Premier savouring his lofty approval rating while he can

Opinion

If Premier Wab Kinew is worried about the next election, he’s not letting on.

Kinew was in attendance at a news conference Thursday to announce the completion of a newly paved road in north Winnipeg that serves the Sikh Society of Manitoba’s gurdwara, the largest temple of its kind in the city.

When it came time for questions, Kinew sparred with a Winnipeg Free Press reporter and then claimed he was “having some fun” at the expense of the assembled journalists.

It’s not the first time Kinew has been combative at a news conference. It’s an extension of a vibe that Kinew is giving off right now. A vibe that suggests that even with a ton of challenges facing his government, he is not particularly worried about what will happen in roughly two years when Manitobans head back to the ballot box.

If that’s a fair assessment of the premier’s demeanour, it’s not without supporting evidence. The most recent Probe Research/Free Press polling results suggest Kinew’s NDP government does not, in fact, have much to worry about.

The NDP earned the support of 53 per cent of respondents, down slightly from 57 per cent in a survey conducted in June, but still eight points to the better from the 45 per cent share of the popular vote it received in the 2023 election.

In terms of leader approval, Kinew continues to have the support of a remarkable 63 per cent of all respondents. Again, that’s down slightly from 67 per cent in June but still incredibly robust. In fact, only 28 per cent of respondents disapproved of Kinew’s performance to date, giving him a lofty plus-35 per cent net approval rating.

These are hardly outlier numbers. Approval ratings reported in early September by the Angus Reid Institute had Kinew leading all other premiers, with a 61 per cent approval rating. In other words, Manitoba’s first minister is experiencing a solid and prolonged love-in among voters.

On the other side of the coin, the Progressive Conservatives and their new leader, Obby Khan, continue to be stuck in the mushy middle of support.

The Tories claimed 34 per cent support from respondents, down eight points from the 42 per cent they captured in the 2023 election. On leader approval, 34 per cent of respondents believed Khan was doing a good job, but 39 per cent disapproved of his performance. That’s a net negative-5 points, and it’s a problem for the affable Tory leader.

Put another way, Khan’s personal popularity exactly matches his party’s popularity. That means only the bedrock core of Tory support believes he can become premier; just about everyone else, including voters who move freely between the NDP and Tories, isn’t convinced he’s right for the job.

The Liberals barely register. The Grits have only three per cent support in voting intentions and interim Leader Cindy Lamoureux has a net negative-14 per cent performance rating.

If you were Kinew and you looked at polling numbers like that, wouldn’t you grant yourself the luxury of tussling with a few journalists now and again?

It should be noted there is nothing particularly unique about the support Kinew is garnering at the moment. Most governments that win majority mandates tend to experience fairly robust support throughout their first term. Particularly if their principal opposition was somewhat destroyed when losing the election, a scenario that has befallen Manitoba’s PC party.

The Tories ran a toxic and unsuccessful campaign rife with far-right dog whistles. It took the party a very long time to organize a leadership race after Heather Stefanson stepped down. Her unpopularity was re-enforced in June 2024, when the NDP won the Tuxedo seat that Stefanson vacated when she retired from politics.

The leadership race itself did not provide much of a bump for the party, or for Khan, the winner. The former Winnipeg Blue Bomber got fewer votes but won more points than his opponent in a complicated leadership process. The optics were not good, and Khan followed up his asterisk-worthy win with an extremely low-key summer that did not see him build much in the way of profile with voters.

Will the tide of public support change before the next election, which must be held by October 2027? It’s unlikely, even if — as they have been doing during their first two years — the New Democrats cannot live up to some of their larger 2023 campaign promises.

There’s always a chance an issue will arise to shuffle the deck of voting intentions. Scandal, egregious fiscal missteps or even a new existential threat such as COVID-19 can throw long-standing electoral trends into a tailspin.

That means Kinew is free to be as playful or as prickly as he wants with journalists until someone tells him he is facing more of a clear and present challenge to his government’s ability to win an election.

And then, as most leaders of incumbent governments tend to do when they are threatened, he will quickly make nice.

» Dan Lett is a Winnipeg Free Press columnist.