Quebec Election Year Starts with Brutal Verdict on François Legault

The holiday break is now behind us, and Premier François Legault has yet to take his walk in the snow. All signs point to him running his fifth election campaign as leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec this fall—and his third as premier.

However, the embattled premier will have a steep hill to climb. A new Quebec survey from Pallas Data of decided and leaning voters, partly commissioned by The Walrus, suggested the holiday break did nothing to improve Quebecers’ mood toward their government in Quebec City, nor toward Legault himself.

Let’s first look at the province-wide figures.

The Parti Québécois remains in the lead in voting intentions with 34 percent. This is a two-point drop from the previous Pallas poll, published in November—a variation well within the poll’s margin of error—and a result very close to the PQ’s cruising altitude since 2024.

Among the francophone majority, the Parti Québécois stands far and away on top, well ahead of a divided opposition: the PQ has 41 percent support, a twenty-six-point advantage over Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party of Quebec. Obviously, if such figures were transferred to the voting booths next October, the PQ would be heavy favourites to form a majority government at the National Assembly.

The Quebec Liberal Party, once again embroiled in a leadership race, ranks second province-wide with 24 percent support. It is important to note that the previous Pallas poll was conducted at the very beginning of the crisis that ultimately led to Pablo Rodriguez’s departure in December. Pallas, therefore, did not capture the drop in support observed by Leger during this brief period—a seven-point decline between November and December. In November, Pallas placed the PLQ at 25 percent nationally.

In third place is the Conservative Party, with 16 percent support. As we will see later, Duhaime’s party is gaining support outside the Montreal metropolitan area. According to Pallas, the PCQ ranks a strong second in the regions with 24 percent support (eleven points behind the PQ), while keeping pace with the Parti Québécois in the Capitale-Nationale region. After months—even years—of stagnation, the PCQ has just recorded two of its best consecutive polls, one month apart (16 percent from both Leger and Pallas).

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Finally, tied for fourth place are the Coalition Avenir Québec and Québec solidaire, with 11 percent each, according to this new Pallas poll.

This 11 percent result for Legault’s troops may raise a few eyebrows, but it is in line with what Pallas has been measuring for the CAQ since the end of summer 2025 (11 percent in September, 13 percent in November).

Since the summer of 2024, Pallas Data’s Quebec polls have measured leaders’ approval ratings using a consistent methodology and wording: “Do you have a favourable or unfavourable impression of” with leaders presented in random order.

For Legault, the disastrous figures observed in the fall simply continued into the winter, with no improvement in sight. Among all respondents, 75 percent say they have an unfavourable impression of the premier, compared to only 12 percent who have a favourable impression.

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Unsurprisingly for a premier entering his eighth year in power, Legault leaves very few voters indifferent: only 12 percent of respondents say they are neutral toward him, the lowest proportion among party leaders. This leaves very little room for growth.

These poor approval ratings give an indication of the potential ceiling for support for the CAQ. Few voters usually support a party whose leader they dislike. The fact that Legault’s numbers have remained remarkably stable—and deeply in the red—since last spring reinforces the impression that the leader has become an anchor for his party.

To broaden the picture, here is the data on the four party leaders, as well as on the favourite in the Liberal leadership race, businessman Charles Milliard.

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First observation: all the leaders—and the presumed leader—are receiving more unfavourable than favourable impressions. Clearly, the current political offering is not generating much enthusiasm among Quebec voters.

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has a 35 percent favourable impression rating versus 43 percent unfavourable, for a net differential of minus eight. This is Plamondon’s worst result since Pallas began tracking him in 2024.

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Nevertheless, we do note that Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has, by far, the most favourable personal ratings of the bunch. For the other leaders, net approvals are even more dire: minus twenty-five for Ruba Ghazal, minus forty-one for Duhaime, and minus sixty-three for Legault.

As for the Liberal leadership candidate, Milliard, 20 percent of respondents say they have a favourable impression of him, compared to 33 percent who have an unfavourable impression. However, nearly half (47 percent) say they have a neutral opinion or do not know him. This large pool of voters represents a double-edged growth potential: as a newcomer to politics, Milliard has not yet been fully evaluated by the electorate, and his performance over the coming weeks could tip these neutral opinions one way or the other.

The election year is just beginning, and many chapters remain to be written before voters go to the polls. Nevertheless, one thing is clear from the progression of numbers in past months: the headwinds that the CAQ and Legault have been facing over the past year are turning into a blizzard. With an election scheduled for October, they no longer have the luxury of time.

* * * This Pallas Data poll was conducted on January 9 and 10, 2026, among a random sample of 1,128 Quebec respondents aged eighteen and over. The data was collected by interactive voice response using telephone calls to landlines and cell phones. The survey was commissioned by Qc125. The margin of error for the entire sample is ± 2.9 percent, nineteen times out of twenty. You can find the survey report here.