Hudak’s Toronto stumble weighs down Tories after two weeks

After the second week of Ontario’s election campaign, the race between the Progressive Conservatives and the governing Liberals is still very close. But without the support of Toronto’s voters, Tim Hudak has little hope of becoming the province’s next premier. 

A weighted aggregation of the latest polls indicates the Progressive Conservatives are still in the lead with 36.5 per cent support in the province, a drop of almost two points since last week’s projection. The Liberals are up almost a point and trail with 33.6 per cent, while the New Democrats are up 1.8 points to 23.9 per cent. The Greens have slipped to 4.8 per cent support.

This after a topsy-turvy week in polling. Two telephone polls from Nanos Research and Ipsos-Reid pegged the gap between the Liberals and the Tories at one to three points, with Dalton McGuinty on top. Later in the week, two online polls from Abacus Data and Angus-Reid suggested a gap of four to nine points in favour of Mr. Hudak. But in three of the polls the gap between the Liberals and the Tories was statistically insignificant, demonstrating just how tight the race remains. 

You can read the rest of the article on The Globe and Mail website here.

Saturday's Toronto Star poll by Angus-Reid is the only new poll added to the model, the poll by Léger Marketing that appeared late last night for the QMI Agency will only be added tomorrow.

The Angus-Reid poll echoes the Léger poll that came out last night, indicating that the campaign has flipped again and that the Progressive Conservatives are back on top. But the performance of the NDP is worth noting. In the Angus-Reid poll, the NDP leads in the north (52%), in the Hamilton/Niagara region (40%) and, surprisingly, in the 416 part of Toronto (35%). The Liberals were at 34% in the city, however.

The Tories are ahead in southwestern and eastern Ontario, but the Liberals are ahead in the all-important GTA. As Adam Radwanski said yesterday, this points to a very messy result on October 6th.

The projection has shifted a little, but the ranges for the Tories and the Liberals are now overlaping to a great degree.

Indeed, the ranges overlap for almost their entirety. Note that the Liberals are straddling the majority line a little more comfortably than the Tories, and also note that the Liberal projection is close to their upper limit, while the Tories are close to their lower limit. There is a lot of possible movement between these two parties.

The details of today's projection are at The Globe and Mail site, but check back here tomorrow for a full update with the Léger poll. Also, I'll be appearing on Le Téléjournal Ontario tonight. It can be seen in most of Ontario at 6:00 PM and in the Ottawa region at 11:00 PM.