A new poll suggests large public support for Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership review, and even his resignation, while his party is trailing the NDP if a vote were held today.
Author of the article:Ashley Joannou
Publishing date:Dec 14, 2021 •
Premier Jason Kenney.
PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK /Postmedia file
The latest Leger poll, conducted on behalf of Postmedia, suggests 66 per cent of Albertans polled think Kenney deserves a leadership review and 60 per cent think he should resign.
The numbers show the NDP continues to lead with 43 per cent of decided or leaning voters saying they are prepared to vote for Rachel Notley and the NDP compared to 32 per cent for Kenney’s UCP government.
The poll of 1,249 Albertans was conducted from Dec. 2 to 5, just prior to the United Conservative Party executive announcing that Kenney would face a leadership review in Red Deer on April 9, but not earlier as was called for by 22 dissenting constituency associations.
Leger’s executive vice president Ian Large said he thinks the polling results could influence the scheduled leadership review even though the vast majority of those polled aren’t the same people who will make the final decision.
“(Kenney) has to convince the party that despite these very low numbers, and this dissatisfaction, that he is re-electable. But when you’ve got six in 10 Albertans that think he should resign? That’s a tough row to hoe,” he said.
Half of those who intend to vote UCP want a leadership review of Kenney. Of those who intend to vote NDP, eight in 10 want Kenney to resign, the polling says.
While the NDP continues to lead, the gap between the two major parties is narrowing slightly, Large said, but that’s not necessarily because the UCP is gaining ground.
Polling from May showed the NDP with 46 per cent of the vote compared to the UCP’s 33 per cent. In March 2021 those numbers sat at 51 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
While the UCP’s share of the vote has stayed relatively stable, in the December polling Paul Hinman’s Wildrose Independence Party showed up on the playing field with 10 per cent of decided voters. In previous polling the party was grouped in the “some other party” category.
“Those aren’t NDP voters … So what I’m thinking is there may be kind of a trickle from the NDP, back to the (United) Conservatives but at the same time, there’s some bleeding from the (United) Conservatives to the Wildrose Independence,” Large said.
Large said the Wildrose Independence Party is doing particularly well in rural Alberta and it will be important to understand why those voters are dissatisfied with the current government if the UCP wants to plot a path to remain in government come 2023.
“This time of the election cycle, it’s really easy to tell your pollster, I’m going to I’m going to show how angry I am by picking this virtually non existent party with no seats,” he said.
Hinman will be running in an upcoming byelection in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, he announced on Twitter last week.
Kenney has faced criticism of his leadership throughout the pandemic. Large said, but with oil prices climbing and job numbers improving that could benefit the government.
“All the things that the UCP promised are coming to fruition. And so do they come to fruition fast enough before either the April vote or the 2023 election?” he said.
Online polls cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. If the data were collected through a random sample, the margin of error would be plus or minus 2.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
ajoannou@postmedia.com
The latest Leger poll, conducted on behalf of Postmedia, suggests 66 per cent of Albertans polled think Kenney deserves a leadership review and 60 per cent think he should resign.
The numbers show the NDP continues to lead with 43 per cent of decided or leaning voters saying they are prepared to vote for Rachel Notley and the NDP compared to 32 per cent for Kenney’s UCP government.
The poll of 1,249 Albertans was conducted from Dec. 2 to 5, just prior to the United Conservative Party executive announcing that Kenney would face a leadership review in Red Deer on April 9, but not earlier as was called for by 22 dissenting constituency associations.
Leger’s executive vice president Ian Large said he thinks the polling results could influence the scheduled leadership review even though the vast majority of those polled aren’t the same people who will make the final decision.
“(Kenney) has to convince the party that despite these very low numbers, and this dissatisfaction, that he is re-electable. But when you’ve got six in 10 Albertans that think he should resign? That’s a tough row to hoe,” he said.
Half of those who intend to vote UCP want a leadership review of Kenney. Of those who intend to vote NDP, eight in 10 want Kenney to resign, the polling says.
While the NDP continues to lead, the gap between the two major parties is narrowing slightly, Large said, but that’s not necessarily because the UCP is gaining ground.
Polling from May showed the NDP with 46 per cent of the vote compared to the UCP’s 33 per cent. In March 2021 those numbers sat at 51 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
While the UCP’s share of the vote has stayed relatively stable, in the December polling Paul Hinman’s Wildrose Independence Party showed up on the playing field with 10 per cent of decided voters. In previous polling the party was grouped in the “some other party” category.
“Those aren’t NDP voters … So what I’m thinking is there may be kind of a trickle from the NDP, back to the (United) Conservatives but at the same time, there’s some bleeding from the (United) Conservatives to the Wildrose Independence,” Large said.
Large said the Wildrose Independence Party is doing particularly well in rural Alberta and it will be important to understand why those voters are dissatisfied with the current government if the UCP wants to plot a path to remain in government come 2023.
“This time of the election cycle, it’s really easy to tell your pollster, I’m going to I’m going to show how angry I am by picking this virtually non existent party with no seats,” he said.
Hinman will be running in an upcoming byelection in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, he announced on Twitter last week.
Kenney has faced criticism of his leadership throughout the pandemic. Large said, but with oil prices climbing and job numbers improving that could benefit the government.
“All the things that the UCP promised are coming to fruition. And so do they come to fruition fast enough before either the April vote or the 2023 election?” he said.
Online polls cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population. If the data were collected through a random sample, the margin of error would be plus or minus 2.8 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
ajoannou@postmedia.com
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