Manitoba·PODCAST

The Pollcast: The impact of the Manitoba leaders' debate

A new poll suggests that Manitoba PC Leader Brian Pallister won last night's leaders' debate, while Liberal Rana Bokhari had the weakest performance. But will it have any impact on the vote? Host Éric Grenier is joined by the CBC's Cameron MacIntosh to break it down.

Host Éric Grenier is joined by the CBC's Cameron MacIntosh

NDP Leader Greg Selinger, left, Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari, Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister and Green Party Leader James Beddome took part in the televised leaders' debate on Tuesday evening. (CBC)

The CBC Pollcast, hosted by CBC poll analyst and ThreeHundredEight.com founder Éric Grenier, explores the world of electoral politics, political polls and the trends they reveal.


Four party leaders faced off in last night's leaders' debate, with just a week to go before Manitoba goes to the polls on April 19. But this late in the campaign, did their performances do anything to move the dial?

Joining host Éric Grenier to discuss what went down in last night's debate is the CBC's Cameron MacIntosh.

A new poll taken just after the debate by Mainstreet Research found that 44 per cent of viewers thought PC Leader Brian Pallister did the better job, followed by NDP Leader Greg Selinger (24 per cent), James Beddome of the Greens (19 per cent) and Liberal Leader Rana Bokhari, with just 4 per cent rating Bokhari as the best performer.

That low score for the Liberal leader may be the most consequential, as the party was already taking a dip in the polls in the latter half of the campaign.

But did Selinger do enough to convince Liberal supporters to vote for his NDP again after more than 16 years in power? Or will Pallister and Beddome see a post-debate bump?

We connect with CBC senior reporter Cameron Macintosh to get an update on the Manitoba provincial election.

Listen to the full discussion above — or subscribe to the CBC Pollcast and listen to past episodes.

You can follow Éric Grenier and Cameron MacIntosh on Twitter.


The poll by Mainstreet Research for Postmedia was conducted on April 12 after the leaders' debate, interviewing 998 adult Manitobans who said they watched the debate via interactive voice response. A probabilistic sample of this size would yield a margin of error of +/- 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.