Greens surge in volatile P.E.I. political poll

There has been a lot of movement in P.E.I. political allegiance in the last three months, according to the most recent poll from Corporate Research Associates.

The poll shows the Green Party up and the Progressive Conservatives down. It also shows relatively large movements in Liberal and New Democrat support, but within the margin of error of the poll.

The margin of error for decided voters was plus or minus 6.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Liberal support is up compared to November which keeps the party in its number one position. 

Since 2016 the Greens and PCs have been battling back and forth for second place in the CRA poll.

The Progressive Conservatives had been bouncing around in the mid-20 per cent support range, before jumping to 28 per cent in November.

Green support leaped ahead of the PCs in February of last year and matched the Tories in May, before falling behind again for the final two CRA polls in 2017. The Greens took back second place with a big increase in the February poll just released.

CRA CEO Don Mills says the Liberals are being challenged by the Greens.

"They've got a contest, obviously, with a party that's never had designs before on power, and now it's close," he said.

"Part of it has to do with continuing fairly high levels of dissatisfaction with the Liberal government, which has been nearly split in terms of satisfaction over the last year or so. So now we have a race with a new kid on the block."

A more decisive electorate

The number of undecided voters also appears to have changed significantly.

That vote had been running steadily at about 25 per cent for more than a year, and fell to 20 per cent in February.

Leader preference in the poll was largely unchanged — with Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker holding onto the top position, followed by Premier Wade MacLauchlan.

CRA reached 300 Islanders by telephone for the poll, from Feb. 2 to 28.

The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 5.7 percentage points.

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