[LINK] "The EKOS poll: Vote-splitting in Ontario boosting Conservative hopes"

[rfmcdonald]

ipolitics.ca's Frank Graves reports.

The vote intention numbers show the NDP with a clear but modest lead of 34 points, the Conservatives at 30 points, and the Liberals still in contact but significantly back at 23 points. The Bloc Québécois’s honeymoon period following the return of Gilles Duceppe seems to be drawing to a close; the party is falling back to its pre-Duceppe levels. The Green Party has also been receding in recent weeks.

In Ontario, all three parties seem to be converging into a tie. The NDP are doing quite well in Saskatchewan and although this finding should be interpreted with caution due to the extremely small sample size in the province, the longer-term trends suggest that the party has indeed gained ground here in recent months. The Liberals have clearly lost their lead with the university-educated, but our data on second choices suggests the party is still very much in contention with this group.

[. . .]

If you’re Thomas Mulcair and the NDP, what’s not to like? The New Democrats are the clear leaders in most recent polling. Mulcair has an approval advantage over the other party leaders, his team is being seen more and more as the agent of change and it has a pretty balanced regional and demographic constituency.

The key challenges for the NDP are threefold. First, it must hang on to those promiscuous progressive voters who have been swinging back and forth between the Liberal and NDP camps since 2011. Second, it must withstand the added critical attention that comes with being the frontrunner. Finally, it must convince voters that they should consider the NDP the better bet to replace the Harper government.

This last point is vitally important as it plays into Conservative strategy. The Conservatives’ consistent focus on Justin Trudeau and the Liberals as their primary rivals — their repeated attempts to paint Trudeau as callow, marginally competent and unready for power — isn’t based on lousy polling and probably doesn’t emerge from mere spite. The true motive may have been to hobble Trudeau so badly that the ballot question shifts from a choice between a coalition and Harper to a choice between the untested New Democrats and the Conservatives.

More, including charts, at the site.