There is a poll out by the Gandalf Group. Their poll has the BC Liberals under Christy Clark leading the NDP by a significant margin. When you factor out the undecided, it is BC Liberals 43%, NDP 31% and Greens at 20%.
My first reaction was that this really does not sound realistic. I am not convinced the Greens are that popular. I have never seen a poll from the Gandalf Group before, but I assume they have some idea of how they are supposed to conduct a poll. Still, their numbers seem suspect to me.
The poll has the NDP and Liberals more or less level pegging with the NDP with any new leader. I suspect that the results come from how they asked the question, they prompted with party and leader names and only offered three answer options in the prompt. Carole James' name could be a a significant drain on NDP support.
When asked who people would prefer as Liberal leader and premier, Christy Clark has a huge lead over all the rest coming in at 40%. This may have something to do with the fact that she is better know among the general public.
If this poll really is an accurate reflection of public opinion, the NDP needs to be really, really worried. The poll should be showing a dead Liberal party and an NDP in the stratosphere and it does not show that at all.
The joker in all of this is the BC Conservative party. With Christy Clark as Liberal leader, almost all the active federal Conservatives will decamp to the BC Conservatives. BC is right wing enough that a Conservative majority win in this province is within the realm of realistic. Other than 1988, in more than a generation there is not a single federal election in which the right did not win BC.
A Christy Clark Liberal Party would very likely pull away a good 1/3 of the current NDP support if there is a serious Conservative party in BC. If BC politics aligns with federal politics, this is very bad scenario for the NDP.
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