Mainstreet: Conservatives In Retreat?

On Mainstreet’s Federal And Ontario Data

So, Mainstreet dropped two polls Sunday night, a provincial Ontario poll that has the PC vote down 4% since last week and a Federal vote intention in Ontario only that has the Liberals up amongst All Voters. Now, it’s worth noting that Ontario voted 5 points right of the country as a whole in 2021 so a small lead in Ontario is consistent with a small deficit, but the Liberals winning Ontario would be - if replicated at an election, which is a big if! - a hung parliament and a messy post election period.

Now, there are still a lot of reasons to doubt this - Mainstreet is prompting for “New Leader” federally! Marit Stiles being at 22% and up 2% in a week is a bit odd! Abacus only has the tightening down to 20% nationally as of Friday’s partial sample! - but it’s worth noting that Frank Graves has a second pollster on the island with him. And in terms of the Ontario provincial vote intention, this is the first polling we have since Ford confirmed the early election - which would be the first data to show any backlash to such a decision, if there is some.

As it is, there’s a lot to talk about, so let’s break this piece up into Federal and Provincial - and consider this an appetizer before I have David Coletto on the Scrimshaw Show tomorrow (hoping to have it out by about 5PM Monday).

Federal Implications

I’m going to be honest - there’s a lot of reason for me to intellectually doubt the IVR pollsters. If I believe polls that are good for the Liberals, then I am dismissed as a Liberal shill who just believes whatever is good for us. I don’t want that to be my reputation, and the fact that I have been as partisan as I have makes this hard for me. It’s a hard place to be in, where potentially outlier polling is in favour of my personal politics. And the honest truth is I see both sides.

I’m sure when Coletto comes on tomorrow he will drop the 2021 election as an example when the IVR pollsters saw essentially phantom movement that wasn’t real, and he will be right. The story of the 2021 campaign makes no sense if you believe the big swings that EKOS and Mainstreet saw, but makes a lot more sense if you believe what the panel pollsters saw, which is a much more stable race.

The problem is Coletto made a lot of those same points about the rise of the BC Conservatives in 2024, before they did really overtake BC United and become the party of opposition. It’s a difficult, and mostly non-quantitative, game of understanding when it’s the IRV pollsters being wonky and when it’s them leading the charge on a trend you’ll see in the panel pollsters in a month.

The other thing worth noting about Mainstreet is they’re prompting for “New Leader”, which of course isn’t a human who exists. It’s entirely possible that a leaderless party is allowing everybody who is cold on either Pierre Poilievre or Jagmeet Singh to impose their preferred outcome on the leadership and pretend that that would be the next Liberal leader. It’s unlikely the Liberals would actually win Ontario in a future general election.

But this is a blow to those that were sure beyond any doubt that EKOS’ numbers were just Graves being high on something. These numbers suggest there is at least a chance that this swing is real. And that is worth taking seriously.

The problem for Federal Conservatives is that this trend is backed up by the party’s actions. They are clearly scared, as the fact of Melissa Lantsman’s stunt in Beaches Saturday showed. They clearly are worried that a lot of their support is soft, from people who disliked Justin Trudeau and had no actual lasting affection for Pierre Poilievre. Whether they’re right or wrong is immaterial to the fact that the CPC wouldn’t be sending letters and calling NES a “radical drug advocate” if they didn’t sense some reason to panic.

Provincial Implications

Mainstreet clearly believes that the Ontario race is closer than others. While Leger and IRG clearly see a much bigger lead for the Conservatives, this is now two polls in two weeks from the same pollster and there is a noticeable swing against the PCs. That the PC vote is down 4% in a week is notable, given that this is the first data since the election call was made clear. If Ford is really paying a price for going early, this could be a sign.

Now, it could again be nothing, and just Mainstreet getting a slanted, pro-Liberal sample, but that’s not really a fair complaint about the polling firm that had a 30% Conservative lead federally and had the BC Cons (narrowly) winning the popular vote. They’re probably seeing some real movement, because their samples are close together and easily comparable.

In fairness to the PCs, Mainstreet did see a early election penalty for Justin Trudeau in 2021 that receded, and it’s one pollster seeing it. But this is a better sign than I was expecting from Mainstreet for the progressive front in Ontario.

The problem is I don’t actually buy that either progressive leader is in a position to take advantage of any softness in the PC vote. Marit Stiles is going to have to likely confirm an anti-Semite as a candidate soon, and Bonnie Crombie has yet to prove herself in any serious sense. The Liberals are as of this typing unable to secure a candidate in Toronto-St. Paul’s, a seat that’s about as likely a pickup as any in the province. It’s just not exactly screaming electability, which was Bonnie’s whole pitch.

I would love Mainstreet to be right, both provincially and federally. There’s reasons to doubt both, but it’s notable movement from a good pollster. Denying it makes you as much a hack as believing it uncritically. But fuck if it’s not compelling.

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