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New Poll - Tight Ontario election race with obvious regional voter clustering and little appetite for Coalition government - Environmental Communication Options/Huff Strategy

New Poll - Tight Ontario election race with obvious regional voter clustering and little appetite for Coalition government

Jun 9th, 2014 9:21 AM

New OraclePoll Ontario Provincial Election 2014 commissioned by Environmental Communication Options
(Toronto, June 9, 2014) This is the third provincial poll (May 5, May 26 and June 9) released by OraclePoll in this election cycle. Data was collected only from people stating they intend to vote on June 12. The poll was conducted between June 4 and 8th, 2014. It was a phone-based survey of 1,000 voting Age Residents of Ontario with a margin of error of +/- 3.1% (19/20 times).
Highlights
Near identical numbers for PC and Liberal Party: The province-wide results show no movement from the PC and NDP since the May 26th data was released. There is slow upward growth by the Liberal Party from 31% to 35% (May 5th data and this poll). The PC had 42% in the first poll, dipping to 36% in the current poll. The NDP remain almost unchanged at 24%.
NDP numbers have remained flat across the three survey touch points (24% to 25%), while Liberal numbers have steadily increased to what is now their highest point in the campaign at 35%, placing them in a virtual tie with the PC’s. Tory support peaked early and now is parked at 36% with apparently little room to grow, while momentum clearly favours the Liberals. Green Party support has not yet reflected whether the Party is where voters will put a "dignified protest vote". PC and liberals have almost equal support in "seat rich" GTA Region: PC 's have a sizeable lead in public support in three regions of the Province (Central, Eastern and Southwest). The NDP’s dominate the North Region and the Liberal's have healthy leads in Niagara/Hamilton and Metro region. The area where the NDP’s dominate have 10 seats. The area where Liberal's are most popular cover 32 Ridings or seats. The PC lead in areas accounting for 42 seats and the GTA Region where the Liberals and PC have similar support accounts for 23 seats.
Hudak motivates non PC voters: Nearly half (46.2) of respondents are not supporting the PC's, indicated their reason to support another Party "was a vote against Tim Hudak and the PC's".
Party Leader and local candidate appear not to be a significant factor: Voting for a specific Party (32.5%), Voting against another party (25%) and Platform / issues (20%) appear to be the biggest influencers of a Decided voter.
Little support for a coalition government: A Liberal / NDP coalition government scenarios was seen as acceptable by 28% of respondents and unacceptable by 44 %. A NDP / PC Coalition government was even less popular, with 12.5%, indicating they could support it and 70.8% saying no.
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To schedule interviews with Paul Seccaspina of OraclePoll Research, contact Don Huff at Environmental Communication Options, 416-972-7404, C 416-805-7720 or huffd@ecostrategy.ca. OraclePoll Research Limited has provided multilingual public opinion polling, market research, program evaluation and consulting services. Since 1997, OraclePoll has provided quantitative and qualitative research that includes project design, data collection and reporting using telephone surveys, focus groups (on-site and online), mail surveys and exit surveys. OraclePoll has offices in Toronto, Montréal and Sudbury. Environmental Communication Options provides media relations and strategic counsel to clients across Canada. The focus of our practice is on energy, aboriginal, environment and natural resource matters. Twitter: @ecostrategy.