The Conservatives' strong hand

...and their leader's limited ability to play it well

I like polls that offer hints about why respondents might be thinking of voting a certain way. So I usually look past the horse-race numbers to the “internals,” the fun questions about issues further down. No poll is a prediction. People can change their minds. Campaigns tend to change a lot of minds. So with that heap of salt, here’s an observation of the general state of play in our federal politics at year’s end, and then a deep dive with a pollster I like.

The general state: Philippe J. Fournier at 338Canada has shown the Liberals and Conservatives about 2 points apart for weeks. Fournier’s projection from those polls suggests the Liberals’ probability of winning the most seats in the next election is about 3:1. That sounds lopsided, and one would always prefer to have the 3 in that ratio, but for the Conservatives to win more seats against those odds would be no more improbable than a coin landing Heads twice in a row. It’s a thing that could happen. It would not be a shock if it happened.

A pollster I like (I mean, I like ’em all, but this one gets discussed less than some others) is Greg Lyle at Innovative Research Group, whose polls I’ve been writing about since the aftermath of the 2006 election. Several days ago on LinkedIn he mentioned a new survey that showed an increasingly worried electorate, especially on questions of immigration and crime.

In that LinkedIn post, Lyle said he’d have new numbers soon that would suggest why the Conservatives are right at the Liberals’ heels in polls, despite all the criticism of Pierre Poilievre (some of it from me). “Voters don't see issues in Canada the way elites do,” Lyle wrote. “I would not argue that Poilievre is doing everything right, but he may have a better 'read of the room' than many elites understand.”

Lyle has posted those new numbers today. Below are highlights and analysis from my correspondence with Lyle.