Manitoba governing Tories gain a bit of ground in new poll, ahead of election

WINNIPEG -

A new opinion poll suggests Manitoba's governing Progressive Conservatives have closed a bit of the gap in public support ahead of the election slated for Oct. 3.

The survey by Probe Research suggests that among decided voters, the Tories and Opposition New Democrats are tied with 41 per cent support.

That's a small increase for the Tories since Probe's last survey three months ago, and a slight drop for the NDP.

But the survey suggests the NDP continues to hold a commanding lead in Winnipeg, where 32 of the 57 legislature seats are.

Among decided respondents to the Probe survey in the capital, the NDP garnered 48 per cent support to the Tories' 32 per cent.

The random survey of 1,000 Manitobans was conducted over a two-week period that ended June 13, and is considered accurate within plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The margin of error for the Winnipeg results is slightly larger, at close to plus-or-minus four percentage points.

The Liberals, who hold three legislature seats, had 10 per cent support among decided respondents provincewide.

Twenty per cent of respondents were undecided. The poll was conducted for the Winnipeg Free Press.

The Tories won two successive majorities in 2016 and 2019, but saw their support in polls drop during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as hospitals struggled to deal with rising case numbers.

The latest numbers represent a bounce for the Tories. Their support among decided voters provincewide is up three percentage points for the last probe poll in March and up six points from the previous poll in December. Tory numbers in Winnipeg are up two points from March and five points from December.

   This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2023