Though the CAQ and Liberals remain locked in a dead-heat in opinion polls, if people truly voted with their pocketbooks, then the Parti Québécois would be set to form a minority government on October 1st. That's according to a riding-by-riding analysis of donations to the four major parties, published by La Presse this morning.
Across Quebec's 125 provincial ridings, the PQ received the most money from voters this year in 53, despite spending most of the past year in a distant third in voter intentions. The governing PLQ was close behind, taking the most in donations in 44 ridings. Though the party has been in first-place in most opinion polls since the end of last year, the CAQ has trailed badly in donations, coming out on top in just 18 ridings, only barely ahead of Québec Solidaire, who received the most money in 10 ridings.
The PQ is also the only provincial political party to have collected over $1 million in donations in 2018.
The riding where the PQ earned the most money was in the seat of Taschereau, which covers most of downtown Quebec City. Meanwhile, the Liberals received the most money from voters in the seat of Westmount--Saint-Louis, the CAQ in the rural seat of Arthabaska, and QS in the Plateau-area seat of Mercier.