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Burnaby South’s Jagmeet Singh better hope this poll is dead wrong

Election polls. To journalists, they are dangerous catnip that should be taken with a piece of salt the size of a car battery.
jagmeet singh in house of commons
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh rises for the first time after taking his place in the House of Commons Monday March 18, 2019 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Election polls.

To journalists, they are dangerous catnip that should be taken with a piece of salt the size of a car battery. Who can forget the Vancouver Province newspaper’s horrific headline about how Adrian Dix could kick a dog and still win the B.C. election.

To political parties, they can be terrible even when a poll shows them leading because it can often make supporters complacent about actually showing up to vote.

To the general public, they can be confusing and cause for conspiracy theories when a poll shows the party they support lagging behind.

So, how much stock should people put in election polls? Probably not much, considering how far away we are from the federal election in October. So much can happen between now and then.

And yet, polls are still so intriguing and easy to chew on for what they say at a given moment.

Mario Canseco from Research Co. released this week a new national election poll for Glacier Media, the parent company of the Burnaby NOW. You can read it here.

What I gleaned out of the poll is that Burnaby South MP – and federal NDP Leader - Jagmeet Singh still has a mountain to climb.

I point you to the approval ratings for each leader, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (41%).

Canseco has this to say about Singh’s numbers: “NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh holds similar numbers to (Conservative leader Andrew) Scheer (35%) but remains a mystery for 23% of Canadians. Singh’s complications are primarily generational. He goes from an approval high of 46% among Canadians aged 18 to 34 to 27% among those aged 55 and over. While 46% of millennials currently approve of Singh, only 17% of them are willing to give the NDP their vote right now.”

That’s not great news for Singh to remain a “mystery” for that many people. Now, NDP supporters will fire back at me by saying that the Canadian media is to blame for this because they don’t give him enough coverage. I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe it is. If they can show me hard numbers, great, let me know. I’m not an apologist for the national media. All I know is that the NOW has given Singh plenty of coverage.

But clinging to a media conspiracy isn’t a winning election strategy so obviously Singh needs to step things up even more to demystify the Canadian public.

If there is a positive in Canseco’s polling, it might be that it shows the NDP solidly in third place, ahead of the Greens – 17% to 10%. An Ekos poll in June had the party mired in fourth place, so I guess this poll would qualify as good news.

If, of course, you even pay attention to polls.

Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.