Trudeau's Teflon is gone: Liberals down 4% in new online poll

According to a new poll conducted by Ipsos and released by Global News, the Trudeau government is walking away from the charred remains of the ongoing SNC-Lavalin debacle in less than impressive shape.

According to the newly conducted poll of 1002 Canadians surveyed online from Thursday to Monday, 49% said that they were aware of the rapidly developing scandalous story involving Lavalin, Trudeau, and Wilson-Raybould.

It appears that throughout the country, many are changing their perception on the government as a result.

Support for the Liberal Party is now at 34% for decided and leaning voters, a drop of about 4% from a similar poll conducted by Ipsos in December. In the 2015 election, Trudeau’s Liberals won their majority party with 38% of the vote.

The Progressive Conservatives, lead by Andrew Scheer, appear to have reaped the benefits of Trudeau’s fumbling. The CPC is now polling at 36%, up 3% from the same December 2018 poll.

Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, continues to make gains, polling 17% compared to the 18% mark he collected in the year-end poll

These numbers do have the potential to misrepresent the public's opinion, of course. But it does appear that Trudeau is not made of teflon, as many of the troublesome headlines appear to be sticking to the PM, and damaging his persona along the way.

Most recently, Gerald Butts quit from his position as the PM’s principal secretary. Butts was considered by many to be central to the Trudeau administration. Butts claims he had done nothing wrong, but was resigning to avoid being a further distraction to the government’s agenda.

The current Ipsos poll was conducted before the Butts resignation, so we can only speculate as to how the bombshell resignation will affect polling even further.

Here is where it looks at the moment: Those who still stand with Trudeau will most likely stick with him in the long haul, as he appears to have a solid base of supporters whose vote will not flounder or go astray.

Scheer, at this point, is probably praying that Maxime Bernier torpedos his own campaign somehow. Scheer needs to remain collected, look composed, needs to tap into the concerns of his target voter demographic, appear genuine and sincere, and not have any blunders of his own.

If Scheer can do all of those things while also finding his own unique voice that doesn’t ring too meek, Mr. Scheer appears to have a very real opportunity to cause some major headaches to the Liberals this coming October.

Does Jagmeet Singh think he is going to win? If you were to ask him, I’m sure he would say yes. But in his heart of hearts, I’m sure even he knows that it’s a bit of a stretch.

He does not have the likability of a Jack Layton, and he does not have the type of sensibility that Tom Mulcair presented, so what does he really have to appeal to voters?

For one, he is an option for Canadians that is neither Conservative nor Liberal. He will probably fair well within colleges, as students may be questioning their allegiance to Trudeau at this point, and will be looking for a left of centre alternative.

And then there is Mad Max Bernier, the potential wrench in the system.

It’s very hard to tell what amount of support Bernier will get in the coming election. I have a hunch that the polls will not accurately portray Berniers impact in October. It’s clear he has a vocal fanbase, but as to how large it is? At this point, it’s still a bit of a mystery.

According to Global News, a margin-of-error could not be calculated for this poll as the sample surveyed was not drawn randomly. That said, Ipsos says the accuracy of its polls can be gauged using a statistical measure known as a credibility interval.

Applying this technique to this poll, Ipsos believes this poll would be accurate to within 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, compared to a poll of all Canadian adults.