Polls suggest Winnipeg voters will roll out red carpet Monday

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This article was published 23/04/2025 (185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Are the federal Conservatives in Manitoba headed for an election-day thumping?

A few months ago, it was a foregone conclusion that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative candidates would be running amok in this province, gobbling up seats from the Liberals and NDP like a political Pac-Man.

Now, as we enter the final stages of one of the most volatile campaigns in Canadian history, it appears the Tory Pac-Man has gone from the hunter to the hunted in Manitoba.

A new Probe Research survey shows the Liberals with a narrow lead over the Conservatives provincewide (43 per cent to 40 per cent) and more comfortable margin in seat-rich Winnipeg (50 per cent to 32 per cent). The NDP, meanwhile, have 15 per cent support provincewide, and 16 per cent support in Winnipeg. That is an improvement since February, but the party still remains well below historic levels of support.

Put it all together and you have a real possibility the Conservatives will lose seats, most likely in Winnipeg.

In the 2021 election, the Liberals retained their four seats in Winnipeg with only 28 per cent of the provincewide vote and 29 per cent in Winnipeg. If the Probe poll has accurately captured the Manitoba electorate’s voter intentions, the Liberal support has gone up by more than 40 per cent.

If that holds until the polls close Monday evening, the Liberals will not only retain the four seats they already have in Winnipeg, they will be working hard to bring down Tory MPs Marty Morantz (Winnipeg West) and Raquel Dancho (Kildonan-St. Paul).

The magnitude of the surge in Liberal support, particularly in Winnipeg, cannot be understated.

The provincewide results for Manitoba mirror national numbers, where pollsters see the Liberals with an overall lead in support at, or just above, the margin of error. For example, the Nanos poll tracker — a rolling, three-day average of overnight polling results that is the gold standard for many journalists — shows support for the Liberals at 44 per cent, the Conservatives at about 38 per cent and the NDP at just under eight per cent.

Although it’s a smaller area of the country, and it was surveyed with a smaller sample size, the Winnipeg results are a true outlier.

Most national polls do not break down their results into municipal areas. However, in the current campaign there are only two other examples where the Liberals enjoy the support of half of voters.

The magnitude of the surge in Liberal support, particularly in Winnipeg, cannot be understated.

Atlantic Canada, which has been a longtime Liberal stronghold, has reported support greater than 50 per cent for the Liberals in many polls. Seat projections based on those polls have the Mark Carney-led Liberals capturing as many as 24 of the 32 seats available across the Atlantic provinces.

The other parallel is the Greater Toronto Area.

The GTA has been bedrock for Liberals going back decades, and that does not appear to be changing. A recent poll commissioned by 338Canada, a non-partisan poll-tracking organization, has the Liberals with 48 per cent support among decided voters, seven points more than the Conservatives, at 41 per cent.

What distinguishes the GTA from Winnipeg — other than its sheer size and its 25 seats, three times the number in this city — is the fact that the Liberal lead is considerably slimmer. Probe is tracking an 18-point lead for the Liberals in Winnipeg. It is that number, rather than the total, that has Tories quaking in their boots.

The bigger and more important question is whether we can rely on these numbers in a campaign that has already seen enormous volatility.

There has been increasing skepticism among voters about the accuracy of election polls, even though pollsters have predicted the end results more often than not.

In 2021, for example, pre-vote polls had the Liberals and Conservatives in a statistical dead heat in overall voter intentions. The results on election day showed the polls had nailed the outcome: both the Liberals and Tories finished with approximately 33 per cent of the popular vote. The Liberals, however, won the right to govern by translating their votes into more seats than the Tories, who tend to generate huge pluralities in a smaller number of ridings.

Past performance does not eliminate the possibility that there can be a lot of movement in the last few days of a campaign.

Parties that lead in polls can suffer last-minute dips in support if voters think their first choice will win, whether or not they take the time to cast a ballot. Similarly, voters who are convinced their first-choice party has no hope of winning may avoid polling stations, a phenomenon that can exacerbate results for a trailing party.

And what of Manitoba? All available data shows the Liberals will not only hold what they have now, but likely pick up a seat or two on their way to forming another federal government.

Or not, if voters decide to throw a curve ball or two.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.