Poilievre heavy favourite among CPC voters: poll

Canadians were asked their opinions of Conservative Party leadership candidates, both declared and undeclared.

The poll found that Jean Charest would start the race with a slight lead in name recognition over the others, and leads in favourability at 16 percent. Veteran MP Pierre Poilievre sits at 15, with former Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown at 11, and Lewis at 8.

Charest and Poilievre both had 21 percent responding with a "negative" perception.

"Among those who would vote Conservative today, Poilievre is viewed far more favourably than Charest. Poilievre has a +22 favourable score compared with -3 for Charest," the poll, by Abacus Data, said.

Charest's Quebec numbers are much different than the rest of the country. "Most know him but almost half have a negative impression," the report says.

Poilievre scores consistently throughout the province except for in Quebec, where he has just 8 percent viewing him positively.

The survey was conducted with 2,000 Canadian adults from Feb. 23 to March 1, 2022. A random sample of panelists were invited to complete the survey from a set of partner panels based on the Lucid exchange platform. These partners are typically double opt-in survey panels, blended to manage out potential skews in the data from a single source.

The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 2.2 percent, 19 times out of 20.

A recent poll by Nanos Research found that the Conservatives have a slight lead over the Liberals, at 32 to 30. The Conservative leadership contest is expected to conclude in September of this year.