PCs Heading for Hefty Majority in NS
Liberals’ status as Official Opposition teetering, likely to lose seats to PCs and NDP
Halifax, NS – The Progressive Conservatives are heading into the final weekend of the Nova Scotia election with a massive lead over the Liberals and New Democrats. A poll by MQO Research reveals the incumbent PCs, under leader Tim Houston, have more support (committed and leaning) than the two opposition parties combined.
The PCs stand at 51%, with the NDP far back at 24% and the Liberals trailing the pack at 22%. The Greens come in at 2% support. Responses were collected via mixed-mode online and live-interviewer telephone survey from November 14th (immediately following the CBC leaders’ debate) through November 20th, with a sample size of 500 eligible voters.
Support for the PCs, commanding in every region of the province, is at a level where a dominant seat count will likely follow. The issue for the Liberals is vote efficiency, with lower overall support more evenly distributed throughout the province’s regions. The opposite appears the case for New Democrats whose support, incrementally greater than the Liberals, appears more targeted.
| HRM Overall: | PC 44% | NDP 33% | Liberal 20% |
| HRM Urban: | PC 39% | NDP 36% | Liberal 22% |
| HRM Suburban: | PC 44% | NDP 34% | Liberal 19% |
| Mainland NS: | PC 57% | Liberal 22% | NDP 16% |
| Cape Breton: | PC 59% | Liberal 29% | NDP 10% |
The Leaders: Houston running ahead of his party, Churchill running behind
Tim Houston enjoys majority support as preferred premier among decided voters (56%), followed by the NDP’s Claudia Chender (23%) and Zach Churchill (18%). Support for Houston runs ahead of his party by five percentage points, while support for Churchill trails support for his Liberals by four percentage points. Support for Chender as most preferred premier is on par with her party.
The CBC Debate Impact: NDP and PC leaders consolidated their supporters, while many Churchill supporters impressed by Chender
In the days immediately following the first leaders’ debate on CBC, MQO asked the first one-hundred respondents who watched the debate for their opinion on the leaders’ performance. Houston and Chender had equally strong nights, with Churchill impressing fewer than half as many viewers.
Equal numbers of viewers said they thought Chender and Houston performed best (32% each), while 15% named Churchill as the best debater. Twenty-one percent said they weren’t sure.
Analysis of the leaders’ performance ratings among those with an opinion, broken out by party support, further suggests that the defending premier (Houston) and his NDP challenger (Chender) held their own at the expense of the defending leader of the official opposition (Churchill).
“These results are another data point that reflects a trend we have seen in our polling since the beginning of this election: the NDP are poised to take second place from the Liberals; and Chender’s performance at the debate, while not definitive, may have helped to shore up her party’s position,” said Brenden Sommerhalder, Vice President of MQO Research.
When asked whether the debate changed their mind about who they were going to vote for, 61% said it didn’t change their mind at all, while 30% said it changed their mind a bit, with 9% saying it changed their mind a lot.
Responses were collected mixed-mode via online panel and live-interviewer telephone between November 14 (following the CBC debate) and November 20, 2024. Respondents were 500 confirmed eligible voters (400 online, 100 telephone). This poll was a non-probabilistic sample due to the contribution from online panel, therefore a margin of error cannot be calculated. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of 500 respondents would have a margin of error of 4.4%, 19 times out of 20.
This research was independently conducted and paid for by MQO Research. MQO Research is an accredited agency member of the Canadian Research Insights Council. Fully owned and based in Atlantic Canada with over 35 years of industry experience, MQO is a leading full-service market research, polling, evaluation, and applied AI firm serving clients across North America.
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