The Greta effect? Nanos survey suggests young voters turning on Trudeau

Ryan Flanagan CTVNews.ca Writer  @flanaganryan | Contact

Support for Justin Trudeau among young voters appears to have plummeted in the wake of the Liberal leader’s meeting with teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg and the release of his party’s platform.

Polling data from Nanos Research shows that the proportion of voters aged 18 to 29 who cite Trudeau as their preferred prime minister fell from nearly 35 per cent to a little more than 24 per cent within 24 hours.

“If you’re a Liberal, you’ve got to be very nervous,” pollster Nik Nanos said Monday on CTV’s Trend Line podcast.

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The poll, which was commissioned by CTV News and The Globe and Mail and based on data collected between Sept. 27 and Sept. 29, found no clear beneficiary to the drop in youth support for Trudeau.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier all saw slight increases in their support in this category, while the number of respondents saying they were unsure rose by four percentage points. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh saw a decline in youth support of about one-eighth of a percentage point.

“I think we’re going to call this the Greta Thunberg effect,” Nanos aid.

Despite the drop, Trudeau’s youth popularity remains higher than it did in the days immediately following the release of images showing him in blackface and brownface.