Liaison Seat Polls: A Valuable Mixed Bag

On The Most Important Polls Out This Week

For a site that’s allegedly about elections and polling, I’ve not really had much interest in writing about the polls in a while. Since I’ve relaunched my federal model - admittedly after the honeymoon - the Liberals have never had less than 165 seats or more than 175. A ten seat band of outcomes is both boring statistically and hard to get too much blood from the stone from a content perspective.

That’s why I’m incredibly grateful to Liaison Strategies for giving me some polling actually worth talking about this week, with their four seat polls. With Liaison picking four good seats to poll, and four seats where seat polling will be more valuable than just modelling due to the unique nature of the seats, it’s an invaluable opportunity to dig into the state of play.

Eglington-Lawrence

Eg-Law was a surprisingly tight race in April, with Vince Gasparro - nearly elected to the Ontario Legislature in February - only squeaking through after the retirement of Marco Mendicino. Much has been made of this seat’s Jewish vote as a reason for the sizable rightward lurch, but it’s worth pointing out that the significantly less Jewish areas to the north - Vaughan, Aurora, Richmond Hill - all saw huge swings to the Conservatives too on crime and safety concerns.

Vince’s public feud with kneecap might be helping him locally, but a double digit lead could represent a revival of Liberal fortunes in suburban Ontario. If it is that Carney’s more moderate stances on crime and justice policy are winning favour with the electorate, that would be a sizeable win for the Government, and help win over voters who left for Poilievre in the 905. And if it is just Jewish voters feeling a less intense hatred of the Liberals months on from the election - which doesn’t really make sense, given we led on Palestinian recognition, but whatever - then at least we won’t lose Mount Royal next time.

Vancouver-Kingsway

Fielded right after the MOU with Alberta, it’s not at all shocking that Davies’ 300 vote win blows out to a 9% lead in the poll. Kingsway is the kind of place where the MOU, the idea of more Oil and Gas expansion, and just generally being nice to Danielle Smith will not play well. It’s also possible Davies, now interim leader of the NDP, is getting a small name recognition boost that’s helping him locally.

The more interesting finding of the poll is that the stories of horrific political damage incoming from the MOU is really not true. If Davies can only get a 8.5% swing to him, the idea that Victoria or Vancouvers Granville or South will be in play is laughable. The NDP would narrowly flip back Peter Julien’s old seat on that swing if Julien ran again (which, he obviously is preparing to do), but let’s not pretend it’s a crisis for the government to lose one seat when the MOU stops a unity crisis and you’d think flips us the Edmonton Riverbend byelection. (Or not!)

Is it ever good to see a swing against the government? No, but in the context of the times, it is notable that my reaction was “could have been worse”.

Acadie-Annapolis

The Chris d’Entremont special! It’s not surprising d’Entremont’s leading, though you could squint and be surprised that no Liberals care about the fact they’re now backing a pro-lifer who until a month or so ago was a card carrying Conservative. But it’s a sign that the Liberal revival in Atlantic Canada at the last election isn’t particularly going to abate, especially if the more moderate slice of the Tories follow d’Entremont.

It’s impossible to know if that’ll happen - a d’Entremont-esque swing would flip at least Miramichi and Terra Nova, but a new CPC incumbent in Terra Nova and the generally shambolic Liberal machine there suggests that’s not really in the cards. (Please God let friend of the site Ben Oates run your shit, Newfoundland Liberals. We’ll all be better off for it.) But a flip’s a flip, and with the Liberals so close to the line, it’ll be good to know it can likely stick.

Edmonton Riverbend

This is the one that shocks me - the MOU’s just worth nothing? According to the polling, the voters of Edmonton don’t seem to be rewarding the Liberals, with a complete no-change result from the last election. The 5% Conservative advantage is stunning, suggesting that the Liberals aren’t in as good a position to win the Riverbend byelection as the modelled outputs from the province wide Alberta polling says. (My model, even excluding the EKOS Alberta numbers that caused such controversy, has the Liberals up 4%.)

This poll is likely to engender some real feelings of animosity amongst the Liberal caucus, whether it’s warranted or not. The point of such a compromise on climate is to keep unity together, yes, but I’d also suggest that the point is to win Riverbend and other seats that the Carney coalition has put on the board in Alberta. If it can’t do that, it’s a turd (to some in caucus) on policy terms and a wash on electoral ones - at which point the conversation comes to “what’s the point?”

..

The upshot of the four Liaison polls is both confusion and continuity. There’s a lot of individual interest in these four Liaison seat polls - again, kudos on the selection process - but there’s an overall story of continuity, in that the Liberals are still ahead and the Conservatives are far from an election winning position. But that majority winning position isn’t here in any firm way for the Liberals either, which is the story of polling in Canada right now.

If the Liberals want to break out of this space, they can, but they need to be open to a broader range of ideas than they have been so far. They need to not just talk about bold ideas but they need to sell that their ideas genuinely are transformational. They need to be willing to take hard decisions and make difficult choices, but also to sell those choices better.