COVID takes a back seat as voters focus on affordability, health care ahead of Ontario election: poll

Handling COVID-19 took the back seat with many voters saying ability to pay and health care is the most important thing before election day, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted for Global News.

The poll indicates that healthcare is the most important issue on voters’ minds while affordability is driving voter choice.

“What we see in the vote is that while the NDP has a pretty good lead on health care, even though it’s the most important issue, it’s not the one that drives voting in the campaign. this election,” said Ipsos CEO Darrell Bricker.

“What we are seeing is a basket of economic issues, particularly related to affordability, that are really concerning to voters right now. And that’s where the Premier Ford does particularly well. And even if he’s not leading on a particular affordability issue, he’s at least competitive. So if (the election) is about economics, it tends to favor the Radical Conservatives. ”

The poll found that 38% of Ontarians say health care is the most important factor in determining their choices, a figure up 7% from the previous month.

Followed by 32% think it is most important to help with the cost of daily necessities (up 10%), 23% think helping to make housing more affordable for the middle class middle class is the most important (up two percent); 21% said the economy and jobs (up 4%), and 10% said the economy recovered from the pandemic (up 4%).

Meanwhile, the handling of COVID-19 was the most important issue for 13% of voters, which is a drop of 12%. Dealing with the health backlog from the pandemic was most important for 8%, which is down 3 points from the previous month.

“What we’re seeing with COVID is that it’s really diminishing as a problem. And the reason for that is that people are basically used to living with it. They are tired,” said Bricker.

“They really couldn’t go any further and the sense of dread, absolute fear that they had a few years ago when we started this pandemic doesn’t exist to the same extent. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about it. But in terms of priorities in this election campaign, it’s not that big of a priority.”

Ipsos said affordability was a key issue for the campaign, with 71% of voters agreeing they would vote for the party with the best plan to improve the lives of the middle class.

More than half of Ontarians – 54% – believe it’s hard for people like them to get ahead.

The poll also found that only 50% of Ontarians believe party leaders are talking about the issues most important to them, which seems to foster skepticism reflected in the increased confidence of the party. voters that no single party is best suited to deal with different issues. problem.

Among the campaign’s top 10 issues, PCs have lost some ground on affordability issues, but they’re still leading the others in terms of helping with everyday expenses, lowering taxes, the background. economy, jobs and lower energy costs.

NDP leads in healthcare, helps to make housing more affordable, creates affordable housing and social welfare.

Meanwhile, the Liberals lead on one issue: the handling of COVID-19.

The Greens also lead on one issue, which is addressing climate change.

“Unless something really unexpected happens – and this is something the opposition parties will not cause, but what progressive conservatives will do to themselves – unless something that analogy really comes out and shocks and it basically wakes people up or forces Bricker to speak.

“This is really a voter campaign when it comes to pockets, mostly about affordability. And on that set of issues, the Radical Conservatives are particularly well positioned. The conventional progressive agenda doesn’t really resonate with voters right now. “

Bricker said that if the NDP positioned itself as the best party to tackle healthcare as opposed to the Liberal Party, they could be in a stronger position, but it wouldn’t be enough to get rid of the PC.

“If they can get over that message and present themselves as the real alternative to that question, that will give them, as the incumbent official opposition, a position stronger. But beyond that, (there really isn’t) something that will drag the Radical Conservatives down at this stage,” he said.

Methodology: These are some of the findings of a poll conducted by Ipsos from May 17 to 19, 2022, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of n = 1501 Ontarians 18 years of age and older were interviewed online (n = 1001 through the source of the I-Say panel and not the Ipsos panel. ) and by direct telephone interview of the operator (n = 500 via landline and mobile). Online respondents earn a nominal incentive for their participation. Quotas and weights are used for demographic equalization to ensure that the composition of the sample reflects the composition of the adult population according to the Census data and to provide results that are approximate to the sample universe. . The accuracy of Ipsos polls including non-probability sampling is measured with confidence intervals. In this case, the poll was accurate to within ±2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, all Ontarians were polled. Confidence intervals will be wider between subsets of the population. All sample surveys and probes may have other sources of error, including, but not limited to, range and measurement errors.