Alberta Tories at 34%?

Werner Patels has a post up on Jeffrey Simpson's latest column in the Globe and Mail. In that column, Simpson alleges that the Tories are polling at 34% in Alberta:

Rub your eyes, political junkies, when you read this: The Alberta Conservative Party stands at 34 per cent in the latest public opinion polls. Yes, poll numbers rise and fall. They are just snapshots. But still: only 34 per cent support for Canada's leading political dynasty, the party of Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein.

I left a comment over on Werner's blog regarding the inaccuracy of the column:

In his column, Simpson states that the Alberta Tories are polling at 34%. I have seen no poll that has them that low, and just blogged about this yesterday.

An Ipsos-Reid poll published on June 23 had the Tories at 47%. There was a poll from Leger Marketing last week that put Stelmach's approval rating at 39%, and had the Tories at 34% in Calgary, 37% in Edmonton, and 45% in the rest of the province. That poll was reported in the Calgary Herald.

The Calgary Herald and Leger Marketing rarely get things right. They predicted Dinning was way out front in the PC leadership race, followed by Oberg. The rest, including Ted Morton, were supposedly in the 5% range.

We all know how accurate that prediction turned out to be.

Posted by: The Watcher ¦ July 18, 2007 at 09:48 AM

I, for one, don't buy this 34% nonsense. I think Mr. Simpson is letting his own Liberal bias cloud his reading comprehension.

I would welcome a link to a credible poll that has the Alberta Tories at 34%, and will open comments for this purpose.

Correction: The Calgary Herald poll that I refer to in my comment on Werner's blog as being published "last week", was in fact published on July 3, 2007.