Liberals are the ones gaining.
“The Liberals, no matter what the poll is, are still leading among older voters. The Conservatives have banked on these older voters, where law and order and economic stability are the most important issues, but in recent polls we’ve seen that the Liberal lead is just as strong among 30 year olds as it is among 60 year olds,” Eric Grénier, a polling expert who blogs at ThreeHundredEight.com, told The Hill Times. “That’s great for the Liberals because those are the people who turn out.”
According to Mr. Grénier’s aggregate of recent federal polls, the Liberal Party currently has 36 per cent support across the country, while the Tories and NDP sit at 30 and 23 per cent, respectively. Last week the site pegged support for the Liberals at 39.4 per cent in Ontario—five points ahead of the Conservatives and nearly 20 points ahead of the NDP.
Ontario, which handed Mr. Harper his majority, is turning its back on its native son:
The Forum Research poll, accurate to within three percentage points, shows that in Ontario, where the Conservatives took 44 per cent of the popular vote and 73 of the province’s 106 seats in 2011, the federal Liberals are now polling at 43 per cent support, while the Conservatives are at 34 per cent and the NDP is a distant third at 17 per cent.
The Liberals also beat out the Conservatives and the NDP among voters aged 35 to 44, 45 to 54, and 55 to 64 by double-digit margins in the recent Forum survey. Among voters older than 65, the Conservatives were the party of choice with 36 per cent support, with the Liberals trailing by two percentage points.
The Conservatives are also losing support among ethnic Canadians who helped the party win 32 of 47 seats in the GTA in 2011, the Forum Research poll shows. Exit polls from 2011 put support for the Tories at 42 per cent among ethnic voters, but the recent Forum Poll put the party’s support among ethnic Canadians at 38 per cent, while ethnic support for the Liberals was at 36 per cent. Support for the NDP among ethnic Canadians was at 15 per cent.
Overall, the Forum poll put national support for the Liberals at 38 per cent, with the Conservatives and NDP polling at 29 and 22 per cent, respectively. Another poll conducted by Nanos Research Aug. 12 to 19 with 2,000 Canadians had the Liberals and Conservatives closer at 35.3 per cent and 31.9 per cent, respectively, with the NDP polling at 22.8 per cent. The Nanos poll is accurate to within 2.2 percentage points.
A lot could change in two years. The Liberals could stumble badly. But the damage keeps piling up. The Senate debacle is only the latest mess the prime minister has created. Canadians have finally cottoned on to the notion that Stephen Harper isn't who he says he is -- and they're having buyer's remorse.
14 comments:
What took them so damn long? Better late than never, I guess.
I would take what both Eric Grenier and Forum Research with a huge grain of salt. A cue ball, really. Forum, after all, were the ones who predicted an NDP win in BC, a Wildrose majority in Alberta, a huge PQ majority in Quebec, etc. And Eric Grenier, well, he hasn't gotten many of his predictions correctly neither.
I, on the other hand, predicted a Harper majority from the day Ford was elected to office. Folks thought I was nuts. I was dismissed. Well, I got it correctly.
I will make another prediction for 2015. Harper will win the next election. It will be, at the very least, a minority (can't say at this time whether a minority or majority).
Trudeau and Mulcair will both be fighting for the keys to Stornoway.
Also remember that there are 30 new ridings, which I'm sure Harper, himself, has redrawn, or at the very least, hovering of the cartographer.
Harper is no Conservative what-so-ever. He was Policy Chief of his, Northern Foundation of 1989. I am very much afraid, the damage Harper has done to Canada, will be impossible to repair.
Harper has turned much of Canada, over to Communist China. Harper gave China the keys to, Nexen, the tar sands, the High Arctic, our mines, our timber, sold Canadian farmland to China and has now, signed a deal with the Communist China Army.
The U.S. wants their Police to operate in Canada, exempt from our Canadian laws. However, Harper breaks our Canadian laws very frequently.
Harper is not a true Canadian. We went to war so, we wouldn't have such as Harper running this country.
I suspect, gingersnap, that a lot of Canadians who voted for Harper have looked -- as you have -- at his record and concluded that enough is enough.
I wouldn't write Harper off, CK. And I'm sure he's not thinking of leaving. He might, indeed, win the next election.
But, if the polls keep repeating the same kind of numbers, I can see him quitting before 2015.
Even a minority government would be a step down the ladder.
The opposition parties have had a hard time coming up with credible alternatives, Wendy.
Harper has been prime minister by default.
Hmmm... What's this? The entrance to Fairy Land? All this optimism over a biased editorial in a biased Liberal "rag" with nothing in it remotely fair or objective? Desperation!
And the opinion poll on which the editorial is based? That poll was conducted by the same marketing firm which in 2012 misjudged the outcomes of both the Alberta and Quebec provincial elections. Why would anyone with any common sense be happy with yet another poll by that firm? They should stick to marketing bubble gum.
Get your heads out of the clouds, folks.
It may, in fact, be a case of -- in the words of the old Doors song -- "I been down so long it looks like up to me."
The best that can be said, I think, is that Canadian public opinion is highly volatile
At this point, no one's a shoe-in.
Buyers remorse or just old-fashioned voter fatigue? Harper has outstayed his welcome which was already truncated by virtue of his cold, shifty, son of a bitch nature.
Harper, like Chretien, really owed most of his perceived success to a divided, off-balance, even incompetent opposition. That the Libs weren't even able to hold official opposition status illustrates the point. Remember when that happened to the Conservatives after Mulroney?
If J Trudeau shows us anything is that it doesn't take much of a "leader" to pose a mortal threat to Harper.
Perhaps we're grasping at straws, Mound. At this point, it's hard to know if Harper's replacement will be better or worse than the H man.
How could Mulcair or trudeau be possibly any worse than Harper? Harper is the only one I've seen who actually is evil.
For me, CK, it's an open question of whether any of our leaders have the courage to stand up to the corporatist juggernaut.
We can hope that both Trudeau and Mulcair can't be bought by the business lobby.
But the simple truth is we don't know -- yet.
We already know trudeau can be bought. His support of Enbridge is already in the books. He's already kissing Big Oils ass.
That's one of the reservations people should have about Trudeau, Ron. We know he supports Oil Sands development.
But we don't know where he stands on the environment.
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