A Liberal Majority

Unless there is a sudden swing with the next ten days it does not look promising for the Conservatives. I hope some NDPers are not voting Liberal to try and keep the Conservatives out. Where an NDP win is possible it makes more sense to vote for the NDP. It does not look as if the Conservatives are at all likely to win a majority.

Ontario Liberals on course for majority: poll
The Ontario Liberals are on their way to a majority, say a new poll conducted for the CanWest News Service.

Don Butler, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, September 28, 2007 Article tools
* The Liberals have opened up a 10-point lead over the Progressive Conservatives and are on track for a majority victory in the Ontario election, says the latest poll done for CanWest News Service.

According to the Ipsos Reid survey, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have the support of 43 per cent of decided voters, compared to 33 per cent for John Tory’s Conservatives. The NDP and Green party trail with 17 per cent and six per cent respectively. Only five per cent of Ontarians are still undecided.

“It’s not over until it’s over, but it’s a yawning gap,” John Wright, Ipsos Reid’s senior vice president, said Friday.

“The reality is it’s going to be a hard climb for Mr. Tory to win. It’s going to be very difficult to turn this ship around.”

Using an aggregate of five recent polls, including the latest Ipsos Reid survey, DemocraticSpace is now projecting the Liberals to win 60 seats, a comfortable majority in the 107-seat legislature.

The projection projects the Conservatives to win 35 seats and the NDP 12, while the Green party to be shut out. At dissolution, the Liberals held 67 seats, the Conservatives 25 and the NDP 10, with one independent. The legislature has added four seats due to a reorganization that takes effect with this election.

The Liberals’ 10-point lead is their largest since the campaign began Sept. 3, breaking open what had been a stagnant contest. The previous Ipsos Reid survey on Sept. 20 gave the governing Liberals a narrow three-point edge over the Tories.

The Liberals now lead in every region of the province except southwest Ontario. They lead by a two-to-one margin in Toronto and are narrowly ahead in the critical 905 belt around the city. In Northern Ontario, Conservative support has collapsed to an astonishing six per cent.

In Eastern Ontario, the Liberals now sit at 42 per cent, while the Tories have slipped to 36 per cent. In hotly contested Ottawa-West Nepean, Liberal cabinet minister Jim Watson has edged ahead of Tory challenger Mike Patton.

Results of the poll lend credence to Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara’s boast a week ago that voters will return a Liberal majority on Oct. 10.

They also suggest McGuinty’s public musings this week about a possible minority government may have been a strategic feint, designed to keep wavering Liberal voters from defecting to the NDP.

The Ipsos Reid poll of 800 adults, conducted from Sept. 25-27, shows the Conservative promise to extend public funding to faith-based schools remains a millstone around the party’s electoral neck.

Two-thirds of voters oppose the idea, with 51 per cent strongly opposed. Only three in 10 Ontarians support it, with just 13 per cent strongly in favour.

Wright said the issue “essentially has blocked out the sun” for most voters.

“Mr. Tory hasn’t been able to get off the issue of faith-based funding. It’s being raised in his caucus, it’s being raised on the hustings, and he’s still engaging in conversation about it.”

Nor have Tory’s more recent promises to allow greater private delivery of health services and permit the sale of Ontario craft beer and wine in corner stores been helpful.

“These are not campaign pieces that broaden your support,” Wright said. “Every single one of them diminishes your support.”

The Conservative campaign has also been hobbled by its negative focus, he said. Virtually all the Tory television ads, for instance, zero in on McGuinty’s broken promises.

“While negative advertising works, you have to offer an alternative,” said Wright. “And that message, whatever it is, simply hasn’t penetrated the electorate.”

Though the Conservatives have made leadership a focus of their campaign, the poll suggests the strategy hasn’t worked. Asked who would make the best premier, 33 per cent name McGuinty, 32 per cent choose Tory and 16 per cent pick NDP leader Howard Hampton.

Asked if there was any good news for the Conservatives in the poll, Wright responded with a blunt, “No.”

A measure of the Conservative weakness is that the party now ranks last as the second choice of voters, behind even the Green party. The NDP has the greatest second-choice support at 26 per cent, but only 15 per cent name the Tories as their second choice.

“The Tories are at the bottom of the list,” Wright said. “It’s remarkable.”

Though Tory was widely seen by pundits as the winner of the Sept. 20 televised leaders debate, that hasn’t translated into votes.

“While he may have won the academic debate, he didn’t win the political debate,” said Wright. “What’s clearly happened is there has been a drop in momentum.”

One tiny positive for the Tories is that 74 per cent of Conservative supporters say they are “absolutely certain” to vote on election day, compared to 68 per cent of intended Liberal voters.

But even if only those voters cast ballots, Wright said the Liberals would still be in majority territory at 42 per cent support, compared to 35 per cent for the Conservatives.

The poll is considered accurate within 3.5 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.

Ottawa Citizen

© CanWest News Service 2007