Yukon election poll shows tight race, with NDP trailing

Election night in Yukon now less than a week away is promising to be a real nail-biter, according to a new independent poll.

Whitehorse-based polling company Datapath Systems surveyed 625 Yukonersand found the Yukon Party and Liberal Party to be virtually tied as front-runners, with the NDP close behind.

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The non-commissioned, web-based pollwas conducted between Oct. 15 and Oct. 23, and paid for byDatapathSystems. The company says 479 Whitehorse voters took part, along with146voters who live outside the capital. Participantswereselectedfrom a pool ofrespondentsDatapathhas used in the past.

When asked who they would support for premier, 37 per cent of poll respondents chose Liberal leader Sandy Silver, compared to 34 per cent who preferYukon Party leader DarrellPasloski. Twenty-sevenper cent chose NDP leader Liz Hanson.

The race tightenedeven more at the riding level. When voters were asked who they supported in their own riding, the Yukon Party and the Liberals were in a dead heat, each with34 per cent support. The NDP were also strong contenders, at 29 per cent. The Green Party (running just five candidates, with no chance of forming government) were at three per cent.

DatapathSystemssays if itssurvey was conducted by a "true probability sample process," it would be statisticallyvalid to +/- 3.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Liberals lead in Whitehorse

The poll also found that Liberal support tendedto be stronger in Whitehorse, compared to rural ridings. That's significant, says Datapath pollster Donna Larsen, because a majority of Yukon's ridings (12 of 19) are in Whitehorse. Liberal Party support was at 38 per cent in the capital, withYukon Party support at 31 per cent.

Larsen says another notable finding is that Liberal Party support has actually softened since last year, while Yukon Party support had grown.

A December poll by Datapath found 40 per cent support for the Liberals, and 25 per cent support for the Yukon Party. The gap appears to have closed, Larsen said.

"[Liberals]were benefiting from the Liberal win in the federal election, and enjoying the honeymoon of that, and I guess thehoneymoon's over," she said."The YukonParty's picked back up."

Neither the Yukon Party nor the Liberals have offered official commenton the poll, but NDP leader Liz Hanson issued a statement on Monday saying the poll "cannot be taken seriously."

She says the poll failed to include undecided voters, and that poll results in Yukon ("where sample sizes are small") can be easily skewed.

Economic development, Peel watershedtopissues

Datapath also asked respondents about policy issues, and found that economic development was top of mind for most voters. That was followed by the Peel watershed, fracking and carbon reduction policies, in that order.

It found that Yukon Party supporters are most likely to support resource extraction in the Peel watershed (77 per cent), while NDP supporters are least likely to support it (15 per cent), andLiberal supporttending to be low as well (25 per cent).

When it came to fracking, 68 per cent of Yukon Party supporters were in favour of fracking at some level, compared to 23 per cent of Liberal supporters and 14 per cent of NDP supporters.

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