Marshall Neufeld. (Photo supplied)
Conservative federal candidate Marshall Neufeld is closing the gap with frontrunner Richard Cannings of the NDP in the race to become the next Member of Parliament for South Okanagan West Kootenay (SOWK), according to an Insights West poll released last week.
While Neufeld has climbed to 24 per cent from just 20 per cent in a similar poll taken in July, support for Cannings has declined sharply, putting him at just 31 per cent. In the July poll, Cannings had 44 per cent.
Liberal Connie Denesiuk has made gains, rising to 13 per cent from nine in the July poll. The Green Party had three per cent support, although the poll was taken before the party announced its candidate, Samantha Troy, last week.
These numbers have not been adjusted by removing the 29 per cent of voters who are undecided.
At just seven points ahead of his Conservative rival, Cannings’ decline is part of a downward movement by the NDP across B.C., although the party still tops most other polls in the province.
Pollster Mario Canseco, vice president of public affairs with Insights West, acknowledges the July poll may have showed the NDP with stronger support than the longer-term trend suggests.
“I think it’s a combination of factors,” he said, explaining the difference between the July poll and the recent one conducted by telephone interviews between Sept. 9 and 13.
The July poll was too far ahead of the election call, he said, and it came at a time when the NDP held a significant lead over the Conservatives and Liberals nationally.
Despite the small comeback by Conservative candidate Neufeld in this riding, it’s still not a tight race, Canseco said.
SOWK was one of seven electoral districts that Insights West polled for Dogwood Initiative, an organization that campaigns on environmental issues. The other ridings were all in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island.
Major national polls do not report a riding-level breakdown of support, making the Insights West poll a better indicator of the local race, despite its small sample sizes.
The poll sampled 303 adult residents in SOWK. At that sample size, the margin of error would be plus or minus 5.6 per cent 19 times out of 20.
This means that NDP support could actually be as high as 37 per cent or as low as 25 per cent, while Conservative support could range between 18 and 30 per cent.
The poll also asked local voters which leader they supported. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was supported by 30 per cent, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper by 28 per cent and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau by 16 per cent.
Unlike the July poll, the recent poll did not survey on other issues.
Another difference was that the September poll named the local candidates, with the exception of the Green, who was not yet nominated, when respondents were questioned. The July poll only asked generically about the candidate for each party.
Richard Cannings (Photo supplied)
Canseco said one of the things he looks at is the “retention rate” for each party, how many people who supported a party in the 2011 general election will support the same party in the Oct. 19 vote.
Liberals would only have had seven per cent of the vote if the 2011 results were applied to the present boundaries.
“So the fluctuation between the NDP and the Liberals is not enough to turn this into a three-party race,” he said, adding that this has, in fact, been happening elsewhere in the province, where the Liberals are poised to pick up several seats in the Lower Mainland.
The more important question, he said, is what is happening with people who have voted Conservative in the past.
Some former Conservative voters may have flirted with the NDP in recent months, but are now considering the Liberals or returning to the Conservatives, he said.
“There’s a large component of Conservative voters from the last election who are still undecided,” he said, noting that this has been consistent in all seven ridings polled.
The big question is how many of these will switch to the NDP or Liberals, how many will stay home on Election Day, and how many will return to the Conservatives.
Canseco points to the higher level of support for Harper than for Neufeld and thinks this is one reason the party has been so active in SOWK recently, with a visit by Harper to Penticton, a former Conservative stronghold.
“I’d be surprised if this is the last we see of them in the Okanagan,” he said.
Canseco said it may be too early for the Conservatives to move their numbers, but he points to the “extraordinary get-out-the-vote machine” the Conservatives possess, which he thinks will be very active as the election nears.
“They’ve always done well in the final week of the campaign,” he said. “This has been consistent over the past four elections.”
Canseco believes SOWK would be “one of the Crown jewels” if the NDP forms the next government.
Despite holding B.C. Southern Interior with former NDP MP Alex Atamanenko, the Okanagan has not been a source of NDP support.
For there to be a real changing of the guard, the NDP must win seats beyond its strongholds in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Nathan Cullen’s seat in the north of the province, he said.
Canseco said there will probably be one more Insights West poll in SOWK, most likely around Thanksgiving, which falls a week before the election.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
Pollster Mario Canseco, vice president of public affairs at Insights West
