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Polls suggest support for NDP increasing at Liberal’s expense

Polls suggest support for NDP increasing at Liberal’s expense

There may be a dark horse in the race to the Oct. 19 federal election, as Justin Trudeau appears to stumble and the Conservative brand takes a hit in national and provincial polls. The NDP is showing modest gains, according latest polling averages, with potential votes creeping from Liberal support to NDP support in dire regions.

Eric Grenier of the blog ThreeHundredEight.com crunched some numbers and found that Trudeau’s lead in national voting intentions has slipped below the Conservatives for the first time since Trudeau has led the Liberal party.

And while this puts the Conservatives in first place, it’s the NDP that seems to be gaining — modestly — from the decline in Liberal support.

Grenier’s polling averages have put the Conservatives just ahead with 32 per cent support and the Liberals with 31 per cent, whereas in previous polling averages the LPC would reach about 34 per cent. The NDP currently comes in at 22 per cent, as good as they’ve been polling in the past year.

Provincial support rising for NDP

Grenier noted that where the Liberals are losing in crucial provinces, the NDP is gaining. In Ontario, for example, the Liberals dropped four percentage points in two months and the NDP gained three points in support. The Conservatives sit at 37 per cent, the Liberals are at 35 per cent and the NDP is now at 19 per cent in Ontario.

The NDP is also gaining in British Columbia, with support for the LPC dropping by five points, and support for the NDP climbing five points. According to Grenier, the Conservatives and Liberals are tied overall in B.C. at 29 per cent, with the NDP close behind at 27 per cent.

As for another province, a Conservative stronghold, there’s little doubt that Alberta’s Jim Prentice and the Progressive Conservatives will form government again when the province goes to the polls on May 5.

But with other opposition parties scrambling to sort themselves out — the Wildrose recently lost a number of MLAs to a mass PC defection, although is bouncing back from that quite well, and the Liberals in Alberta are running with an interim party leader — the NDP is in relatively fine form.

A poll released this week by Mainstreet Technologies put the NDP and Wildrose neck and neck, ahead of the PCs, in Alberta. Support for the Wildrose Party was at 24 per cent, and the NDP at 23 per cent across the province, with support for the Progressive Conservatives falling to 19 per cent.

Looking at Alberta, Grenier suggested the NDP has replicated some of its provincial cousin’s gains, bumping its support up seven points over the past couple of months. The federal Tories are still in the lead in Alberta, and the Liberals are holding steady at 25 per cent, Grenier noted.

Political science professor Duane Bratt told Yahoo Canada News last week that it’s too soon to tell whether the provincial NDP’s fortunes in Alberta will have any impact on the fortunes of the federal party in the next election. Alberta is not known to be friendly to the NDP, federally.

Bratt said some of those NDP supporters, provincially, might lead towards the Liberals at the national level.

“We’ll have to see,” he said.