6 hours Ago By Murray Mandryk
Article content If Conservative voters are looking for solace in the face of national polling telling us we are headed for a clearcut federal Liberal majority on Monday, perhaps they should look to the last Saskatchewan election results. After the final numbers came in on Oct. 28, the Saskatchewan Party had a less comfortable 34-27, seven-seat majority.
It was the smallest majority for the now-five-term Sask. Party. However, polling predicted something much worse.
For example, a poll released a day before the vote count from Vancouver-based Research Co. showed the NDP at 48 per cent compared with 46 for the Sask. Party.
Toronto-based Forum Research offered even rosier numbers for the NDP that day — 49 per cent supporting the NDP and 46 per cent supporting the Sask. Party. Liaison Strategies, in an Oct.
26 poll for National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC), had those same identical numbers. Mainstreet Research had it at 42-38 per cent for the NDP that same day. And an Insightrix Research poll on Oct.
18 for CTV had it 50 per cent NDP compared with 45 per cent for the Sask. Party. The actual 2024 popular vote numbers in Saskatchewan? Sask.
Party, 52.24 per cent. NDP, 40.
33 per cent. No pollster was close. This is not to suggest that today’s national polling numbers for the April 28 federal election, now showing the Liberals with about a five per cent lead over the Conservatives, according to CBC’s poll tracker, are similarly wrong.
What happened in Saskatchewan six months ago might have been the anomaly pollsters now claim. Moreover, the 2024 Saskatchewan election should have also taught us that vote efficiency does matter. If there is substance to the claim that the Liberals could take Regina/Saskatoon seats, it will be because a lot of Conservative popular votes will be spent on big rural wins.
If the vote somehow breaks for Liberals in Regina and Saskatoon in the way it broke for Carla Beck’s NDP that won close urban seats, the Liberals could surprise us. However, that’s a big “if” that ignores the even bigger lesson from the 2024 provincial vote: The Conservative vote here is strong and dedicated and may be tougher for pollsters to identify. This is something worth considering, given another poll suggesting the counterintuitive notion that Liberals are supposedly poised to make big gains in Saskatchewan.
According to an online poll from Rubicon Strategies commissioned by the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA), Saskatchewan voters are expressing growing support for the Liberals — at least in Regina and Saskatoon. “That the Liberals are really neck and neck with the Conservatives in the two big cities is a bit of a surprise,” said pollster Eric Grenier, who runs election poll trackers for the CBC, of the CBC-exclusive poll. Perhaps the Liberals are doing better here, given the collapse of the federal NDP.
There are few signs of life in the federal NDP...
and fewer signs of provincial New Democrats campaigning for them. And the provincial election did teach us that rural and urban Saskatchewan are very different. But even with this poll showing the Liberals within five per cent of the Conservatives in the two major cities (compared with the province overall, where even this poll shows a 13 percentage point Conservative advantage), Saskatchewan Liberal gains anywhere outside the northern riding of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River would be shocking.
There are several reasons why. Here, it’s difficult to believe tariff threats trump (with a capital T) deep-seated disdain for the Liberals and the carbon tax. It’s also worth noting than many “city” federal ridings like Andrew Scheer’s Regina-Qu’Appelle have large swaths of dedicated rural Conservatives who get out and vote.
Also, recognizable Conservative incumbents like Scheer have solid, well-organized campaigns contrasting with what we’re seeing from most Liberal candidates. Nationally? Who knows. It might very well be a different story where the voters haven’t been fed a steady diet of Sask.
Party anti-federal-Liberal government sentiments ...
or where federal Conservative grassroots aren’t quite as deep. But if recent history here teaches us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t put all our faith in polling. Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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