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TORONTO -- Two weeks after the federal election, there鈥檚 no victory bounce in popular support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the Liberals and Conservatives remain deadlocked, according to the latest weekly Nanos tracking numbers.
numbers released Tuesday show the Conservatives at 32.5 per cent versus 31.1 for the Liberals, continuing a trend from the weeks leading up to the Oct. 21 election.
鈥淚鈥檒l call it the popular opinion gridlock,鈥� 麻豆传媒鈥� pollster Nik Nanos said on Wednesday鈥檚 episode of the Trend Line podcast.
With a more efficient vote in regions with higher numbers of seats, Trudeau鈥檚 Liberals captured 157 versus 121 for Andrew Scheer鈥檚 Conservatives. But the Conservatives came out on top in popular support on election night, winning over 34.4 per cent of decided voters versus 33.1 per cent for the Liberals.
It was that the party that won the popular vote failed to win the most seats.
Despite winning a second mandate, there is still a cloud 鈥渉anging over the Liberals,鈥� Nanos said.
鈥淭he fact of the matter is, a significant proportion of Canadians did not vote for the Liberals, and that even during the election result and at least now in the week or so after the election, more Canadians mathematically would be supporting the Conservatives.鈥�
It鈥檚 a far cry compared to Trudeau鈥檚 2015 majority win, when he saw both his party鈥檚 numbers and personal numbers surge after winning a sizeable majority of 184 seats.
In fact, on the Nanos personal PM question -- in which people are asked to rank their preferences for prime minister out of the federal party leaders -- Trudeau soared to nearly 40 per cent a month after that election. This time around, in comparison, his latest numbers are 10 points lower.
鈥淧eople were very hopeful鈥� in 2015, said Nanos, adding that in 2019, people are saying: 鈥淟et鈥檚 skip the honeymoon, and go directly to try to govern.鈥�
Meanwhile, there have been rumblings within the Conservative party about whether or not Scheer should remain as leader. Former Conservative cabinet minister Peter MacKay described Scheer鈥檚 loss as 鈥渓ike having a breakaway on an open net and missing the net鈥� during a panel talk in Washington, D.C. last week.
Others within the party have raised concerns about Scheer鈥檚 social conservative views, such as his personal opposition to abortion and previous comments against same-sex marriage. Kory Teneycke, Stephen Harper鈥檚 former director of communications, said those sorts of views 鈥渃ould be fatal鈥� to the future of the party because they are 鈥渧iewed increasingly as bigotry.鈥�
MacKay said there were a number of issues that repeatedly arose during the campaign that 鈥渘obody other than the politicos wanted to talk about.鈥�
鈥淧eople did not want to talk about women's reproductive rights. They didn't want to talk about revisiting the issue of same-sex marriage. And yet that was thrust onto the agenda and hung around Andrew Scheer鈥檚 neck like a stinking albatross, quite frankly,鈥� he said.
鈥淎nd he wasn't able to deftly deal with those issues when the opportunities arose. And I think among female voters in particular and those who would have been impacted by any re-visitation, it created a nervousness or it took them out of their comfort zone if they were considering voting Conservative.鈥�
MacKay has said his sharply-worded hockey analogy was meant to be constructive. He also said he has repeatedly voiced support for Scheer and dispelled any rumours that he is seeking a leadership challenge, calling those rumours 鈥渇alse.鈥�
The data is based on a dual frame (land + cell-lines) random telephone interviews using live agents of 1,000 Canadians using a four week rolling average of 250 respondents each week, 18 years of age and over. The random sample of 1,000 respondents may be weighted by age and gender using the latest census information for Canada. The interviews are compiled into a four week rolling average of 1,000 interviews, where each week the oldest group of 250 interviews is dropped and a new group of 250 interviews is added.
A random telephone survey of 1,000 Canadians is accurate ±3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
