Yesterday, national polling firm Léger Marketing released their latest voter intention survey, and it’s good news for the Liberals and—even more so—the NDP.
Between 16 and 18 July 2021, Léger asked 2,069 Canadian adults in their online panel which they party they’d vote for if an election were held the day that day.
Among decided voters, 34% said they’d vote for the Liberals, which is up slightly from 33% back at the beginning of the month.
The Conservatives were at 29%, down 1 point from the 30% they were at 2 weeks before.
The NDP were at 22%, up a full 3 points from Léger’s last poll, the largest increase of all the political parties.
The Greens and People’s Party were each down 1 point (4% and 3%, respectively), and the Bloc was unchanged.
Compared to Léger’s last poll, the CPC have widened their gap with the Liberals and narrowed it with the NDP. During the first week of July, the CPC were only 3 points behind the Liberals and 11 points behind the NDP. Now they’re 5 points behind the Liberals and 7 points behind the NDP.
Now, this isn’t the highest that Léger has placed the NDP since the last election: they hit 23% twice, once in December and once in February. And this is the fourth time the party has hit 22%, each time in a Léger poll.
In fact, of the 14 times the NDP has placed 21% or higher, 12 of those polls were conducted by Léger. And of the 35 polls putting them at 20% or above, 20 were done by Léger.
Even so, this is a better showing than they had heading into the 2019 election, when they polled at 20% or higher just 5 times. And the highest Leger had them during that month and a half was only 18%.
Leger’s average for the NDP was only 15% in 2019. Their average for the party since last August has been 19.6% and 20.4% for just the last 5 polls.
If you include all the other polls, the NDP have averaged 17.8% since last summer, compared to 13.9% leading into the 2019 election. Just since June, however, the party has averaged 19.5% among all polls.
In Alberta, Léger has the NDP in second place at 23%, far behind the CPC at 46%, but ahead of the Liberal’s 19%. The Liberals are ahead in every other area, except Manitoba/Saskatchewan, where the two parties are tied for second place. And the Liberals lead the NDP in BC by just 1 point. The NDP are in 4th place in Québec, significantly behind the Liberals and the Bloc and just 1 point behind the CPC.
If you include undecided voters, then the numbers drop to 28% for the Liberals, 23% for the CPC, and 18% for the NDP. That puts the NDP even closer to the CPC: 5 points away instead of 7.
About 11% of respondents said they don’t know who they plan to vote for. In the very unlikely scenario that they all chose to get behind the NDP, that would give the party 33%, pushing them ahead of the CPC and just one point behind the Liberals.
But the odds of that happening are extremely slim.
