[LINK] "Liberals and NDP poised for gains in Atlantic Canada"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC's Éric Grenier reports on Liberal strength in Atlantic Canada, with New Brunswick's Francophones and Nova Scotia being particularly strong.

Atlantic Canada is not the largest prize in this election campaign, with only 32 seats at stake. And with the Liberal Party polling strongly in the region ever since Justin Trudeau became leader, there are only a few seats truly at play.

But with the election promising to be one of the closest in Canadian history, those few seats could prove decisive.

[. . .]

The CBC Poll Tracker, incorporating polls in the field to Sept. 14, gives the Liberals 47.9 per cent support in Atlantic Canada, a gain of almost 19 points since the 2011 vote. The New Democrats are in second place with 28.5 per cent support, virtually unchanged from the last election, while the Conservatives stand at 18.7 per cent.

That represents a drop of just over 19 points for the Tories, suggesting that in this region of the country the Liberals have made almost all of their gains at the expense of Stephen Harper's Conservatives. The Greens stand at 4.4 per cent.

The Liberals are down from the massive lead in the polls in 2014, when their next closest rival was 30 points behind. But the party is also rebounding from a recent low, when it was averaging less than 45 per cent support from the end of May through to earlier this month. Since Sept. 6, the party has been hovering between 45 and 50 per cent support.

The New Democrats and Conservatives have seen less movement, with the NDP wobbling around 30 per cent support since June and the Conservatives around 20 per cent since the campaign began.