WINNIPEG -- A new opinion poll suggests Manitoba's Progressive Conservatives are in the lead heading toward the Sept. 10 provincial election, but the New Democrats are out in front in seat-rich Winnipeg.
Mainstreet Research says 42 per cent of decided and leaning respondents provincewide said they backed the Tories, 35 per cent favoured the NDP, 12 per cent sided with the Liberals and 10 per cent supported the Green party.
Seventeen per cent of respondents were undecided.
In Winnipeg, which has most of the seats in the legislature, the poll suggests 40 per cent supported the NDP and 35 per cent favoured the Tories.
Mainstreet surveyed 808 Manitobans through automated phone interviews between Aug. 17 and 19, and considers the results accurate within plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The Winnipeg results involved a smaller group of respondents, which Mainstreet says results in a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
The results suggest a tighter race than a similar Mainstreet poll last spring.
The poll also suggests that no party leader in the province had a positive favourability rating, but NDP Leader Wab Kinew was less unpopular than the others. Mainstreet pegged his net favourability rating at minus six per cent compared with minus 15 per cent for Tory Leader Brian Pallister.
