While the MQO poll shows the Liberals in the lead, a new poll from Abacus - released with an hour of this appearing - will likely show that since the debate, the political landscape of the province has changed dramatically.
The latest
poll from MQO showed that after a week and bit of campaigning, voters were
almost precisely where they were at the end of March when MQO conducted a poll
for NTV.
When asked
which party they would vote for in an election, 47% made no choice compared to
56% in March. More chose Liberals
(25/21) than Conservatives (20/18) or New Democrats (6/4). One percent chose
the NL Alliance and one percent chose the Green Party. Neither registered support in March.
The gap
between Liberals and Conservatives is within the margin of error.
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| Detailed poll data courtesy MQO Research Click image to enlarge |
The
variation between March and April results is also within the margin of error
for the poll (plus or minus four percentage points 19 times out of 20). The
margin of error for the “decideds”-only sub-sample, widely reported by news
media, would be higher since it based on only half the total sample.
NTV
included a question in the MQO quarterly omnibus. They asked which party people thought would
win the election. 46% of respondents
chose the Liberals, 21% the Conservatives and 30% made no choice. This is a
useful question since research suggests the response to this question
frequently closely matches the popular vote result in an election.
