According to a poll conducted for the political action group Leadnow, the federal election in Kootenay-Columbia is a neck-and-neck race between the NDP and the Conservatives, with the Liberals and the Greens well back.
The poll, conducted Sept. 18 to 21, shows that among decided voters and voters who said they were leaning toward a particular party, the NDP and the Conservatives each have 37 per cent, the Liberals 15 per cent, and the Greens 11 per cent of the vote. The numbers do not include the four per cent of undecided voters. The poll represents the only riding-specific polling for the Kootenay-Columbia riding so far.
Leadnow does not support a specific party, but the purpose of the poll is nevertheless unabashedly partisan. The group polled 31 ridings across the country that appeared to be swing ridings, hoping to show non-Conservative voters which party was in the best position to defeat the Conservative government.
But the polling itself was done by established polling company Environics, which polled 529 people in Kootenay-Columbia, a sample size that produces a 4.3 per cent margin of error 19 times out of 20.
That is a significant margin in a close race, but Matthew Carroll of Leadnow says the point was to illustrate to the public how close the race is.
“The important thing wasn’t to accurately predict the election,” he told the Star, “but to give people information about which candidate has the best shot at defeating the government.”
The poll also asked whether respondents were voting to re-elect or defeat the Conservatives. The results among the 31 ridings polled: 58 per cent were voting to defeat the Conservatives, 32 per cent to re-elect them and 11 per cent did not know.