Ekos has released its new poll and it's bad news for the Liberals. They stand at only 24.8%! The Conservative would enjoy pretty much the same level of support as in 2008, but with a bigger lead in Ontario. The NDP would lose votes and seats, but thanks to the drop of the Liberals, they remain mostly constant in term of seats. The Green are projected to win a first seat (Guelph). Before some of you remind me that the Greens are overestimated in the poll, I know that. But I take this poll at face value, simply for a curiosity exercice. Actually the real question is more: how could the NDP win so many more seats than the Green in Ontario, with almost the same percentages? The answer lies of course in the fact that the NDP has established forteresses in this province, something not enjoyed yet by the Greens.
Anyway, for these projections, I'm using only the Ekos poll just to show how high the Conservatives could go with such a favorable poll. They would be really close to a majority. And actually, for the first time since I'm making projections, the total Safe+Potential clearly exceeds 155 for the Tories. They would need a very high ratio of wins in close races though to achieve that. Note that with a uniform swing model, the projections would be 155 for the CPC.
If we see more polls like this one, I would have to re-evaluate the prospect of having elections this spring. Although Harper would need to trigger the elections himself since I don't see the LPC and NDP bringing the government down with such bad numbers.
Here is the pdf. I won't update the "latest Canada projections" because it's only one poll. I'll wait for more numbers from other compagnies.
