Winnipeg – As the 2011 Manitoba election campaign enters its final stretch, Greg Selinger’s New Democrats enjoy a slight lead over Hugh McFadyen’s Progressive Conservatives, according to a Probe Research telephone survey of 1,000 Manitoba adults conducted exclusively for the
Winnipeg Free Press.
Forty-six percent of decided Manitoba voters surveyed said they would re-elect the NDP to a fourth term, compared to 43 percent who intend to cast ballots for the Progressive Conservatives on October 4th.
Jon Gerrard’s Liberals, meanwhile, have faltered significantly in this campaign, sitting at just seven percent support among decided voters and now polling in the single digits alongside the James Beddome-led Green Party (4%). Nearly one-in-four survey respondents (23%) were unable or unwilling to identify their party preference.
Other significant findings from this survey include:
- Manitoba's electorate is highly polarized between rural and urban voters. NDP support province-wide is fuelled by its significant strength in Winnipeg, where more than one-half of decided voters intend to cast a ballot for this party. Support for the NDP is consistent with where it stood in the 2007 election (at 53%), with the PCs making some gains among the urban electorate, mainly at the expense of the Liberals. Outside Winnipeg, the Progressive Conservatives register an equally substantial lead over their NDP (54% vs. 41%), which has lost support in this region since the 2007 vote. These results suggest the next Legislature may be even more sharply divided along regional lines.
- Within Winnipeg, the race between the PCs and NDP is tightest in Southwest and Northwest Winnipeg. The NDP enjoys a small lead over the PCs in Southeast Winnipeg and are far in front of their rivals in Northeast Winnipeg and the Core Area. The Liberals are strongest in Southwest Winnipeg, but sit well behind the PCs and NDP in that area of the provincial capital.
- The NDP has a substantial lead among female voters (51%, versus 38% PC and 7% Liberal), while men prefer the PCs (48%, versus 40% NDP and 6% Liberal).
- Progressive Conservative and NDP supporters are equally firm in their intention to vote for their chosen party (63% and 61%, respectively, are very certain to vote for these parties). Liberal support, on the other hand, is more "soft," with just one-third of those who prefer the Liberals (35%) absolutely certain they will cast a ballot for this party.
- None of the three parties have impressed the Manitoba electorate during this campaign, as today voters are more likely to have slightly more negative than positive impressions of the NDP, PCs and Liberals compared to the beginning of the campaign.
This province-wide survey was designed and conducted by Probe Research Inc. via telephone interviews conducted between September 21st and September 28th, 2011 among a random and representative sampling of 1,000 Manitoba adults. With a sample of 1,000, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results are within +/- 3.1 percentage points of what they would have been if the entire adult population of Manitoba had been interviewed. The margin-of-error is higher within each of the survey’s population subgroups. Modified random-digit dialing was used to ensure that all Manitoba adults would have an equal opportunity to participate in this Probe Research survey. Minor statistical weighting has been applied to this sample to ensure that the age and gender balance correspond with the province as a whole.View
full releaseLabels: 2011 Manitoba Election, Green Party of Manitoba, Greg Selinger, Hugh McFadyen, Jon Gerrard, Manitoba Liberal Party, NDP, Probe Research, Progressive Conservative Party, Winnipeg Free Press
