With Parti Québécois members soon to start voting for a new leader, Alexandre Cloutier and Jean-François Lisée find themselves nose-to-nose in support among party supporters, a poll shows.
A quarter of those polled say they have not yet made a choice — meaning it’s currently impossible to say who might win Oct. 7.
Conducted for Le Devoir and the Journal de Montréal, the Léger poll shows Lisée has picked up six percentage points in the last month of the campaign while Cloutier has lost eight percentage points.
According to Léger, Cloutier has 31 per cent of support compared with Lisée who sits at 29 per cent.
Candidate Martine Ouellet has been the loser in the constant Cloutier-Lisée duel losing eight percentage points in a month. Her support is pegged at 12 per cent. She placed third in the 2015 leadership race with 13 per cent.
Trailing way behind is the outsider, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, with three per cent.
“What has emerged is the possibility of Alexandre Cloutier not winning,” Léger pollster Christian Bourque said analyzing the poll. “In the last week a majority of members find themselves re-calculating their options.”
“There are doubts about the Cloutier candidacy.”
Bourque says Lisée has two cards up his sleeve in this the closest leadership race in the party’s history.
Given his political experience, he is seen by 39 per cent of sympathizers as the most apt to tangle with Premier Philippe Couillard. Forty-two per cent of those polled who normally vote for the Coalition Avenir Québec see Lisée as the best potential leader of the opposition which means he might be able to woo them off the CAQ’s political fence.
The other bad news for Cloutier is that some of the people who initially said they supported him now have slipped into the undecided category
On the other hand, 32 per cent of those polled who are faithful to Ouellet, a sovereignist hardliner, indicated they have Cloutier as a second choice.
In fact, it’s clear the second choices of party members are now critical in determining the outcome.
The poll says in the crunch Ouellet will be eliminated on the second round of voting and it will take the second-choice votes to break the tie between Cloutier and Lisée.
Based on current numbers and calculating for second choices, Bourque’s simulation of the outcome would have Cloutier winning with 37 per cent of the vote and Lisée second with 33 per cent.
The internet poll of 991 people who say they vote PQ was conducted from Sept. 26-29. With a sample this size, the margin of error would be 3.1 per cent 19 times out of 20.
The election outcome will actually be determined by card-carrying PQ members. They start voting Wednesday. On their ballots they are asked to make a first, second and third choice.
The outcome of the vote will be announced Friday Oct. 7 at a rally in Lévis across the river from Quebec City. The winner will be the ninth leader in party history.
