The poll, like all polls, was only a snapshot.
But for the B.C. Liberals it came wreathed in black, like a still from a horror film or a Survivor episode gone wrong.
New Democratic Party leading by 14 points. Opposition leader Adrian Dix scoring both a better approval rating than Christy Clark and a four-point lead in answer to the question of who would make the best premier.
Most important issue facing British Columbia? The economy, usually a trump card for the governing party.
But when the Angus Reid polling firm asked who was best able to deal with the issue, about the same number of respondents answered Dix as Clark.
Worst number of all for the Clark-led Liberals: With a mere 28 per cent of the decided vote, they find themselves pretty much back where they were when then-premier Gordon Campbell threw in the towel in the fall of 2010.
So never mind the fixed-in-law election date still being a long way off. Or the tentative aspect of public support for anyone other than Clark. (Only one in four thought Dix would make the best premier, meaning three in four did not).
All irrelevant to the overarching impression created by this particular snapshot, namely that as Clark approaches the first anniversary of taking office, she has failed to deliver a fresh start. A promise, be it noted, that she made to her own party first and foremost.
The Liberals had other options.
George Abbott lined up a platoon of Liberals opposed to the Campbell leadership. Kevin Falcon had hefty backing from the business community and the party establishment.
But Clark, with next to no support from cabinet and caucus, turned her outsider status into an asset. "I'm the only candidate that isn't more of the same," she declared on the eve of the leadership vote.
"If we don't change as B.C. Liberals, the NDP are going to offer change."
She was going to connect to younger voters too, but didn't. The NDP led among all identified age groups in the Angus Reid poll. The Liberals ranked barely ahead of the Greens with the
18-34 crowd.
The party that ousted a female leader in a bitter internal revolt in the fall of 2010? It held an almost two-to-one lead over the Liberals among women voters. The New Democrats carried the day in households making more than $100,000 a year, suggesting that even the class warfare theme wasn't working for the Liberals.
What happened? In my view, Clark was right about people looking for a fresh start. But when she got the chance to provide it, she faltered, especially on the key call on what to do about the HST.
The premier took office knowing very well that the tax was a dead letter with a decisive portion of the electorate.
She'd experienced the backlash first hand, having defended it in vain on her phone-in show on radio station CKNW.
Still she proceeded to squander a lot of public resources and the better part of six months in an effort to save it. By the end, the tax was headed for the scrap heap and her hopes of a fresh start along with it.
All of which raises a tantalizing might-have-been. What if on taking office, she'd moved to kill the tax, then called an election? But leave that high-risk scenario for the post-election recriminations, of which there will be many should the Liberals fail to pull
themselves back from the brink.
For now, consider this poll's indication of what has happened to support for the party since Clark assumed the leadership.
From an initial high of 43 per cent right after she took the oath of office last March, the Liberals have shed 15 points of support. Over the same interval, the upstart B.C. Conservatives have gained 14 points.
Consider, too, what emerged when respondents to the poll were asked how they voted in the last election. Only 60 per cent of those who answered Liberal were sticking with the party under her leadership. Some 27 per cent had migrated to the Conservatives, another
10 per cent to the NDP.
Dix, on the other hand, had little cause for worry about his base. The poll showed him retaining the support of 88 per cent of those who voted NDP in the last election. And as Wednesday's laugh line had it, a member of his staff is busy making a list of the names of the remaining 12 per cent.
Joking aside, Dix has united his party while Clark fractured hers. Which recalls a warning from rival camps on the eve of last year's leadership vote, that named her the candidate most likely to split the governing coalition.
Now that the accusation has been borne out in the latest polling results, you have to wonder how long before some Liberals begin talking up the idea of another fresh start.
After all, many of them had their doubts about Christy Clark in the first place. Recent events can't have persuaded them that they made the wrong call about her leadership abilities.
