Monday, August 8, 2011

In Ontario election race, McGuinty may be running out of steam

In less than two months, Dalton McGuinty will be asking Ontarians to hand his Liberal Party its third consecutive majority government, something that has not been awarded in the province since the days of the Big Blue Machine. 

Frequently polled as one of Canada’s least popular provincial politicians, Mr. McGuinty has a steep hill to climb in order to solidify himself as the longest serving Liberal premier since Sir Oliver Mowat gave up the job in 1896.

You can read the rest of the article on The Globe and Mail website.

If 2007 is any guide, we should expect the polling in Ontario to begin in earnest at the end of the month. Four polls were released in the last two weeks of August just before the last election, so things should really start moving soon.

According to the Wikipedia page, there was a new poll released during the provincial campaign on generally two out of every three days. Hopefully the pollsters will be as prolific in 2011, as it is unlikely the other provincial elections will feature as many surveys. We could be surprised, though. Even little New Brunswick had a poll released every day up to the last week-and-a-half of the campaign.

Similar frequency in Newfoundland & Labrador and Prince Edward Island by the Corporate Research Associates, the Atlantic Canadian polling firm, would be very interesting. Manitoba has Probe Research and one or two Saskatchewan-only polling firms often come out of the woodwork during a campaign, so we should have something to go on once the writ drops.