Undecideds hold strong lead in P.E.I. political poll

As P.E.I. officially enters the political season, the story of the next few months may be the large number of undecided voters.

A poll released Thursday by MQO Research, the same day the P.E.I. government announced the beginning of the electoral reform referendum campaign period, show the top three parties on the Island in a very close race among decided and leaning voters.

• Green: 34%
• Liberal: 33%
• PC: 28%
• NDP: 2%

The margin of error for decided voters was 6.3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

MQO reached 400 Islanders by telephone from Jan. 21-27 for the poll. There wasn't much movement from their fall poll for the top parties, with the Greens and Liberals each up two percentage points and the Progressive Conservativesdown two. It was a disappointing poll for the NDP, whichdropped five percentage points.

The poll was conducted during the PCs leadership campaign. Current leader James Aylwardannounced his resignation in September, but will remain in the job until a new leader is chosen Feb. 9.

The strongest showing in the poll came from those who said they were undecided or would not express a preference. That group move up four percentage points to 39 per cent of the 400 people reached.

Put another way, almost twice as many Islanders polled were undecided as expressed an interest in any party.

The margin of error for the poll overall was 4.9 percentage points.

The latest poll from Corporate Research Associates, done in November, also showed an increasing number of undecided voters.

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