Nova Scotia Election Poll

A Corporate Research Associates poll was released in Nova Scotia this week, the first of the election campaign. It reported the following:

PC - 34
L - 30
NDP - 27

The poll if it were precisely accurate would give the PCs exactly 26 seats in the 52 seat legislature.

The poll elicited the usual media response of Tories down, Liberals up etc. compared to the previous poll released in March which had the following results:

PC - 36
L - 27
NDP - 29

In fact the results are all within the margin of error and indicated no change. Nova Scotia has a close, competitive three party system. I suspect the default option is a Conservative minority at the moment but the campaign, when the system is this competitive, is all important.

My impression to date is that not much has happened. There comes a point usually midway when a campaign develops a clear dynamic. It is not there yet.

The only part of the poll I found truly intriguing were the leader evaluations:

Macdonald (PC) - 33
Dexter (NDP) - 29
Mackenzie (Lib) -16

This does confirm my earlier impression from afar that the Liberals have weak leader. However, not everyone agrees, especially some Liberals. See the second last paragraph here for a contrary view.