Wednesday 27 April 2011

NDP rise to within 3 points of the Conservatives

Grits set to lose long-held bastions in Montreal and Toronto to NDP, says dramatic new Forum Research poll | The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly
The new Forum Research poll of 3,150 Canadians shows that the NDP have risen yet again and are now at 31%, 3 points behind the Conservatives at 34%.
They project that this will result in the following seats if an election were held today:
Conservatives: 137
NDP: 108
Liberals: 60
Bloc: 3

The NDP need to gain at least another 15 seats (and the Conservatives drop another 15 seats) for the NDP to reach minority government position. With the trend showing that they continue to rise in voter intention, it is a possibility.

Excerpt from the article:
If the voting intentions hold, the Liberals stand to lose at least four of the party’s Montreal fortresses to the NDP, including Westmount-Ville Marie, where former astronaut Marc Garneau is battling for re-election; Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine, held by prominent Liberal Marlene Jennings since 1997; and perhaps even Papineau, another longtime Liberal seat where Justin Trudeau, son of Liberal icon Pierre Trudeau, who is struggling to keep a Commons seat. LaSalle-Émard, once held by former prime minister Paul Martin, is also set to fall to the NDP, Mr. Bozinoff told The Hill Times. Incumbent Liberal Lise Zarac is fighting to win the riding.

Several Quebec Conservative seats and most Bloc Québécois seats are also set to be swamped by the surprising NDP wave in Quebec

An analysis based on the poll findings and voter intentions in key ridings across Canada show Mr. Harper and his Conservatives are set to lose three seats to the NDP in the Québec City region— Beauport-Limoilou, where Syvie Boucher, a prominent Tory, is fighting for re-election; Charlesbourg-Haute-Sainte-Charles, won by Daniel Petit, another Parliamentary secretary with the Harper government; and Pontiac, the West Quebec riding where one of Mr. Harper’s most high-profile MPs, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, is battling to win re-election. The Liberals are set to lose their long-held bastion of Hull-Aylmer across the Ottawa River from Parliament, held by Marcel Proulx, and Gatineau, where former Liberal MP Françoise Boisvin is set to oust Bloc Québécois incumbent Richard Nadeau.

In Ontario, although the NDP is set to win at least two Liberal seats in Toronto, Beaches-East York, held by Maria Minna, and Parkdale-High Park, where Liberal star Gerard Kenney is set to lose the riding back to New Democrat Peggy Nash, it is the Conservatives who are poised to gain from the Liberal implosion in the province. The poll results show the Conservatives are closing in on Eglinton-Lawrence, held by prominent Liberal Joe Volpe, a former leadership contender, since 1988, and at least four ridings from Liberals in the Greater Toronto Area.

In the Atlantic, Geoff Regan, the son of former Nova Scotia Liberal premier Gerald Regan, faces the prospect of losing his re-election bid in Halifax-West to the NDP. The NDP also stands to win South Shore-St. Margaret’s from Conservative Gerald Keddy and in Newfoundland and Labrador’s St. John’s-Mount Pearl, barely won by Liberal Siobhan Coady in 2008.

“With the NDP continuing to gain steam from coast to coast, and both the Liberal and Conservative parties’ support lagging, the key question now is whether the NDP have the ground troops to deliver their vote on election day,” Mr. Bozinoff said.

The results are based on an interactive voice response survey of 3,150 randomly-selected eligible voters across the country, on April 26, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 per cent 19 times out of 20.
The poll found the Conservatives have lost ground to the NDP in the Atlantic region, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

1 comment:

Kirbycairo said...

One of my favorite parts of this is the thought of finally having an opposition party that is not blindly pro-Israel.