Manitoba Progressive Conservatives holding on to lead: poll

The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives still have the most support among voters in the provincial election campaign, according to a new poll, although they are tied with the NDP within vote-rich Winnipeg.

A Probe Research poll released Saturday, commissioned by the Winnipeg Free Press and CTV Winnipeg, found that 40 per cent of decided and leaning voters say they plan to vote for the PCs, while 29 said they plan to vote NDP, 18 per cent for the Liberals and 10 per cent for the Green Party.

Those numbers were comparable to June polling, which found 42 per cent support for the PCs, 26 per cent for the NDP, 16 for the Liberals and 14 per cent for the Greens.

The online survey, conducted from Aug. 13 to 24, asked 1,200 Manitobans who they planned to vote for in the Sept. 10 election. Because the respondents were selected from a proprietary online panel, a margin of error cannot be determined, but a survey of a similar size would have a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. 

Within Winnipeg, the PCs and NDP are in a dead heat, the poll suggests, with roughly a third of voters planning to cast ballots for either party (33 per cent PC, 32 per cent NDP). 

The Liberals, meanwhile, have the support of about 21 per cent of Winnipeg voters, with 12 per cent supporting the Greens, according to the poll.

Voters in the northeast and northwest areas of the city are split roughly evenly between the NDP and PCs, while the PCs have a lead among voters in the southeast (41 per cent compared with 29 per cent for the NDP).

The PCs and Liberals are tied in southwest Winnipeg, while the NDP lead in the core area. 

Outside of Winnipeg, the PCs have the support of half of voters who responded to the poll.

Older voters and men are significantly more likely to vote PC, the poll says, while a slight majority of women also plan to vote for the Tories. No single party appears to have a lock on younger voters between the ages of 18-34, with support distributed more or less evenly across the four major parties.

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A separate poll conducted by Research Co. found similar numbers for party support.

But when respondents to that poll were asked about party leaders, PC Leader Brian Pallister had a nearly two-to-one margin over NDP Leader Wab Kinew as the person favoured as the next premier of Manitoba.

Thirty-one per cent of respondents favoured Pallister, with 17 per cent favouring Kinew. 

That poll was done between Aug. 27 and 29 among 586 Manitobans, with a margin of error of four percentage points.

See the full Probe Research poll results:

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