[LINK] "NDP lead widens slightly over Conservatives"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC's Éric Grenier reports on the latest on polling for the upcoming federal election. The NDP is doing qutie nicely.

As battle lines are drawn now that the campaign is underway, the New Democrats' slim lead over the Conservatives has widened slightly. And as leaders begin to jet across the country, regional contests are taking shape as well.

The latest numbers from CBC's Poll Tracker give the NDP 33.2 per cent support, for a lead of just more than two points over the Conservatives, who trail in second with 30.9 per cent. The Liberals follow in third with 25.9 per cent, while the Bloc Québécois and Greens each have 4.7 per cent support nationally.

The polls are painting a relatively clear picture of where things stand. Though a few individual polls have shown some striking results, including the first survey conducted after the writs were issued that put the NDP as high as 39 per cent, five of the last six polls have pegged the New Democrats to between 30 and 34 per cent support. The Conservatives have scored between 28 and 33 per cent over the last six polls, while the Liberals have registered between 25 and 26 per cent in five of the last seven.

[. . .]

The most recent standout poll giving the NDP a crushing 11-point lead, by Forum Research for the Toronto Star, could be a sign that Tom Mulcair's party is poised to make some major gains — or it could be an indication of how difficult it can be to gather a representative sample of Canadians on a Sunday that also happens to fall on a holiday weekend in much of the country.

But translating the average support levels into seats, the NDP would likely win between 116 and 143 seats if an election were held today. That puts them in a near tie with the Conservatives, who would take between 112 and 148 seats. The average projection from the Poll Tracker shows how close things really are, with both parties pegged at 127 seats.