OTTAWA - A new poll suggests Stephen Harper's Conservatives are recovering and NDP support is softening ahead of a holiday weekend that will see a scramble for any loose votes in the campaign's final days.
The latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll had Conservative backing firming up at 34 per cent nationally, followed by the Liberals at 26 per cent, and NDP fortunes fading at 18 per cent.
The Green party had 12 per cent and the Bloc Quebecois nine per cent.
"This is obviously good news for the Conservatives, but the dynamics of the campaign are not yet fully resolved," said Harris-Decima President Bruce Anderson.
Cascading financial markets have traumatized voters and introduced virtually unprecedented volatility ahead of Tuesday's vote, Anderson said.
He said voter anxiety over the market mayhem has the most potential to cost the Greens and the NDP votes.
"The economy, and the potential movements of the NDP and Green support are the most important factors to watch heading in the final weekend of campaigning."
With much of western Canada rock-solid for the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois strengthening its grip on Quebec, Harper, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and the NDP's Jack Layton will spend much of the weekend campaigning in the province where three-way races put the greatest number of seats in play: Ontario.
In Ontario, home to one-third of the seats in the House of Commons, the survey pegged the Liberals at 33 per cent, slightly ahead of the upwardly mobile Conservatives at 31 per cent. The NDP was at 21, with the Greens at 14.
New Democrats have had substantial early backing in past federal elections only to see it erode in the final days of a campaign. NDP strategists have been eye-balling their support in Ontario over the past few days and re-calibrating their message to prevent this traditional erosion from eating into their support.
That recalibration included a directive to New Democrats from Layton to seek out and embrace progressive voters from other parties in the campaign's final hours.
"Join me in opening our doors to our friends, to our neighbours, to the people we work with who may have voted Liberal in the past or who have considered the Green party, or maybe even used to be supporters of the Progressive Conservatives," Layton said a Toronto rally.
The Liberals have been the traditional beneficiary of the NDP's past slumps. The poll indicates that is still the case, but not at the same rate as in previous elections.
Thirty-eight per cent of NDP voters who had a second choice picked the Liberals, compared to 30 per cent who would vote for the Conservatives. The Conservative number is trending upwards.
"A slide in the NDP support is apparent (and) the implications have been mixed so far," Anderson said. "Rather than the coalescence around the Liberal brand that has happened in the past."
The Tory-Liberal battle for second place in Quebec was also narrow: the Tories had 24 per cent to the Liberal 22, behind the BQ with a commanding lead at 40 per cent.
More information on the poll is available from www.harrisdecima.com. Respondents to the poll were asked the following question: "If a federal election were to be held tomorrow, whom do you think you would be voting for in your area?"
