Edmonton Riverbend: Conservatives Lead by 5
December 5 (Toronto, ON) – A new Liaison Strategies riding poll for the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada shows the Conservatives maintaining a narrow lead in Edmonton Riverbend - the riding where Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux has announced he will resign. Today’s release is the fourth in a series of daily riding polls Liaison published this week following polls of Acadie—Annapolis, Vancouver Kingsway and Eglinton—Lawrence.
Conducted from November 28 to 30, 2025, using Interactive Voice Response (IVR), the survey polled 614 voters in Edmonton Riverbend. The margin of error is ±3.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Liaison Strategies is one of the most accurate polling firms in Canada. It ranked #1 in accuracy in the 2025 Ontario election and #2 nationally in the 2025 federal election. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC).
David Valentin, Principal at Liaison Strategies said:
All week we’ve been drilling down into individual ridings to see how the national numbers actually play out on the ground. We’re wrapping up with Edmonton Riverbend, where MP Matt Jeneroux has announced he’s stepping down following rumours of a floor crossing amidst reported conversations with the Prime Minister.
With Jeneroux signalling his intention to resign, the riding is headed for a by-election - unless a snap general election comes first. In 2021, the Conservatives won here by more than 3,000 votes, so it wasn’t especially close. But the Liberals did surge, gaining nearly 20 points compared to the previous election, largely by squeezing the NDP vote.
Our poll of Edmonton Riverbend suggests very little has shifted: the results line up almost exactly with the last election. With a margin of error of ±3.9 percentage points, you could make the case this ends up as a tight race or that the Conservatives still win comfortably - I’ll let you draw your own conclusion.
A couple of notes on methodology. In the other riding polls this week, we used local candidate names. That wasn’t workable here: Matt Jeneroux has said he’s stepping down, and there isn’t an obvious Conservative successor to test. So instead of pairing parties with local candidates, we tested parties and leaders only (for example, Liberals under Mark Carney, Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre). In other words, this is a generic ballot test.
A five-point spread is still a competitive race. We’d expect both the Liberals and Conservatives to work hard to recruit strong local candidates for a by-election, and whoever they choose - their profile, name recognition, and favourability - will almost certainly move these numbers, for better or worse.
If you look at the tables in the report, you’ll see the Liberals are struggling with voters under 50 (just 25% among those 18–34) but performing very strongly with those 65 and older (60% support). For the Conservatives, the pattern is essentially reversed.
Of all the ridings we tested this week, Edmonton Riverbend is the only one where the Prime Minister’s approval rating is net negative. In every other riding he’s still above water - but not here. Even so, the numbers are within the poll's margin of error and it is only a minor net disapproval (-2).
There’s still lots of time to game out what might happen in Edmonton Riverbend - the clock doesn’t really start until Jeneroux formally resigns and a by-election timeline is set. For now, it’s worth watching who the major parties recruit. With the Liberals hovering just shy of a majority, flipping Riverbend could have big consequences.
Detailed Poll Report:
About Liaison Strategies
Liaison Strategies is a national public opinion research firm. With 12 years of experience in Canadian polling, David Valentin, principal, has fielded hundreds of projects at the municipal, provincial and federal levels and appeared across Canadian media to discuss insights. Liaison is a member of the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC), Canada’s voice of the research, analytics, and insights profession both domestically and globally.
About the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada
The National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and integrate economic, social and cultural interests of Ethnic communities into the mainstream of Canadian society. NEPMCC represents Canada’s Ethnic Press to the provincial and federal governments and is the major industry association for Canada’s non-official language newspapers, TV, radio and online outlets.