Majority (54%) of Albertans Believe Minority Government would be Best Election Outcome for Alberta, But No Consensus on Who Should Lead

Toronto, ON - A majority (54%) of Albertans believe that a minority government would be the best election outcome for the province, according to a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted exclusively for Global News and Corus Entertainment. Fewer than half (45%) believe that a majority government is in Alberta's best interest, while 1% doesn't know. In terms of who should lead the best government for the province, Albertans are nowhere near a consensus.

Thinking specifically about which party should lead the minority government that 54% of Albertans think is the best outcome for the province...

• 19% believe the NDP should lead the minority government
• 16% believe the PCs should lead the minority government
• 15% believe the Wildrose should lead the minority government
• 3% think the Liberals should lead the minority government
• 1% thinks the Alberta Party should lead the minority government

Focusing on the 45% who think a majority government is the best outcome...

• 16% believe the PCs should lead a majority government
• 13% believe the NDP should lead a majority government
• 9% believe the Wildrose should lead a majority government
• 5% think the Liberals should lead a majority government
• 2% think the Alberta Party should lead a majority government

Two percent (2%) of Albertans don't know which outcome, specifically, is best for the province.

Interestingly, while an Ipsos poll released yesterday reveals that the NDP (37%) appears to have a strong lead over the Wildrose (26%), PCs (24%), the Liberals (9%) and the Alberta Party (3%), the scenarios above combine to show that 32% think that a PC government is best for Alberta, the same percentage (32%) who believe an NDP government is best, compared to 24% who think a Wildrose government is best for the province, 8% the Liberals and 3% the Alberta Party.

In fact, while most (93%) PC voters think a PC government is best for the province, only 80% of Wildrose voters and 78% of NDP believe that those respective parties would make the best government for Alberta. This suggests that many are in fact not voting for the party they want to win or like the best, but to stop another from winning or because they feel they have no other choice.

On this point, the data reveal that two in ten (18%) Albertans are `holding their nose' while voting, saying that while they don't like a party or a leader, they're voting for them anyway. Most (80%) though are voting `for a party or leader because it is the right thing to do'. PC voters are the most likely (26%) to say they're holding their nose while voting, while a significant proportion of Wildrose (20%), Alberta Party (17%), NDP (14%) and Liberal Party (11%) voters are doing the same.

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between April 27th and 29th, 2015 on behalf of Global News and Corus Entertainment. For this survey, a sample of 761 adults living in Alberta was interviewed. 301 interviews were conducted by live operator telephone interviewing (including 20% cellphone sample), and 460 interviews were online from the Ipsos I-Say panel. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of polls where online interviewing was employed is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ - 4.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Albertan adults been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Jamie Duncan
Vice President
Ipsos Public Affairs
(403) 969-3235
[email protected]

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