MQO Research – one of Atlantic Canada’s leading market research firms – spoke with 600 residents of Newfoundland and Labrador to gauge political inclinations and sentiments in the province, for the October edition of their quarterly political poll: Atlantic Matters.

According to the latest polling numbers, support for the Liberals “jumped significantly in October at the expense of the PC Party,” the report reads. Current Liberal support in the province jumped 17 percentage points to 52%, while PC support fell 17% to 31%. The NDP are sitting steady at 15% approval.

It’s almost hard to believe the results, given that Dwight Ball began his political career driving to work past posters on streetlights demanding his resignation, and slipping into Confederation Building’s doors through mobs of people protesting one government decision or another.

But these latest poll results imply he’s weathering the storm: they imply that if an election was called today, the Liberals would get back into power, despite that fact that, when asked, “How would you rate the overall leadership of Premier Dwight Ball?,” 66% of people rated him between 1-5 out 10, with an average of 4.6 out of 10. 11% ranked his leadership as between 8-10 out of 10.

Overall, residents reported feeling less pessimistic about the economic outlook for the province in October. Granted the numbers are nothing to celebrate: 45% of people polled, nearly half of them, still say the general economic outlook in Newfoundland and Labrador has been getting worse over the past three months. But that number is down from 56% in July.

Federal Politics

The same Atlantic Matters report asked locals about federal politics as well, revealing facts like “Liberal support jumped 6 percentage points to 70%.” This was at the cost of NDP support dropping 6 percentage points to 8%. Ratings of government performance under Justin Trudeau held relatively steady. On a scale of 1-10, he gets an average of 6.1 out of 10 as leader of the country.