In this episode, Wyatt Claypool does a polling update on where the parties are currently positioned in the polls, and what he thinks is the path to victory for the Conservative Party of Canada in the upcoming election. He also talks about why he thinks the Tories are on track to win the election.
00:00:00.000Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, and today, a week into Canada's federal election, I want to do a polling update, tell you where the different parties are currently positioned, and then also move on to talking about what I think is the Conservative Party's path to victory in this election.
00:00:17.080Right off the bat, I'm going to say things are going to look very tight, and this is exactly how the 2021 election also started off, where everything swung to the Liberals as soon as the election was called, and then it slowly started coming back towards the Conservatives.
00:00:32.580Even with a terrible leader like Aaron O'Toole, the Conservative Party still won the popular vote in 2021 by more than a percentage point, which isn't great, but it's much better than what the polls looked like initially at the very start of the election, where, as you can see here in the first week, the Liberals are polling ahead by anywhere from 0.6 all the way up to 12.
00:00:54.780The only poll that was showing the Conservatives ahead was Forum Research. I don't even think they do polls these days. They had the Conservatives leading by 3 points, but the average showed the Liberals leading by anywhere from 4 to 6 points, which is a massive lead and would have meant a Liberal-majority government.
00:01:12.720Now, that's basically playing out right now. As soon as the election was called, things started shifting towards the Liberals, but now, only seven days into the election, we're already seeing the shift back towards the Conservatives, the way most elections tend to go.
00:01:29.040Before I get into more detail, I'm going to go through all the Main Street polling since day one up to day seven, as well as results from other pollsters before we get into the pass to victory.
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00:02:06.620But anyways, without further ado, I want to show you what the general Main Street polling has looked like so far, because I think it paints a picture of how Canadians were initially feeling right when the election kicked off, when Donald Trump is the issue and the Liberals are very, you know, high on Mark Carney as the new Prime Minister, because he's brand new and why not think nice things about him?
00:02:28.760That's something you always have to understand about Canadian politics. We are very nervous suburban people compared to the Americans, more likely to think nice things about whoever's in power.
00:02:40.280So as soon as Carney got into office, everyone started thinking generally nice things about him, because he's not Trudeau, and he hasn't technically screwed up anything yet,
00:02:48.760even though he's been the economic advisor for five years, and he truly did screw up the economy in the last half decade, but water under the bridge in most Canadians' minds as soon as he becomes Prime Minister.
00:02:59.980This literally also happened with Kim Campbell, it happened with John Turner, it's happened with Paul Martin.
00:03:05.620They start off initially popular, and then they crater pretty fast when people realize, wait, we never voted for this person, why should we re-elect them?
00:03:13.420So let's start off day one with the Main Street tracking poll. They do a poll every single day of around 1,200 to I think actually like 1,500 people. It's a substantial poll.
00:03:25.200And day one in Main Street, and I am including the undecideds in these polls because it's way too early to think that the undecideds are not going to be showing up.
00:03:33.380Day one had the Liberals at 41%, the Conservatives at 36%, NDP at 6%, Block at 6%, PPC at 2%, and Greens at 1% with 6% undecided.
00:03:44.980Now that's actually pretty shocking, considering that usually this far out from the election, you're going to have 10%, 12% of people who are undecided.
00:03:55.360But I think this is going to be such an emotionally charged election that people will be jumping around, but they're going to believe they're very definitive about who they want to vote for early on.
00:04:05.420Because I'm voting Liberal because I hate Donald Trump, or I'm voting Conservative because I hate the Liberals, Trudeau and Mark Carney, and things are going to kind of run back and forth.
00:04:14.520I in fact don't really believe the NDP is doing as bad as 6% or the Block is down at 6% either.
00:04:20.160I think that the NDP is doing probably better than this, but in terms of polling, it's going to be harder to get NDP people on the phone, because they don't even like Jagmeet Singh.
00:04:30.940They're voting NDP, but you know, it's a bit of a depressing election for them, so I think you're naturally going to see their election or poll results a little bit depressed.
00:04:40.280Just as I think, right now, even despite what the polls are saying, I think that basically whenever you see a Liberal poll, maybe take a couple points off whatever the Liberals had.
00:04:53.680Because right now, because they have the new Prime Minister, and because everyone's excited about voting Liberal, because it's to stick it to Trump, which makes no sense,
00:05:01.700I think you're going to see a big oversampling of Liberals in most pollsters.
00:05:23.600Day 4, we have 43 Liberal, 39% Conservative.
00:05:27.860Day 5, we have 41 Liberal, 39% Conservative.
00:05:32.040Day 6, 41 Liberal, still 39% Conservative.
00:05:37.280And now on Day 7, we have 40 Liberal, 39% Conservative.
00:05:42.740This election is going to feel like World War I trench warfare.
00:05:47.500Every single day, it's going to be one party stealing 0.3% of the other party's support,
00:05:52.780and then also gaining elsewhere, moving some undecideds over, trying to defend the current parts of their base that are a little bit squishier.
00:06:00.520And this is also the current problem for the Liberal Party.
00:06:04.240I've shown you in other polls, from Abacus, from I think even Angus Reid, who are very down on the Conservatives,
00:06:11.380they do show that the Conservative base is far more definite in their decision to show up and vote Conservative.
00:06:18.160Like, 72% of people currently voting Conservative are definitely voting Conservative.
00:06:23.540Whereas with the Liberals, it's like half of them are definitely voting Liberal,
00:06:26.960and the other half are some form of squishy Liberal,
00:06:30.500who maybe they're only saying they're voting Liberal to, you know, to put it to those Americans,
00:06:35.360but they really haven't made a very clear mental decision that this is who I am.
00:06:40.820It's more so, you know, ah, screw Trump.
00:06:42.940I'm going to say I'm voting for the current government.
00:06:46.160Eh, as the election goes on and domestic issues start taking the forefront,
00:06:51.080I think you're going to see that change.
00:06:52.800In fact, I want to bring up later this poll that shows that Liberals are basically just voting about Trump,
00:06:59.060whereas Conservatives and even the other parties, NDP, Green, PPC, and Block,
00:07:03.640they're all voting for domestic reasons.
00:07:05.320That's why this is so silly, is that, like, the Liberal Party is effectively, it knows,
00:07:11.400which is why it hasn't released basically any policies.
00:07:13.360It knows it's basically just running on the idea that I'm voting Liberal because it's red,
00:07:17.700and, you know, I'm going to fight back against those blue Conservatives down south,
00:07:22.380even though the Republican color is also red.