Poll Soup Update

There are four new polls out this week, showing a surprising amount of consistency between them - so it's probably worth updating the rolling average:


Angus Reid (September 29-30, n = 1000 online)
CPC 37%
Lib 27%
NDP 17%
BQ 11%
Green 6%


Ekos (September 23-29, n = 3216 auto dialed)

CPC 36.0%
Lib 29.7%
NDP 13.9%
BQ 9.8%
Green 10.5%


Ipsos Reid (September 22-24, n = 1001 phone)

CPC 37%
Lib 30%
NDP 14%
BQ 9%
Green 9%


Leger (September 22-25, n = 3602 phone)

CPC 36%
Lib 30%
NDP 17%
BQ 8%
Green 8%


OVERALL (change since early September in brackets)

CPC 36.5% (+1.8%)
Lib 29.2% (-2.2%)
NDP 15.5% (nc)
BQ 9.5% (-0.2%)
Green 8.4% (+0.3%)


Even though the overall vote numbers represent an increase in Liberal support from the last election, this has prompted a new round of majority speculation. Andrew Coyne rightly points out that the Tories are positioned for gains in Ontario - something that could propel them to their elusive majority.

But I don't think they're there yet.

Coyne references the 4-poll average Tory lead of 42% to 33% in Ontario. A quick seat projection has the Tories grabbing an extra 5 seats with that spread...and maybe another 4 or 5 if things break really nicely for them. Nice, but not enough.

Now, if you just use Angus' 14-point Ontario gap, the Tories hit 64 seats, a 13 seat gain. That's only a majority if they hold their seats elsewhere...definitely not a sure thing in Quebec. To get into the magical 70 seat range needed for the majority, they'd need the NDP vote to collapse in Northern Ontario too. Because so long as the NDP wins 15 seats across the province, there are enough Liberal safe seats in Toronto to prevent the Tories from running up the score too much.

This is all fun speculation and who knows - maybe in 5 months we'll be speculation about the road to a Liberal majority. The somewhat obvious messages from all this are that Ontario is important, the road to a majority is a long one, and the Liberals aren't in great shape in Ontario these days. And yes, I'm aware that most of those observations fall under the category of "painfully obvious".


ALSO...

There's a new Harris Decima out today that shows Canadians would rather not have an election until 2013. This begs an interesting question - what percentage of Canadians would rather hold off until 2015? Or 2020? Hell, how many would say "screw it, let's forget this unpleasant election business altogether"?

The poll also finds support for Jack Layton's position on supporting the government until EI legislation passes. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Even though he'll get pilloried for what's an obviously hypocritical stand by the media, bloggers, and anyone who follows politics closely, Jack's message doesn't sound all that unreasonable to a general public fed up with the brinkmanship and squabbling in Ottawa.