Abacus Data Poll: Houston Government More Popular Now Than in November, 50% Approval in a Challenging Time.
April 7, 2025
We’re back with more polling results and analysis from Nova Scotia.
This time, we are sharing recent research on the provincial government’s performance, four months into the Houston government’s second mandate.
For our readers elsewhere in the country, here’s some quick background on Nova Scotia’s recent provincial election and the current political landscape: On November 26th 2024, Bluenosers gave Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives a second mandate, with Houston’s party winning the provincial election by a “landslide” and Claudia Chender’s New Democratic Party unseating Zach Churchill’s Liberals as the Official Opposition. Churchill has since resigned, and Derek Mombourquette is currently serving as the Liberal party’s Interim Leader. In February and March, there was a legislative session with a Throne speech, provincial budget, and various bills passed into law, including legislation designed to drive Nova Scotia’s resource economy and change some government responsibilities and functions. The government’s winter 2025 agenda generated some public support and criticism, making it the right time for us to test opinions about provincial politics again.
The results we are sharing today were collected through our new Nova Scotia omnibus survey with 600 adult Nova Scotians. Clients in Nova Scotia and beyond can now add questions to our Nova Scotia omnibus, giving you the data and insights you need to make good decisions during this uncertain time.
So how are Nova Scotians feeling about provincial politics and the direction of the province this winter? As you’ll see, Tim Houston’s PCs are more popular now than they were at the end of November. Claudia Chender’s NDP have also gained a little bit of ground in recent months, now sitting four points ahead of where they finished the election.
Everything we’ve collected suggests that Nova Scotians are happy with the electoral decisions they made last fall.
Here are the detailed results!
EQUAL NUMBER SAY N.S. HEADED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION AS THE WRONG DIRECTION
What’s the political mood in Nova Scotia right now?
The answer is: Satisfied and dissatisfied.
As our regular readers will know, we often ask right track – wrong track questions in our political polling to see whether respondents think things in the World, Canada, and their home province are headed in the right direction or off on the wrong track.
Right now, as many people think things in Nova Scotia are on the right track (36%) as the wrong track (36%), generating a net neutral on this question.
This balance stands in stark contract to how Nova Scotians are currently feeling about the direction of the country and the World – two other measures where public dissatisfaction far outweighs satisfaction.
Currently, just 10% of Nova Scotians think the World is headed in the right direction, and only 31% think Canada is on track, with much larger proportions thinking things are off-track (77% and 47%, respectively).
HOUSTON PCS HAVE 30 PT LEAD ON VOTE INTENTIONS
While Nova Scotians have complicated feelings about how things in the province are going, support for the Houston PC government remains strong. This is most evident in our measurement of current vote intentions.
When Nova Scotians are asked who they would vote for if a provincial election was held today, Houston’s PCs finish well ahead of the other parties.
Right now, the Houston PCs are at 56%. Chender’s NDP sit at 26%. And Mombourquette’s Liberals are at 13%.
For reference, the PCs earned 53% of the popular vote in the 2024 provincial election. The NDP earned 22% and the Liberals earned 23% of the popular vote.
This means that the governing party is more popular now than they were when Nova Scotians gave them a “supermajority” in the fall.
Chender’s NDP have also gained a little bit of ground in recent months, now sitting four points ahead of where they were in November; and the Liberal vote has bottomed out, making 13% their new floor.
HOUSTON’S PCS FAR AHEAD IN EVERY DEMO
When we slice-and-dice our current provincial vote data by other criteria, the party standings described above all hold.
Houston’s PCs remain far ahead of the other parties in every region of the province and demographic group.
Chender’s NDP finishes second in all segments, with Mombourquette’s Liberals consistently place third.
50% APPROVAL FOR HOUSTON GOVERNMENT IN A CHALLENGING TIME
As we often do in our political polling, we also asked Nova Scotians to rate the recent performance of the Houston government in general and in some specific areas, based on everything they’ve seen and heard in the past few months.
On the big test: Considerably more Nova Scotians approve (50%) than disapprove (22%) of the way that the Houston government is handing things in the province.
This level – 50% overall approval – is another strong result for Premier Houston and his party.
Newly re-elected leaders and parties often experience a softening of goodwill as they start the difficult work of implementing their election promises. That hasn’t happened here.
Larger, domestic and international events (like Justin Trudeau’s resignation and the chaos of the second Trump Presidency) as well as persistent concerns about affordability have also created tremendous anxiety in recent months — giving everybody new things to worry about and making it much harder to govern the province than anyone would have expected six months ago.
Achieving 50% approval is always a good showing (for any government, at any time), but in 2025, it seems like a high watermark.
GOVERNMENT APPROVAL VARIES IN SPECIFIC AREAS
When we dig a bit deeper and ask Nova Scotians how they think the Premier Houston and his Ministers are doing on advancing some key priorities, the results vary.
The Premier and his Ministers currently get 60% approval on dealing with the (new) realities of the second Trump presidency and the U.S. trade war; 51% approval on growing Nova Scotia’s economy; and 46% approval on improving healthcare.
Government approval is, however, less strong when Nova Scotians are asked to rate the Premier and his Ministers on some of the ways they are governing. Premier Houston and his Ministers get 39% approval on consulting and communicating with the public, 38% on managing the provincial budget, and 29% on spending taxpayer money.
Government approval on housing is also low (just 31%), with more people disapproving than approving of the Houston government’s performance on making housing more available and affordable – a big, complex problem that many Nova Scotians continue to care a lot about, even amidst the chaos of the second Trump Presidency and the U.S. trade war.
WHAT ABOUT PREMIER HOUSTON? HOW POPULAR IS HE THIS WINTER?
According to our latest polling, Premier Houston continues to be well-regarded, with more people having a positive impression than a negative impression of the current Premier, giving him a net impression score of +22 in the research we are releasing today.
Claudia Chender also remains popular, with a current net impression score of +17.
As you may remember, we also tested impressions of all of the provincial party leaders during the 2024 provincial election campaign. In our last Nova Scotia election poll, the Premier had a net impression score of +12, and Claudia Chender had a net impression of +26. If we compare those results to our current ones, Tim Houston is slightly more popular and Claudia Chender is slightly less popular than they were on the eve of the election.
What about the other provincial leaders?
Interim Liberal Leader Derek Mombourquette, and Green Leader Anthony Edmonds currently have net impressions of +3 and -2, respectively.
In sharp contrast, the American President currently has a net impression score of -70 in Nova Scotia. That low score demonstrates how incredibly unpopular Donald Trump is in this part of the country, with three-quarters of Nova Scotians saying they are “angry” about Trump’s tariffs in the same omnibus survey.
Please also check-out our recent Nova Scotia polling specifically on Trump’s Tariffs if you haven’t done so already. Link here.
34% APPROVAL OF CHENDER’S NDP AS OFFICIAL OPPOSITION
In the polling we’re releasing today, we also asked Nova Scotians to rate the performance of Chender’s NDP as the Official Opposition.
Four months into the job, Chender’s NDP gets 34% approval, with more Nova Scotians approving than disapproving of the NDP’s performance as the Official Opposition, generating a net positive.
This also seems like a good result for Chender and her party, especially given the larger, geo-political dynamics at work this winter, and the tremendous stress they’re causing in every part of the country.
The Upshot
What does this all mean for Nova Scotia’s political landscape?
Simply put: Tim Houston’s PCs remain the party to beat in Nova Scotia, buoyed by general confidence in their approach to dealing with Donald Trump and growing Nova Scotia’s economy in a challenging time.
Four months since the last provincial election, there are no signs that voters regret handing Houston’s PCs a stronger majority (a supermajority!). The Houston government’s focus on economic development, especially in the natural resources and energy sectors, also seems to strike many as a practical way to strengthen the economy as Donald Trump continues to threaten it.
While Trump’s words and actions are definitely creating anxiety in Nova Scotia, the Houston government seems focused on action, trusting that strategic investments and policy moves will help the province weather whatever storms come their way.
Right now, it looks like Houston’s PCs have found solid ground during an extremely challenging time, and if the current public opinion environment holds, they are likely to remain the governing party for quite some time.
Our latest provincial polling also shows that Claudia Chender’s NDP is meeting and exceeding expectations, finishing far ahead of the Liberals in current vote intentions and with Chender’s personal popularity remaining high. This also seems like good news for the Leader of the Opposition, as she continues to introduce herself to Nova Scotians and define her party’s positions across the province.
Methodology
The survey was conducted with 600 adult Nova Scotians over the age of 18 from March 17 to 20, 2025. A random sample of panelists were invited to complete the survey from a set of partner panels based on the Lucid exchange platform. These partners are typically double opt-in survey panels, blended to manage out potential skews in the data from a single source.
The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 4.1%, 19 times out of 20.
The data were weighted according to census data to ensure that the sample matched Canada’s population according to age, gender, educational attainment, and region. Totals may not add up to 100 due to rounding.
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