Thursday, October 22, 2009

New Nanos Poll: 9.8-pt Conservative Lead

Nanos has a new poll out, taken between October 10 and October 18 and involving 1,005 Canadians. Here are the national results:

Conservatives - 39.8%
Liberals - 30.0%
New Democrats - 16.6%
Bloc Quebecois - 8.9%
Greens - 4.6%

So, a much better result for the Liberals and even the NDP. But still a very good result for the Tories. As someone has pointed out in the comments section, Nanos doesn't list the parties in their survey question, which likely hurts the Greens. This explains the higher NDP and Liberal numbers. To me, this is a more accurate representation of Canadian public opinion than a poll that puts the Greens at over 10.0%.

The Conservatives lead in British Columbia with 37.3%, followed relatively closely by the Liberals at 29.4%. The NDP is at 22.6% and the Greens are at 10.7%.

In Ontario, Nanos has the gap as much smaller than EKOS. The Conservatives are still strong at 40.4%, but the Liberals are not out of it at 35.3%. The NDP is also doing well at 17.3%.

In Quebec, the Bloc is well ahead at 39.4%. The Liberals are down at 24.6% while the Conservatives are up to 21.2%. The NDP is at 14.5%, a strong result. The Greens are at 0.4%, a little low!

In Atlantic Canada, the Conservatives lead a close race, 39.6% to 39.1%. The NDP is at 20.1%.

Nanos puts Alberta and the Prairies together, so I can't do a full poll projection. But using the current projection to fill in that blank, we get 142 Conservative seats, 94 Liberal, 50 Bloc Quebecois, and 22 NDP seats. So, pretty much what we have now except the Liberals rip a few seats away from the NDP. Kicking and screaming, no doubt.

Good to see a Nanos poll! They haven't had one in over a month. Variations like these are a good demonstration why it is better to have a conservative (small-c) projection model.

Expect a projection update tomorrow.