Another poll puts Quebec Liberals ahead of Parti Québécois
The Quebec Liberal Party has maintained its lead ahead of the Parti Québécois in a new poll, indicating that the province’s political race is tightening ahead of October’s general election.
Coming just days after Christine Fréchette was chosen by members of the Coalition Avenir Québec to succeed François Legault as Quebec premier, the survey by Pallas Data with Qc125 and L’actualité placed the Liberals at 32 per cent among decided and leaning voters, up five points since February. The PQ, meanwhile, stands at 29 per cent, continuing a gradual slide that has seen its support fall seven points since December.
That three-point gap falls within the poll’s margin of error and is best understood as a statistical tie.
Still, the result reinforces a trend that began to emerge in a Léger survey published days earlier, which also showed the Liberals narrowly ahead. That was their first lead in years.
The ruling CAQ, despite the leadership change, remains mired in third place at 14 per cent, effectively unchanged from the previous Pallas poll. It is tied with the Conservative Party of Quebec. Québec solidaire trails at 11 per cent.
The early numbers represent a subdued start to Fréchette’s tenure.
Her party, which has been in power since 2018, has plummeted in the polls over the past two years, putting the party now at levels that bring into question whether it will win many seats at all, if an election were held now.
Overall, the dynamics shift when isolating francophone voters. Among them, the PQ retains a lead with 34 per cent, despite a three-point drop since February, compared with 21 per cent for the Liberals and 18 per cent for the CAQ.
That advantage could still translate into the largest number of seats for the PQ, even as its overall lead narrows.
Members of the National Assembly are not due back at the legislature until May, giving the CAQ’s incoming leadership some time to regroup.
Voters will head to the polls in October.
Methodology
The Pallas Data poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday by interactive voice response telephone polling and received responses from 956 Quebec adults. The margin for error for the full sample is three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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