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Mulcair’s NDP edge ahead in poll

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair asks a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 15, 2015. A report published online by Maclean's magazine says NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was in discussions in 2007 to join the Conservative party as a senior adviser on the environment to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

If Canadians were casting ballots today, parliamentary staff might have to change the letterhead to Prime Minister Thomas Mulcair.

For the first time since Mulcair became leader, the New Democrats are leading in polls with an average of 32.4 per cent support, says an aggregation site tracking federal polling data.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have dropped slightly to 28.9 per cent, says the latest analysis from ThreeHundredEight.com.

The Liberals have dropped less than a point to 27.4 per cent support – better than they’ve been faring lately – while the Bloc Québécois has 5.2 per cent and the Green Party of Canada, 4.9 per cent.

In terms of seats — which is all that matters — the site projects the NDP would win between 113 and 140 seats. The Conservatives would win between 99 and 141 seats and the Liberals between 71 and 106.

With the Tories at a lower low, the site’s more precise projection says the NDP would win 127 seats to the Conservatives’ 114.

“This is the first time that the Conservatives have trailed in the seat projection since the official model was launched at the beginning of the year,” writes Eric Grenier, founder of ThreeHundredEight.com, which aggregates all publicly released polls and weights them by sample size and the accuracy record of the polling firm.

The Bloc would win between one and five seats and the Greens just one in the latest analysis released this week.

“The shift over the last two months has been nothing short of incredible,” Grenier writes in his analysis.

On May 4, the site predicted 143 seats for the Conservatives, 113 for the Liberals and 79 for the NDP.

The Tories have consistently shed support every week since then. The Liberals immediately dropped and have hovered since then in the 89-93 range.

“The NDP, meanwhile, has picked up 48 to move into first place,” Grenier writes.

Both the NDP and the Conservatives are, at the peak end of their range, in majority government territory. The Liberals are not.

But the fixed date for the election – Oct. 19 – is a long way off. Summer campaigning is about to begin in earnest and there’s still plenty of time for gaffes, scandals and screw-ups.

“We're in the midst of a period of transition in voting intentions, so it will be very interesting to see where the numbers go from here,” Grenier writes.

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