Blaine Higgs has hit an all-time low for voter approval. Here's why he could still win another election

Premier Blaine Higgs may be setting new records for his own unpopularity, but the weakness of his opponents means he's not necessarily heading for an inevitable electoral defeat in 2024.

The premier had a 25 per cent approval rating in an Angus Reid Institute voter survey released this week that measured the standing of all provincial premiers.

Higgs was tied for least popular premier in Canada with Manitoba's Heather Stefanson.

It's also his lowest score in the Angus Reid survey since he took office in November 2018.

But that result comes on the heels of a Narrative Research poll that had Higgs's Progressive Conservatives bouncing back into the lead — albeit a narrow one — in voting intentions over the Liberals.

"I don't think the two numbers are necessarily contradictory," said polling expert Éric Grenier of The Writ newsletter and podcast.

"I think it does show more Blaine Higgs's own personal numbers that aren't that strong, but that the government's numbers might be a little bit better than they were last year." 

In the last Narrative poll last fall — when public anger about a plan to replace French immersion was building — the Liberals led the PCs 39 per cent to 30.

A poll commissioned by the pro-immersion group Canadian Parents for French, using a different polling firm and methodology, was even worse for the Tories, with a 40-22 lead for the Liberals. 

But the government abandoned the plan in February, while Narrative was conducting its latest poll.

The result: the PCs have a narrow lead of 37 to 35.

Margin of error is wide

With a margin of error of plus or minus six percentage points, that's a statistical tie — but still an improvement for the PCs. It's their first lead in a Narrative poll since February 2022.

And while Higgs's own popularity is in the basement with the Angus Reid survey, the Narrative numbers on voting intentions are a closer reflection of the decision New Brunswickers will make in the ballot box.

Even Narrative shows high dissatisfaction with Higgs and more respondents wanting Liberal leader Susan Holt as premier — despite the PC party leading on which party people would cast ballots for.

"In the end people, when they have to make a voting choice, they have to choose between the alternatives," Grenier says, "so it's not just a binary 'do I like this leader or not?'"

Higgs has yet to reveal whether he plans to lead the party into the next election campaign int the fall of 2024.

Holt turned down an interview request, but party executive director Hannah Fulton Johnston said in an emailed statement the two polls are snapshots in time.

"They give us a vague sense of how a segment of the population is feeling, but as we can see between these two polls, they can vary based on the timing, current issues, and other factors," she said.

The poll showing Higgs's low popularity "certainly reflects what we're hearing from people when we're out in the communities," she added.

Green strength seen as a problem for Liberals

One quandary for Liberals is the Green Party, which has been polling consistently from the mid-teens to the low 20s over several quarterly Narrative surveys.

In the latest one, the Greens had the support of 17 per cent of respondents while the NDP had nine.

"That alternative vote to the PCs is not coalescing enough around the Liberals," Grenier said.

"The Greens certainly are one of the factors that are a bit of a problem for the Liberals."

Saint John city councillor Brent Harris is among the progressive voters who gave the Liberals a look over the last year, only to back off and return to the Greens.

"I'd rather run with my friends that I trust again, for the Greens let's say, than lose with people who are just trying to court the status quo," said Harris, who ran for the Greens in Saint John Harbour in the 2020 provincial election.

The party, including leader David Coon, was open to his policy ideas on addressing housing issues in the city.

But during the Liberal leadership race last year, he was contacted by candidate T.J. Harvey for advice on some of those same issues. 

Harris decided to vote for Harvey in the race and to rank Susan Holt, the eventual winner, second.

He saw it as a compromise but one worth making to advance his ideas.

"There was some cognitive dissonance there, but being on council, one of the lessons you learn is if you want to die on every hill, be prepared to make nothing happen." 

'A symptom of a democratic deficit'

Since then, however, Harris has concluded that the Liberals aren't willing enough to bring new voices with new ideas into the party. 

"How are they trying to grow the participation? Because that shrinking participation is a symptom of a democratic deficit." 

He says the "forced conformity and compliance" of the PCs and Liberals is contributing to growing disenchantment with government and feeding the kind of cynicism that leads to protests like the trucker convoy or the insurrection in Washington.

"I will run and lose if I have to, to make that point, to say we need people who are going to be  willing to put their name on something, even if it is a lost cause, to at least give us a sense of what the alternatives are," he said.

Grenier says reluctant left-of-centre voters aren't the only challenge for the Liberals aiming to unseat Higgs.

The party's support is so concentrated in northern and francophone ridings — about a third of the seats in the province — that they would have a hard time winning a majority even with a healthy lead in the popular vote.

That also means even a slim PC lead in the vote would be enough for another Higgs majority.

The PCs had such big winning margins in some southern ridings, especially around Saint John, that even a combined Liberal-Green vote wouldn't be enough to beat them. 

"So for the Liberals, it's not just trying to get other voters to the left of them," Grenier said, "but also getting some voters to the right of them as well."