Thunder Bay – ANALYSIS – The federal election is shifting into high gear. Over the past week, the Liberals have seen what many assumed going in was an insurmountable lead not only vanish, but the Conservatives have gained the lead.
The latest Nanos federal ballot tracking has the Conservatives at 33.2 per cent, the Liberals at 31.1 per cent, the NDP at 19.9 per cent, the Greens at 5.7 per cent, the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) at 4.2 per cent. The BQ was at 24.2% in Quebec. [Also of note, exclusive of the decided respondents, from the total sample, 12.8% of Canadians were unsure in their vote.]
Polling is showing the Liberal Party continue a week-long slide.
“Trudeau pre-election advantage vanishes as O’Toole pulls within margin of error on the preferred Prime Minister tracking,” states Nik Nanos, Chief Data Scientist.
The Liberal leader has been dogged on the campaign trail by protestors who have been swearing and denouncing him. For a leader who has enjoyed one of the longest political honeymoons in recent Canadian history, this could be a repeat of his father’s political journey from Trudeau-mania in 1968 to at times being one of the more divisive figures in Canadian political history.
To his credit, so far Justin Trudeau has worked to remain on the high-road when it comes to comments made publicly on the protesters.
The Conservatives and New Democrats have released their platforms for the election, the Liberals have not. Everyday of the campaign so far the Conservative camp has issued a statement on this, claiming that the Liberals must be hiding something.
The Liberals are stating that the Conservatives will privatize healthcare and don’t believe in climate change.
Support for the NDP has remained very stable during the past week. The NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh spent the last half of the week in Western Ontario with campaign stops in Kenora and Thunder Bay. 19 to 22 per cent of people polled are saying that they are voting NDP.
Singh is likely, if an election were called today to see gains in Ontario and in Western Canada.
The Green Party could be facing an election disaster. Polling numbers have been falling. The party leader Annamie Paul is not campaigning outside of Toronto. Some Green Party candidates are to an extent campaigning in what could be called election protest and not seeing the election as needed.
