NDP fades far into third place as Tories and Liberals battle for first place

Recent polls show the New Democratic Party is well off the pace of the Liberals and Conservatives about 8 percentage points below them in third place.

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The latest CBC poll tracker averages up to October 6 show the LIberals and Conservatives in a dead heat with the Conservatives at 32.9 per up 0.6 from the last polls and the Liberals at 32.3 per cent down 0.2 per cent. The NDP has faded further at 24.2 percentage points down 0.8 per cent. The Green Party has 4.9 per cent up 0.2 per cent while the Bloc Quebecois a separatist party running only in Quebec had 4.7 per cent. However in Quebec it has 20.4 per cent of the vote.

Within the space of a week, the NDP has lost 2.7 per cent in the polls, while the Liberals have gained 1.7 points. The Conservatives gained 0.5 percentage points. The two most recent polls give conflicting results as to which party is in the lead but leave little doubt that the NDP is dropping further behind. An Abacus poll taken on the October 5 and 6 shows the Conservatives leading at 33 per cent, the Liberals at 32 and the NDP at 24. A Nanos Globe Poll taken from October 4 to 6 shows the Conservatives at 32.1, the Liberals leading at 34.2, and the NDP at 23.

Results seem to be skewed according to the polling method used. Polls that use interactive voice response (IVR) , automated phone calls, tend to favour the Conservatives. Online polls and live-caller telephone surveys show the race quite close between Conservatives and Liberals. Ranges of three recent IVR polls showed a Conservative support range of 33 to 37. The Liberals were at 27 to 29 per cent behind in every poll. The NDP had a range of 24 to 28 per cent. In every poll the Conservatives are winning. In contrast, five recent on line polls put the Conservative range at 29 to 34 per cent but the Liberals 27 to 32, and the NDP at 26 to 29 per cent. The most recent telephone polls show a range for Conservatives of 31 to 33 per cent , Liberals 32 to 36 per cent, and NDP 23 to 27 per cent, favouring the Liberals in all cases in contrast to the IVR polls. The two parties in front can tout their performance simply by cherry-picking the set of polls they reference. It is not clear what causes this variation in results.

The recent seat projections at the Poll Tracker give Conservatives the most seats with an average of 132. The Liberals have an average of 120 and the NDP significantly behind at just 84. The Bloc Quebecois would win one and the Green Party one also.

On a regional basis, the race is close in BC, while the Conservatives lead on the Prairies, though the NDP and Liberals may gain a few seats. Liberals lead in the Atlantic region. The NDP lead in Quebec is shrinking. In Ontario the polls are unclear with some giving the Liberals an edge and others the Conservatives. However in Toronto the Liberals appear to be gaining especially in comparison to the 2011 election. In 2011, the Conservatives and New Democrats won 8 seats each and the Liberals won the 6 remaining seats. This time around the Liberals have between 38 and 40 per cent of the vote, the NDP 27 to 31 and Conservatives 26 to 28. The Liberals are projected to win between 17 to 22 seats, the NDP just 3 to 6, and the Conservatives could win 0 or up to 2. Perhaps within a week or so the polls will show one of the two leading parties clearly in the lead.

Liberals and NDP may win some urban seats in Alberta

There may have been an orange crush by the New Democratic Party in the last Alberta provincial election, but this will not translate into a gain of many if any seats in the federal election.

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A recent projection gives the Conservatives led by prime minister Stephen Harper 28 seats. The Liberals with Justin Trudeau the leader are projected to win four seats. Tom Mulcair's NDP is projected to win two seats. Ordinarily, these projections would be taken as convincing evidence that Alberta is almost completely safe for the Tories.

The CBC though talks of change and cracks in the Conservative fortress of Alberta in Calgary and Edmonton. While in most rural areas the Conservatives will continue to have huge majorities even in some of these, majorities are predicted to shrink. It is the urban areas that are definitely showing cracks in the Tory fortress of Alberta with the Liberals doing quite well in Calgary and the NDP in Edmonton. There is even a battle in the smaller city of Lethbridge.

In relative terms, the CBC has a point. In the 2011 election, Harper and the Conservatives won all but one seat in Alberta. The Conservatives took 66.8 percent of the popular vote, with second place NDP taking 16.8 percent. The Liberals took 9.3 percent and the Greens 5.3. The NDP won one seat in Edmonton. They may win another this time around.

Laurie Adkin, a politics professor, says: "Alberta has had this kind of populist conservative orientation for many decades that is now changing because of the net in-migration of people." In the last fifteen years, the population of Alberta has grown from 3 million to 4 million. There has been an influx of new people most of them young. Alberta now has the youngest population in Canada. Many of these new Albertans do not have the same values as the older base of Conservative support. Both Edmonton and Calgary elected mayors considered progressive. Opposition parties have not won more than two seats in Alberta federal elections since 1993 and even then the Liberals took only four seats. The Conservative popular vote a while back was 53.4 percent, with the Liberals less than half that at 22.2 percent and the New Democrats 19.3 percent. However, this shows a huge gain for the Liberals. Much of that vote is concentrated in the city of Calgary. The NDP vote has declined since they were elected. They were in second place with 27 to 29 percent of the vote earlier in the year.

In spite of Liberal gains in the popular vote, Justin Trudeau is the most unpopular leader of the three major party leaders with a 50 percent disapproval rating. The Trudeau name may hurt Justin in Alberta, as his father created a national energy company, PetroCanada, to compete with Alberta's big oil companies. Trudeau is tied with Mulcair of the NDP for approval with a 36 percent rating. Harper has both an approval and disapproval rating in the province of 45 per cent.

The Liberals may gain seats in Calgary Centre, Calgary Confederation, and Calgary Skyview, and possibly Edmonton Centre. The NDP may win one more seat in Edmonton Griesbach, to add to the one they hold in Edmonton. They have a marginal chance in Lethbridge and three other Edmonton seats, while the Liberals also have a marginal chance in two more Calgary ridings. The Conservatives too can gain seats including all of the new eight seats that have been added since the last elections. While the changes in Alberta will do little to alter the dominance of the Conservatives in the province, the seats going to the opposition could be crucial in a close federal race.