Mustel poll puts NDP down by 17 points

Wow!  It is not time for Premier Campbell to break open the chapmpagne quite yet but a 17 point lead sure must put a bounce in his step as he heads out on the campaign trail.  As for Carol James and her candidates all I can say is British Columbians do not seem to have an appitite for your socialist policies! 

I expect those numbers will converge as May 12th gets closer but I cannot remember a time in BC where any party has overcome a 17% gap over the writ period.  The funny thing is that British Columbians are not exactly in love with the Liberals so they must REALLY fear the NDP to put them so far behing the 8 ball.

The economy and crime appear to be the key ballot issues according to voters polled and those, combined with the weak leadership of Carol James, are almost a perfect storm for the Premier Campbell and BC Liberals.  I expect we will see a real contrast between the approach coming from the 2 camps....the Liberals will be positive and upbeat while the NDP will go heavily negative.  This approach, I forcast, will not work as British Columbians are not in the mood to hear the NDP personally bash Gordon Campbell at a time when we all need some positivity from our political leaders. 

While no government is ever without mistakes the BC Liberals have, for the most part, done a good job of keeping British Columbia on the right path.  The boost we will get from the Olympics, road infrastructure building, increases in health care spending and focusing on getting tough with criminals reflect the priorities of average BC voters and I predict they will be rewarded on May 12th with another term as our government in Victoria.

Mustel conducted a poll from April 1 to April 7, and their polling was very similar to their previous poll (conducted February 2 to 10). The sample size is rather small - 483 voters, with 21% undecided (so effectively 382 polled had answers).

A copy of the poll results are here (Mustel copy, local copy)

The results for the April poll are the following:
BC Liberal - 52%
NDP - 35%
Green - 12%
Other - 1%

The rest of the poll does not contain surprising information - people think the BC Liberals are better on the economy, the NDP somewhat better with health and education (and much better on housing/homelessness), and the Greens best on the environment. The leaders’ approval ratings are both slightly more positive than they were from the previous poll. The economy is the prevalent issue (38%) with 12% interested in crime. This is consistent with other pollsters’ polling.

The sample size, however, makes the preceding paragraph like interpreting “white noise”.

Still, this poll should be disturbing to the NDP - even if you apply the 4.5% error as favourably as possible to them, it would imply a 47% to 40% victory for the BC Liberals.

This poll is also completely at odds with the Angus Reid Strategies poll of March 20-22. One or both of these pollsters are going to be incorrect and it will be interesting to see which one.

Finally, thanks to BJ for pointing out this poll. I’m beginning to suspect he has one of those brain implants which gives him a direct feed into Google News and the rest of the internet.