NATIONAL
[JANUARY 2016; PART A]
METHODOLOGY
Mainstreet surveyed a random sample of 4,937 Canadians by Smart IVR™ on January 15th, 2016. A mixture of landlines and cell phones were surveyed. Margin of error: +/- 1.39%, 19 times out of 20. Party margins of error: Conservative: +/-2.32%; NDP: +/-3.87%; Greens: +/-6.21%; 19 times out of 20. Results were weighed by age and gender based on the 2011 Census.
A2
"Exclusive Mainstreet/Postmedia polls are protected by copyright. The information and/or data may only be rebroadcast or republished with full and proper credit and attribution to “Mainstreet/Postmedia”.
MAKE CANADA GREAT AGAIN? O’LEARY TIED WITH MACKAY
January 18, 2016 (Toronto, ON) – A new Mainstreet/Postmedia poll finds Kevin O’Leary and Peter MacKay tied among
Conservative Party voters in a hypothetical leadership race. The Mainstreet/Postmedia poll has a margin of error of +/- 1.39%, 19 times out of 20.
“Justin Trudeau and the Liberals continue to enjoy a healthy lead with 44% versus the Conservatives under Rona
Ambrose at 32% and the third place NDP under Thomas Mulcair at 16%”, said Quito Maggi, President of Mainstreet Research. “As we begin 2016, the government faces challenging economic factors and global uncertainty as they
prepare for their first budget. With a packed agenda, it will be interesting to see how Canadians react to the budget
and other legislation, certainly for now, Justin Trudeau and this government continue to carry a great deal of goodwill with voters.”
“We asked NDP and Green voters about their current leaders and found most of them quite satisfied with both
Thomas Mulcair and Elizabeth May. Among Green supporters, May's approval is over 84%, with 68% strongly
approving and just 8% disapproving. Only 11% of Green supporters would support a leadership contest to replace
Elizabeth May versus 77% who would not. Thomas Mulcair may be lagging in the polls among all voters, but among
NDP supporters, his approval is over 72%, with 32% strongly approving. However when asked about a leadership race only 48% of NDP supporters are against one. Compared to Elizabeth May’s number of 77% against, it certainly does not mean that it’s an open-and-shut case.“Last but not least, we asked Conservative supporters their opinions on various potential leadership candidates. These
results were most interesting and will continue to be as this race unfolds.”
“Not surprisingly, former PC Leader Peter MacKay leads the pack with the support of 25% among all Conservative
voters. Somewhat surprisingly, none of the other early insider favourites is registering much support with Conservative
voters, including Jason Kenney at just 8%, Lisa Raitt at 4.4%, Maxime Bernier with 4% (21% in Quebec), and Kellie Leitch at 3%.”“Most surprisingly, TV personality and capitalist pundit Kevin O'Leary would get the support of over 23% of Conservative voters, just behind Peter MacKay, and leads MacKay in western Canada (BC, AB and Prairies).”“Kevin O'Leary is an entertaining personality and shameless self-promoter. He has been called the Canadian Donald Trump and follows in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono, Ronald Reagan and other celebrities who
have capitalized on name recognition to enter politics. Should he actually enter the Conservative leadership race there would be support - but whether he actually intends to run is another matter entirely. Certainly he has the potential to
shake-up the race and despite being a newcomer to politics, would be one of the candidates to watch.”
About Mainstreet Research
Mainstreet is a national public research firm. With 20 years of political experience at all three levels of government, President and CEO Quito Maggi is a respected commentator on Canadian public affairs. Differentiated by its large sample sizes, Mainstreet Research has provided accurate snapshots of public opinion, having predicted a majority NDP government in Alberta, a majority Liberal government in British Columbia and a majority Liberal government in Ontario. Mainstreet has been the most accurate polling firm in several by elections and the most recent Toronto mayoral election. Most recently, Mainstreet was the only polling firm to correctly predict a Liberal majority government in the 2015 federal election.
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Available for Interview from Toronto:
Quito Maggi, quito@mainstreetresearch.ca
For more information:
David Valentin, (613) 698-5524 - david@mainstreetresearch.ca
QUITO MAGGI:
Kevin O'Leary is an entertaining personality and shameless self-promoter. He has
been called the Canadian Donald Trump and follows in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Sonny Bono, Ronald Reagan and other celebrities who have capitalized on name recognition to
enter politics.Despite his name recognition due in large part to his bombastic style, his credentials as a serious
political candidate cannot be taken seriously. His most recent publicity stunt revealed a fundamental lack of understanding of the Canadian economy and the entire resource sector on which many Provinces rely. His offer to invest $1 million in the oilsands if premier Notley resigns
was disrespectful, negative, it was ignorant. Although those are sometimes confused as
Conservative values, Conservatives and serious political candidates know that a $1 million investment in the oilsands is irrelevant, where projects scale is in the tens of billions of dollars. Because of Mr. O'Leary's obvious lack of understanding of Alberta's economy. Because of his disrespectful and negative tone which Canadians have clearly rejected in our political discourse. On taking Kevin O'Leary seriously as a political candidate or contestant for the Conservative Leadership, I am out.
DAVID VALENTIN:
Kevin O’Leary sure seems like he could be a jerk - but hey that hasn’t mattered
in the Republican primary in the states!
I don’t think you can chalk up O’Leary’s support to pure name recognition - the favourability
scores for the Conservative candidates shows that people have thought about who he is and with
high recognition for Peter Mackay they are choosing one over the other.O’Leary may not be Canada’s Donald Trump - but he may be able to accomplish something similar in large part because, like Trump, the media hang on to his every word. Would he best the best for the Conservative party? I don’t know. But he could definitely win. It would be exciting. It would be entertaining. I’m in.