Canada's Shifting Political Landscape: The Conservative Party's New Coalition
Who are the new Conservative voters and what unites them?
Recently, I joined Eric Grenier’s podcast to talk about Canadian politics with a specific focus on the flow of voters right now. That conversation sparked this post (BTW - Highly recommend subscribing to his substack The Writ)
You can listen to that podcast here:
About every two weeks, my company Abacus Data conducts a national survey that clients are able to purchase questions on. On each of these surveys, I ask a core set of Canadian politics questions.
For this analysis, I combined our two most recent surveys - conducted from September 4 to October 15, 2023 which have a combined sample size of 6,025 respondents. This larger sample sizes allows us to dig a bit deeper and understand some of the dynamics at play in voting intention and political opinion.
The findings shed light on several emerging patterns in Canadian politics, including the formation of the Conservative Party's new coalition, the profile of these new Conservative supporters, and new vote coalitions for the Liberals and NDP.
1. The Conservative Party's New Coalition
The Conservative Party's current national vote share from these two surveys stands at 40% among decided voters and 34% when undecided voters are factored in.
Analyzing the sources of this support:
71% of it comes from past CPC supporters.
13% is drawn from those who didn't vote in 2021.
Significant numbers have defected from other parties: 8% from the LPC, 3% from the NDP, 3% from the PPC, and smaller proportions from the BQ and GPC.
From a total electorate perspective, the Conservative Party achieves its 34% support by rallying:
24% from its past supporters (it is doing far better than any other party at holding it’s past coalition together. We see very little defection to other parties at this point).
4% from non-voters of 2021.
An amalgamation of support from Liberal (3%), NDP (1%), People’s Party (1%), and a combined 1% from the Greens and BQ.
In essence, the CPC is adeptly preserving its past coalition while integrating members from virtually all other parties.
2. Profile and Motivations of New Conservative Supporters
The new additions to the Conservative camp - those who either refrained from voting in 2021 or voted for a different party in 2021 (we have a pretty large sample size of 637) - present some noteworthy attributes:
Demographics: A majority (56%) are 44 years or younger, contrasting with 43% of all other respondents. The gender breakdown shows 56% are male (versus 49% of others), and only 26% have a university education compared to 33% of others.
Regional Distribution: There's a higher concentration in Atlantic Canada and BC, an equal spread in Ontario, but a smaller presence in Quebec.
Political Sentiments: A sweeping 75% believe Canada is on the wrong trajectory. Their impressions of political figures are telling too - 79% disapprove of Trudeau (27% more than others), while 80% view Poilievre favorably (49% more than others).