Léger Marketing has released a new poll taken between June 25 and June 27 and involving 1,021 interviews - all from Quebec. Here are the results:
Bloc Quebecois - 35%
Liberals - 35%
New Democrats - 15%
Conservatives - 11%
Greens - 4%
This poll puts into question the results of both Nanos and EKOS over the last week, who showed a Tory bump in the province. This poll puts the Conservatives back into fourth place behind the NDP, who gets a very strong result. The NDP are in a bit of a nebulous position, with polls putting them either capable of winning two seats or likely to win none. The Conservatives are also difficult to track, and look either to go back to 2004 numbers or maintain at least a few seats in the province.
The Liberals should be happy with this number, which I believe is likely their high-water mark in any election. The Bloc shouldn't be too worried with 35%, but I would consider that the line below which they should start to worry.
The francophone vote, which determines the vast majority of seats in the province, is as follows:
Bloc Quebecois - 42%
Liberals - 30%
New Democrats - 15%
Conservatives - 11%
Greens - 3%
This sort of result is why the Bloc shouldn't be in panic-mode. They are still comfortably ahead in most of the ridings they currently hold. That the Conservatives aren't doing better in this demographic puts their Quebec City ridings into question, but the NDP should be happy that they're polling as well with francophones as with the province as a whole, as their winnable ridings are quite bilingual.
The poll also asked people which political leader had their confidence. The result:
Gilles Duceppe - 30%
Michael Ignatieff - 21%
Jack Layton - 20%
Stephen Harper - 11%
This puts Duceppe and Ignatieff swinging below their weight, but puts Layton in a good place for growth. Harper seems to be unable to reach beyond his party faithful.
The poll also looked into provincial politics, which will be the subject of an upcoming CentVingtCinq post.