{"id":95609,"date":"2017-10-12T18:45:10","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T18:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/the-pollcast-countdown-to-quebecs-election-begins.html"},"modified":"2017-10-12T18:45:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T18:45:10","slug":"the-pollcast-countdown-to-quebecs-election-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/the-pollcast-countdown-to-quebecs-election-begins.html","title":{"rendered":"The Pollcast: Countdown to Quebec&#8217;s election begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">CBC\u00a0Pollcast<\/a>, hosted by CBC poll analyst \u00c9ric Grenier, explores the world of electoral\u00a0politics,\u00a0political polls and the trends they reveal.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>In a little less than one year, Quebecers will go to the polls in what is shaping up to be an election hotly contested by four political parties.<\/p>\n<p>Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard\u00a0shuffled his cabinet on Wednesday to try to give his Liberals their best shot at securing re-election. But after governing the province for 12 of the last 14 years, are the Quebec Liberals running out of steam?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong>Couillard turns to fresh faces in pre-election cabinet shuffle<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>Podcasts: <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Subscribe to the CBC\u00a0Pollcast\u200b<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Polls suggest that the Liberals are still the favourite to win next year&#8217;s election. But after winning the 2014 provincial vote by more than 16 percentage points, the Liberal\u00a0lead has dwindled to just four points. That could send a potentially volatile minority government to Quebec&#8217;s National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois or the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec will prove to be the Liberals&#8217; biggest challenge\u00a0is unclear. The centre-right, federalist CAQ under former PQ cabinet minister Fran\u00e7ois Legault has been the second-ranked party in most polls and pulled off a byelection upset last week in a safe Liberal riding.<\/p>\n<p>But the CAQ\u00a0also appears to have a ceiling, having rarely cracked 30 per cent in the polls.<\/p>\n<p>The PQ has been floundering, its vote eaten away by the sovereigntist, left-wing Qu\u00e9bec Solidaire.<\/p>\n<p>Support for independence has softened in the province and PQ Leader Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lis\u00e9e has accordingly promised not to hold a referendum in the first mandate of a PQ government. Nevertheless, the PQ has not led in any poll in over two years and some surveys put it on track for its worst electoral performance since it was founded.<\/p>\n<p>To help break down the political landscape in Quebec as the countdown to the 2018 election begins,\u00a0Pollcast host \u00c9ric Grenier\u00a0is joined by Christian Bourque, executive vice-president of the polling firm L\u00e9ger.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full discussion above \u2014 or <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">subscribe to the CBC\u00a0Pollcast and listen to past episodes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\u00c9ric Grenier<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Christian Bourque<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/grenier-pollcast-bourque-1.4350557?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CBC\u00a0Pollcast, hosted by CBC poll analyst \u00c9ric Grenier, explores the world of electoral\u00a0politics,\u00a0political polls and the trends they reveal. In a little less than one year, Quebecers will go to the polls in what is shaping up to be an election hotly contested by four political parties. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard\u00a0shuffled his cabinet on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-95609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}