New CROP Poll: BQ and LPC Tied

CROP released a new poll today through La Presse, taken between August 13 and August 23 and involving 1,003 Quebecers. The result:

Bloc Quebecois - 30%
Liberals - 30%
New Democrats - 18%
Conservatives - 17%
Greens - 6%

CROP is one of the less reliable polling firms, and is correspondingly weighted the least in my model. They also tend to under-poll the Bloc, so it is difficult to know what to think with this poll. This result is far, far lower than anything we've seen recently with the Bloc, while the NDP number is quite high. Another outlier, perhaps?

As usual, CROP does not have the details for this poll available on their site, and I don't imagine they will for another few months (it took about half-a-year for CROP to update their site last time).

The article above mentions that the Bloc is now in the lead in the Quebec City region, with 33%. They are followed by the Liberals at 24% and the Conservatives at 23%. This bodes well for the Bloc - they look to return to some of their former 'fortresses' at the expense of the Tories.

The only other piece of information is that 61% of Quebecers are dissatisfied with the government. Which means about 22% of Quebecers don't want to vote for the Conservatives but are satisfied with their governing.

UPDATE: More details via Chantal Hébert's blog. She provides the Green result, but also the francophone breakdown:

Bloc Quebecois - 35%
Liberals - 26%
New Democrats - 17%
Conservatives - 17%
Greens - 5%

This is the important number, since most of the seats in Quebec are decided by the francophone vote. The Bloc still has a good lead over the Liberals among this group, ensuring they can still win a good portion, perhaps even the majority, of the seats in Quebec - even with 30% support provincially.

UPDATE 2: No doubt out of spite, CROP has decided to actually update their website. So we get some more details.

Among non-francophones, the Liberals have the lead with 50% of the vote. They are followed by the NDP at 19% and the Conservatives at 17%. In Montreal and the surrounding region, the Liberals are ahead with 35%, followed by the Bloc at 29% and the NDP at 17%. That puts them in a good position to hold on to Outremont.

Quebecers consider Michael Ignatieff to be the best potential Prime Minister (35%), followed closely by Jack Layton (29%). Stephen Harper receives only 18% - more or less the amount of Conservative supporters. It seems that Bloc voters tend to see Layton as the best PM.