Who are the "switchers" in Canadian politics today?
A look into a dataset of almost 10,000 survey responses
If an election were held today and Canadians vote as they intend to, the Conservatives would easily win a majority government. The latest Abacus Data poll has them leading the Liberals by 18-points - 42% to 24%. Since the last election, the Conservatives are up about 8-points while the Liberals are down 9.
Given this pretty substantial swing, it’s worth asking - who are these switchers?
On Friday, I joined Eric Grenier’s podcast over on his excellent polling and politics site The Writ.
Together, we dug into a huge dataset my team at Abacus Data assembled from the five national surveys we have conducted since the start of the year (from January 3 to March 6). On each of those surveys, we ask the same set of political and profiling questions. Aggregating those surveys together allows us to look at more specific subsets of the population, subsets that would be too small to explore on any single survey.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share key insights from that bigger dataset but for today, I want to explore three groups in particular:
LPC/CPC Switchers: Those who voted Liberal in 2021 but today say they will vote Conservative. This group represents about 3% of the entire electorate and 4% of those who voted in 2021.
LPC/NDP Switchers: Those who voted Liberal in 2021 but today say they will vote NDP. They represent about 2% of the entire electorate and 3% of those who voted in 2021.
NDP/CPC Switchers: Those who voted NDP in 2021 but today say they will vote Conservative. This is a smaller group - 1% of the electorate and about 2% of those who voted in 2021.
Combined, these three groups represent about 6% of the entire electorate and about 10% of those who voted. These are the folks who can and have decided elections in the past.
So let’s dig into what we know about each group.
LPC/CPC Switchers
These people are pretty unhappy with the performance of the federal government, all want a change in governmnet, most dislike Justin Trudeau, and most like Pierre Poilievre.
Almost half come from Ontario, 15% from Atlantic Canada, and BC from British Columbia. Given that these are the regions that have seen the biggest swings since 2021, this isn’t surprising.
56% of LPC/CPC switchers are men, 44% are women.
They tend to be younger than the population as whole but not overwhelmingly so. Keep in mind, the Liberals have kept more of their past support among those 60+ than those under 60.
They are more formally educated than everyone else. 46% have a universty degree and 14% have a post-graduate degree.
They are also more likely to come from higher household income groups. 1 in 3 live in households that make $75,000 a year or more - 8-points higher than others.
But beyond socio-economic, demographic, and regional differences, it’s their impressions and attitudes that separate them.
72% think the country is off on the wrong track (+12 than others).
68% think it’s time for a change and feel there is a good alternative available to the Liberals (+16 than others).
Their net impression (those with a positive impression minus those with a negative impression) of Justin Trudeau is -63 (it’s -32 for everyone else) and their net impression of Pierre Poilievre is +69 (it’s 0 for everyone else).
Their top issues are the cost of living (73%), housing (57%), and healthcare (42%) but they are 10-points more likely to rate housing as a top issue and 10-points less likely to rate climate change as a top issue than everyone else.
And these are not naturally Conservative voters. 61% place themselves in the middle of the political spectrum (16 points higher than everyone else). These are centrist voters who have lost faith in the Liberals and have embraced the Conservatives thus far.
What are they considering, outside of their current vote intention?
100% of them are open to voting Conservative since all of them say they would vote Conservative today.
Only 27% of them are open to voting Liberal. Remember, these are folks who voted Liberal in 2021. Today, 3 in 4 say they won’t even consider voting Liberal.
31% are open to voting NDP. So there’s some opportunity for the NDP with these voters, but not a whole lot.
In short, these folks are switching primarily because they want change, don’t like Mr. Trudeau, find Mr. Poilievre appealing, and care far more about pocketbook issues than they do climate change. They have made the switch and most are unlikely to switch back. That’s very bad news for the Liberals.
LPC/NDP Switchers
These people are far less unhappy with the Liberal government’s performance and generally have a more positive disposition to Mr. Trudeau. They like Jagmeet Singh, really dislike Mr. Poilievre, but aren’t ready to back the Liberals again.