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ELECTION 2016: Economy not denting SaskParty poll numbers

Mar 9, 2016 | 4:09 PM

Support for the Saskatchewan Party is largely unaffected by the province’s economic downturn, according to a veteran Saskatchewan pollster. Cam Cooper, principal for Praxis Analystics, presented his firm’s most recent findings Wednesday at a Battlefords Chamber of Commerce event.

“The campaign does matter, the candidates do matter, and things can change,” Cooper said.

“But if you look at the pattern over the four year period, despite whatever’s happened, there hasn’t been much shift in the numbers. They’ve stayed steady.”

The Saskatchewan Outlook survey, conducted in December of 2015, found residents rated the province’s economic performance at 3.27 out of five; down only slightly from 3.65 a year earlier.

Among those who gave an answer to the question, “How would you be most likely to vote,” 63 per cent preferred Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party while twenty-four per cent answered in favour of Cam Broten and the New Democrats.

“What could the NDP do? They’re going to need to find a way to move attention on the economy, which is the big issue,…to (convince the public) that they’re going to be able to do better than the SaskParty has and it doesn’t seem to be there,” Cooper said.

Nearly half of those surveyed rated the government’s performance on the economy a four or five out of five.

“The numbers don’t suggest that people have blamed the SaskParty for the resource price,” Cooper said, adding, “at least not yet.”

Among people who had lived in Saskatchewan at least four years, 48 percent perceived the province’s economy to be doing worse than before, a significant increase from 2014. Yet, Cooper said, they did not blame Wall but instead an economic downturn.

“We’re back a bit, we’re not into the ditch yet, and it doesn’t seem to have attached to the provincial government,” Cooper explained. “They’re going to get some of the blame, but they’re not getting it in a consequential way that shows up in the numbers.”

gsmith@jpbg.ca
Twitter: @smithco