PCs, Liberals tied in popular support, poll finds

The Liberals have jumped into a tie with the Progressive Conservatives in popular support in New Brunswick, according to the latest Corporate Research Associates poll.

The Progressive Conservatives held steady at 38 per cent approval in November but the Liberals saw their support jump to 38 per cent from 32 per cent in August.

The New Democratic Party saw its support fall to 19 per cent from 24 per cent, according to the CRA poll.

The poll results show the Liberals received a bounce in popular support coming out of the party's convention inOctoberthat elected Brian Gallant as the party's new leader.

Greg Byrne, the party's interim director, said the poll results are good news but the Liberals are not putting too much emphasis on the results.

"Well, the numbers are certainly encouraging. Any poll is a snapshot in time, but having just elected a new leader, those are very encouraging numbers," Byrne said.

The number of undecided people in the survey dropped to 40 per cent in November from 44 per cent in the previous survey.

This is the first time since August 2010the Progressive Conservatives have not led in a CRA poll. The Liberals held a small advantage at the start of the 2010 election campaign.

However, the Liberals lost that election and became the first New Brunswick government to be booted out after only one term.

The Alward government saw its approval rating hold stable in the last three months.

The poll shows 46 per cent of respondents are completely or mostly satisfied with the Alward government's performance opposed to 49 per cent who are completely or mostly dissatisfied.

A year ago, the Alward government's approval rating was 57 per cent.

Gallant tied with Alward for best premier

Gallant also had a strong debut in the quarterly political poll.

The newly-elected Liberal leader and David Alward each drew the support of 29 per cent of respondents when they were asked who was the best person to be premier.

Alwards approval rating dropped to 29 per cent from 33 per cent.

This is the first survey that asked New Brunswickers about their approval of Gallant.

NDP Leader Dominic Cardy saw his support level drop to 11 per cent from 15 per cent.

Green Party Leader David Coon was picked as the best person to be premier by five per cent of respondents.

Gallant was not the only new leader included in the poll. Coon, who has been a high-profile environmentalist in the province for decades, was elected as the leader of the Greens this fall.

Corporate Research Associations polled 400 people between Nov. 13 and Dec. 1. The survey has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.