NDP leads Conservatives by three

A new survey by Harris-Decima for The Canadian Press puts the New Democrats three points up on the Conservatives, making this the fourth of the last eight polls putting the Tories and NDP neck-and-neck or giving the New Democrats the lead.

Unfortunately, Harris-Decima will not be releasing any of the regional results outside of Ontario and Quebec.

Nationally, however, the New Democrats are up one point from Harris-Decima's Mar. 22-Apr. 2 poll and now lead with 33% support. The Conservatives are down four points to 30%.

Though this puts the lead well within the margin of error, a three point edge is nevertheless a strong indicator that the NDP is very likely in front.

The Liberals are up one point to 20%, while the Greens are unchanged at 8% support. The Bloc Québécois has 7% at the national level.

The race is a very close one in Ontario, where the Conservatives have dropped a statistically significant eight points to reach 33%, only two points up on the NDP (themselves up by five points). The Liberals have gained three points and have 27% support, while the Greens are at 7%.

In Quebec, the New Democrats are unchanged at 39% support while the Bloc Québécois is up five points to 29%. The Liberals are steady at 14% while the Conservatives are down four points to only 10% support.

The Bloc number is an interesting one. Since Thomas Mulcair became leader of the NDP, the Bloc's support has been registered at anywhere between 16% and 29%. On the one hand, the Bloc is in serious danger of being dealt a final death blow, on the other hand they are in a decent position. During the NDP interregnum, the Bloc's support picked up and the polls were in general agreement. But before the NDP dropped in Quebec, we were having the same problem in judging the Bloc's support. It would appear that we are returning to that uncertainty.

It is worth noting that with this Harris-Decima poll, the weighted federal poll averages (at the top of this page) now put the Conservatives and the New Democrats dead even at 33% apiece.

Though Harris-Decima has opted not to release all of their information (full transparency is always best, but it is up to them and their media partners in the end), it is still possible to do a rough seat projection by applying the national swing from the 2011 election to the mystery provinces.

UPDATE: Harris-Decima tells me that they decided not to release the regional data for anything other than Ontario and Quebec because of small sample sizes. Harris-Decima normally conducts polling over two-week periods with samples of 2,000, but in this particular case they only did a poll of 1,000. I am told that they will return to their usual larger polls with more detailed breakdowns next time.

Although it is possible that the actual results of the Harris-Decima poll, say, give the NDP a big lead in British Columbia that would change things to a significant degree, with a more even-keeled application of the shifts in support from the last election the seat projection for this poll demonstrates the problem the New Democrats have with vote efficiency.

Though leading by three points, this poll would deliver only 113 seats to the New Democrats and 128 to the Conservatives, with the Liberals at 57, the Bloc Québécois winning nine, and the Greens holding one.

The problem is, as always, Ontario and the West. The Conservatives' big advantage in Alberta and the Prairies is made up for by the NDP's sweeping of Quebec, but Ontario is a thorn in the NDP's side. They need to have a significant lead over the Conservatives in order to take a big chunk of the seats.

Instead, the Conservatives win 50 seats in Ontario with this poll and three in Quebec, with 75 seats being won in the rest of the country (where we do not know the real results of Harris-Decima's poll).

The New Democrats win 27 seats in Ontario and 56 in Quebec, with the remaining 30 being won in the rest of the country.

The Liberals win 29 seats in Ontario, seven in Quebec, and 21 in the rest of the country.

In a 338-seat House, the Conservatives likely take 144 to 121 for the NDP and 62 for the Liberals. This increases the share of seats the Conservatives hold.

Nevertheless, the New Democrats would likely emerge from these results leading a government, as they could potentially combine with the Liberals for a majority. Perhaps that is enough for the NDP, and as they would have won the popular vote in this hypothetical election their legitimacy would be difficult to question.

Though Ontario is still problematic for the NDP, trailing by two points is the best result I have for them in my records going back to the beginning of 2010 (and undoubtedly long before that as well). If other polls confirm that the Conservatives and New Democrats are running neck-and-neck in this battleground province, then we can say that the NDP is heading in the right direction.

But they need more than a neck-and-neck race if they are to definitively topple the Conservatives. Though it is quite possible that the New Democrats could out-perform expectations in Ontario if they do start getting close to the Tories, the numbers are hard to find for the kind of swing they need. At least eight more seats in Ontario would need to swing from the Conservatives to the NDP with these numbers, and though I can identify eight potential swing seats for the NDP in Ontario over-and-above the projected results, I can only identify eight seats and they start to push the boundaries of plausibility. The party still has a long way to go.

High stakes in Kitchener-Waterloo

Within a year of the 2011 provincial election, the Ontario Liberals could regain their majority government and deal Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives a crippling blow. 

The resignation of Kitchener-Waterloo PC MPP Elizabeth Witmer gives Dalton McGuinty the opportunity to eke out the slimmest of majorities. If the Liberals can win the seat, it would put them and the PC and NDP opposition at 53 seats apiece, a tie broken by Liberal Speaker Dave Levac.

You can read the rest of the article at The Huffington Post Canada here.

The stakes could not be higher in a by-election. Kitchener-Waterloo has voted for Elizabeth Witmer for 22 years, so the important question is whether the riding is a Witmer riding or a Tory riding. Certainly, it has voted Conservative at the federal level but Dalton McGuinty did not win the last election by holding on to ridings that only vote Liberal at federally.

Is Kitchener-Waterloo at play? Most definitely. Both provincially and federally it as been a relatively close race. However, it is difficult to determine where the parties currently stand in Ontario.

The last Forum poll put the Progressive Conservatives in the lead with 34%, with the New Democrats trailing in second with 31% and the Liberals in third with 28%.

The last Nanos poll put the Liberals in the lead with 35% to 32% for the Tories and 27% for the NDP. The margin of error in the Nanos poll was 4.4%, and with Forum's MOE these two polls are not necessarily contradictory. Outside of an election as we are, this is perhaps not too unusual. But Forum has long shown a PC lead while Nanos has long shown a Liberal lead.

What we can certainly say is that the race is a very close one between the three parties. That makes Kitchener-Waterloo even more of a toss-up.

Prior to the two by-elections in British Columbia, I had applied the swing model to the two B.C. ridings using the latest poll numbers and came to some close results. Let's do the same with Kitchener-Waterloo using the numbers from Nanos and Forum, and applying the incumbency penalty for the resignation of Witmer.

The two polls make for some very different races. With the Liberals holding a narrow lead provincially, and with the resignation of the long-time MPP, the Tories and the Liberals are neck-and-neck with 37% for the PCs and 36% for the Liberals. The New Democrats, despite making gains in Nanos's polling, are still not a factor in the riding.

But with the Liberals trailing in third, the Progressive Conservatives only take a very small hit from their 2011 election result and win easily. The gains made by the NDP eat into the Liberal vote even more, putting the New Democrats closer to the Liberals than the Liberals are to the Tories.

These are two very plausible scenarios. If the race becomes one between the PCs and the Liberals - between opposition and a majority government - the election could be a very close one. If the sort of gains that Forum and Environics have attributed to the NDP are real, however, they could play the spoiler and help the PCs hold the seat. That, in the end, is just fine for the New Democrats, who need the legislature to remain in a minority situation.

Of course, without knowing the candidates this is only speculation. If the Liberals put forward a candidate of cabinet calibre, that could well put them over the top. The New Democrats could also nominate a great candidate and manage to unify the opposition vote or the progressive vote.

The riding remains, however, the Tories' to lose. They haven't had much luck in by-elections lately, with John Tory failing to win Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock in 2009 and Ottawa West-Nepean, held by John Baird at the federal level, sticking with the Liberals in 2010. But all the parties will pull out all of the stops in Kitchener-Waterloo.

UPDATE: Steve Paikin from TVO writes here that even if the Liberals win Kitchener-Waterloo, they won't have a real majority as the Speaker will not vote to create a law, only to continue to a second and third reading. However, the post also says that the Speaker would not vote no confidence in the government, ensuring that, if the Liberals win Kitchener-Waterloo, they cannot be defeated (as long as everyone shows up to vote). That is an important part of having a majority, so the implications for this by-election are still huge. But I am also not sure that this means in terms of a budget. If a Speaker cannot vote no confidence in a government, and so defeat the government, can he vote against a budget, which is always a confidence vote? And what role does precedent (always there to be broken) play here?