Commuters are more likely to say they will vote on Oct. 21, and those who drive to work indicated they are much more likely to vote for the Conservative Party, says a new Ipsos poll.

The poll was conducted exclusively for Global News between Sept. 27 and 30 among 1,489 Canadians — including 447 commuters who drive or use public transit to travel at least 10 kilometres to work one way.

The poll found that half of working Canadians surveyed use a car or public transit to travel 10 kilometres or more to work one way.

Among these commuters, the poll found a major difference in terms of who they would vote for on election day.

Close to half (44 per cent) of those who trek at least 10 kilometres to work one way — by car or public transit — would vote Conservative if an election were held tomorrow, while 31 per cent would vote Liberal.

“If you look at commuters overall, the Conservatives have a bit of a 13-point lead with them,” said Darrell Bricker, president of Ipsos.

“If you look at car commuters in particular, the Conservatives lead by about 20 points.”

People who commute by car make up “the largest group of commuters by a considerable margin,” he said.

In numerous suburban ridings across Canada, the Liberals and Conservatives are in a close race or simply tied with each other.

“But one group that they’re not tied with are people who commute with their cars,” Bricker pointed out. “If you commute by car, [you’re] more likely to be voting Conservative than just about any other population group.”

Disregarding the length of their commute, almost half of respondents who drive to work said they’re likely to vote Conservative, compared to a quarter (26 per cent) who chose Liberal.

“So if you want to find a Conservative voter, look for somebody in a traffic jam on a highway,” Bricker said. “If you want to find somebody who’s a Liberal voter, look for somebody who’s on a train or some other form of public transportation.”

Commuters are “critical” to this election campaign, he said, because the fastest-growing places in Canada are “all commuter communities.”

When it comes to transit users, the tables are turned. 

“People who take public transit interestingly enough, even though they do commute just like people in cars, are much more likely to vote Liberal,” Bricker noted. 

More than half (53 per cent) of those who use public transit to get to work, regardless of distance, indicated they would likely vote Liberal. Only a quarter (25 per cent) lean towards the Conservative Party. 

But the poll stressed that more commuters (72 per cent) use cars than public transit (17 per cent). And the more time they spend on the roads, the more likely they are to vote Conservative. 

A breakdown showed that 53 per cent of commuters travelling more than 50 kilometres to work intended to vote Conservative, compared to 21 per cent leaning Liberal and 10 per cent leaning towards the NDP. 

Among those travelling 25 to 49 kilometres to work, support for the Tories holds steady and dips only by a few points, as 47 per cent said they lean Conservative, whereas 36 per cent said they intend on voting Liberal.

Among those who commute between one and nine kilometres, a third (32 per cent) intended to vote Tory, while 40 per cent leaned Liberal. 

“The further away that you get, the longer the commute, the higher support for the Conservatives,” Bricker said. 

The poll also asked respondents for their thoughts on Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. More than half (58 per cent) of those travelling at least 10 kilometres one way for work said they disapprove of the current government’s performance. That disapproval intensifies among drivers — 62 per cent of this group indicated they were not happy with the government’s performance.

On the flip side, 62 per cent of those travelling 10 kilometres or more on public transit indicated their approval of the Trudeau government.

More interestingly, people who travel to work by car or public transit (64 per cent) indicated they are more likely to vote on election day than those without a commute (50 per cent). Commuters seem to be “more invigorated” by the election campaign,” Bricker said.

Once people are no longer renting and they’re owning homes and staying in one place, they “tend to get more invested in the political process there,” he explained.

The poll showed that the issues that matter to commuters more or less reflect the issues that the rest of Canada cares about: a third (33 per cent) of commuters picked health care, another third (32 per cent) picked climate change, and one in four (25 per cent) indicated the economy, when asked what matters the most in determining their vote.

“People who feel that a carbon tax would disproportionately impact them are people who commute by car,” Bricker said.

“So when they think about climate change, they don’t just think about what’s happening to our environment. They also think about what’s happening to their pocketbooks.”

The poll indicates that most commuters live in urban regions with large populations. Public transit commuters are entirely urban, since rural commuters say they either drive (82 per cent) or carpool (15 per cent). Transit is particularly popular in Ontario, with 23 per cent of commuters indicating they use it, and Quebec (17 per cent).

Alberta and Saskatchewan have the most drivers, with 80 per cent of commuters there saying they use a car to get to work.

In Ontario, there are more people covering long distances to go to work, with 44 per cent of commuters reporting a commute length of 50 kilometres or more.

The full data for this poll can be found here.

Exclusive Global News Ipsos polls are protected by copyright. The information and/or data may only be rebroadcast or republished with full and proper credit and attribution to “Global News Ipsos.” This poll was conducted between September 27 and 30, 2019, with a sample of 1,489 Canadians from Ipsos’ online panel, including 719 commuters and 447 commuters who travel a minimum of 10 kilometres one way by car or public transit. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. The credibility interval for n = 719 commuters is ± 4.2 percentage points, and for n = 447 commuters who travel at least 10 km one way by car or public transit, it is ± 5.3 percentage points. This poll is accurate to within +/- 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled.

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