Saskatchewan

Vote Compass: Brad Wall most trustworthy, except among undecided

Although people appear to find Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall the most-trustworthy leader, a Vote Compass report holds out a thin reed of hope for the NDP.

Cam Broten holds an edge with undecided voters

Sask. Party leader Brad Wall (l) is considered generally more trustworthy than NDP leader Cam Broten, but Broten has an edge with undecided voters, according to Vote Compass. (CBC/SRC)

Although people appear to find Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall the most-trustworthy leader, a Vote Compass report holds out a thin reed of hope for the NDP.

And that's undecided voters, according to the latest report from Vote Compass, which is CBC News' civic engagement tool.

The report says that Saskatchewan people rated the Sask. Party leader 6.1 out of 10 on trustworthiness, compared to 4.1 for the NDP's Cam Broten, 3.2 for the Green Party's Victor Lau and 2.8 for Liberal Party leader Darrin Lamoureaux.

"Brad Wall leads the pack in evaluations of both competence and trustworthiness and also commands more support from Saskatchewan Party voters than do any of the other leaders from their respective bases," said Greg Kerr, research manager for Vox Pop Labs, which created Vote Compass for CBC News.

"This is noteworthy, as incumbents typically lead in evaluations of competence, but fall behind in perceptions of trustworthiness."

Sask. Party supporters give Wall sky-high marks

The findings are based on 8,880 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from March 7 to March 21. The data doesn't include people who contributed after Wednesday night's debate between Wall and Broten.

Saskatchewan Party supporters are far more skeptical of the other party leaders than are Liberal, Green and NDP voters.Greg Kerr,. Vox Pop Labs

People who consider themselves Sask. Party supporters rated Wall 8.8, considerably higher the numbers given by supporters of other parties to their leaders.

Hope for the NDP?

If there's a silver lining for the NDP, it might be that undecided voters rate Broten slightly higher on trustworthiness than Wall: 5.3 versus 5.

Meanwhile, on another measure of leaders — competence — the news is mostly bad for Broten. Even undecided voters believe Wall is more competent.

Cam Broten lags behind Brad Wall in perceptions of competence, a Vote Compass report says. (CBC)

The overall result mirrors the result for trustworthiness. People believe Wall is most competent (6.6), followed by Broten (4.2), Lau (3.0) and Lamoureaux (2.8).

Again, the rock-solid support of Sask. Party supporters for Wall — and their apparent distaste for his rivals — buoys Wall's results.

"Saskatchewan Party supporters are far more skeptical of the other party leaders than are Liberal, Green and NDP voters, who are, on average, more generous in their evaluations across the board," Kerr said.


About Vote Compass

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in Canada exclusively by CBC News. The findings are based on 8,880 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from March 7 to March 21, 2016. Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected.

Similar to opinion polls, however, the data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample. Vote Compass data have been weighted by geography, gender, age, educational attainment, occupation, and religion to ensure the sample's composition reflects that of the actual population of Saskatchewan according to census data and other population estimates.