Polling continues to spell bad news for Manitoba’s NDP government.
A Probe Research poll conducted in early December suggests the NDP has the support of just 22 per cent of Manitobans.
That’s 21 points behind the official opposition Progressive Conservatives at 43 per cent. It is also seven points behind the Liberals at 29 per cent.
“If you thought [the NDP] were going into a headwind before, it’s now a gale-force strength in terms of the distance they have to go,” Curtis Brown, Probe Research’s outgoing vice-president, told the Winnipeg Free Press.
“We sort of thought there would be a floor, but the floor is continuing to break, and they’re going down and down.”
According to the poll, conducted on behalf of the Free Press, the NDP’s support outside Winnipeg is 13 per cent compared to 29 per cent for the Liberals and 53 per cent for the PCs.
Things are more competitive in seat-rich Winnipeg, with the PCs enjoying 35 per cent support followed by both the NDP and Liberals with 29 per cent each.
As much as PC supporters were heartened by the results, so too were backers of the Liberals, a party with just one seat in the legislature.
Some observers speculate the provincial Liberals are garnering a second look from voters given the resurgence of Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberals.
Others believe left-leaning or centrist voters who have abandoned the NDP view the Liberals as a viable party under leader Rana Bokhari, who assumed the helm in 2013.
According to a chart of Probe Research polls published by the Free Press, the NDP has not led the PCs since about September 2012.
The latest poll surveyed 1,000 Manitoban adults. There is a 95 per cent certainty the results are accurate within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, according to Probe.
