Key Findings

May 13 2011: Majorities of members believe both Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff should have resigned as party leaders if they were returned with fewer seats.

The majority of members find that Jack Layton would make an acceptable Prime Minister.

Detailed Findings

More than one half of members (57%) believe that Stephen Harper should have resigned if the Conservatives were returned with fewer seats, while the vast majority thinks this of Michael Ignatieff (79%).

If Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are returned with a reduced seat count in another minority government, do you think he should resign as party leader/If Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals are returned with a reduced seat count, do you think he should resign as party leader?

	Harper	Ignatieff
Yes	57%	79%
No	37%	15%
DON’T KNOW	6%	6%

More than one half of members would find Jack Layton an acceptable Prime Minister (54%), although opposition to this notion is very polarized (“not at all acceptable” – 30%).

In the event of a minority Conservative government followed by an opposition-led cooperative government, how acceptable would you find Jack Layton as Prime Minister?

ACCEPTABLE	54%
Very acceptable	28%
Somewhat acceptable	26%
NOT ACCEPTABLE	45%
Not very acceptable	15%
Not at all acceptable	30%
DON’T KNOW	2%

About 3000 CARP Poll™ panel members responded to this poll i between April 29 and May 2. The margin of error for a sample this size is plus or minus 1.8%, 19 times out of 20. That is, if you asked all members of the CARP Poll™ panel the identical questions, their responses would be within 2%, either up or down, of the results shown here, 95% of the time

Keywords: election