Liberal support continues to drop: poll

Support for the provincial Liberals and leader Dwight Ball continues to slide across Newfoundland and Labrador, suggests a new poll.

• Dwight Ball, Liberals take knock in new post-budget opinion poll

In MQO'slatest Atlantic Matters report, 30 per cent of respondents said the governing Liberals would be the party they would most likely vote for, down from 37 per cent in April, and nearly half the 57.2 per cent of the popular vote the Liberals had in November's election.

The Progressive Conservatives flipped those numbers, as they were the choice of 37 per cent of voters in the most recent poll, up from 30 per cent in April.

The NDP see a slight uptick, favoured by 33 per cent of respondents, up from 31 per cent in April.

The newest poll also outlines troubling numbers for Premier Dwight Ball.

Eighty-five per cent of respondents, asked to rate his overall leadership out of 10, give Ball a score of one to five, up from 74 per cent in April.

Just five per cent of respondents would give him a rating of eight to 10, down from nine per cent in April.

General outlook improves

But Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are a little more optimistic in the new poll or at least less pessimistic.

In April, a total of 86 per cent of respondents thought the general outlook of the province had been getting "a lot worse" (48 per cent) or "worse" (38 per cent). In the new poll, the total has dropped to 71 per cent for "a lot worse" (27 per cent) or "worse " (44 per cent).

On the other end of the spectrum, 21 per cent think the province's prospects look "about the same," up from 11 per cent in April.

Five per cent,compared with two per cent in April, nowthink the general outlook has been getting "better," and "a lot better" held steady with one per cent of respondents in each poll.

The poll, whichincluded 600 randomly selected voters from across the province,was conducted from July 14 to July 27.

The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points,19 times out of 20.