The NDP's Jack Layton is now the national leadership frontrunner after surpassing the Conservative's Stephen Harper in a pair of key indicators, new poll numbers suggest.
With less than a week before the election, Layton's personal surge comes as his party rides a wave of support that has seen them leapfrog over the struggling Liberals for second place nationally.
While the Conservative party still holds a slight lead in terms of overall party support, the NDP has thinned that gap to only six percentage points this week, according to poll numbers conducted for conducted for CTV and the Globe and Mail.
While Layton scored 95.3 points on the leadership index, Harper now sits at second with 83.2 points. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is in third place, with a score of 34.3.
Layton is in front of Harper in terms of vision and trust, and he is statistically tied with the prime minister in terms of competence.
Pollster Nik Nanos said the fresh numbers are significant, since this is only the second time since the leadership index was created in 2008 that any leader has surpassed Harper.
The rise in Layton's score, which is an aggregate of the three key factors, suggests a spinoff into Ontario from an earlier surge among Quebecers, Nanos told Power Play.
He added that earlier in the week Layon didn't have a clear lead nationally, but that has changed.
"Now he has an absolute advantage. He's 12 points up on Stephen Harper," Nanos said.
Layton leads Harper in terms of trust and vision for Canada, and is statistically tied in terms of competence, the poll suggests.
Here are the leadership results, for April 27:
- NDP Leader Jack Layton: 95.3
- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper: 83.2
- Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff: 34.3
- Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe: 14.2
In fact, during the same time in the 2008 election campaign, embattled former leader Stephane Dion had higher scores than Ignatieff.
With the campaign nearly over, Nanos said that the Liberals need to make some kind of move if they hope to grab a decent number of seats.
"Somebody's got to do something," he said, noting that the numbers represent "historic" lows for the Liberals.
Meanwhile, healthcare remains the most pressing issue for Canadians, with more than 30 per cent saying it was top-of-mind heading into the May 2 vote. The economy remained second with slightly under 24 per cent of respondents saying it was their most important issue.
The last two weeks of the campaign have seen a reversal of fortunes for the Bloc in Quebec, with the NDP rising up against them on their home turf. It remains to be seen, however, if the NDP polling numbers will translate into a similar seat count.
Still, NDP is now solidly in second place, with the support of 30.4 per cent of those polled over April 24, 26 and 27.
The Conservatives are still in first place, but with just 36.6 per cent support -- the smallest their lead has been since the campaign started in late March.
Following a steady drop in the polls over the past week, the Liberals follow in third place nationally with only 21.9 per cent support.
Here are the poll results for all five parties (March 15 poll results in brackets):
- Conservatives: 36.6 per cent (38.6 per cent)
- New Democrats: 30.4 per cent (19.9 per cent)
- Liberals: 21.9 per cent (27.6 per cent)
- Bloc Quebecois: 6 per cent (10.1 per cent)
- Greens: 4.1 per cent (3.8 per cent)
Regionally the country still appears to be divided along east-west lines, with the Conservatives' strongest support lying west of the Ottawa River.
In Atlantic Canada the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP are in a statistical tie with 29.4 per cent, 33.3 per cent and 29.2 per cent support, respectively.
In Quebec, the NDP has shot far into the lead with 42.5 per cent. The struggling Bloc follows with 25.1 per cent support.
Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe, in a sign of the nervousness in his campaign, even brought out former separatist boss Jacques Parizeau this week in an attempt to lend momentum to his campaign.
In vote-rich Ontario the Conservatives still hold the lead with 41.1 per cent. The Liberals are barely hanging onto second place with 27.9 per cent support while the NDP follows in third with 26.1 per cent, but with support trending upwards.
Ignatieff, in a bid to boost his own poll numbers on Wednesday in Toronto, trotted out former prime minister Jean Chretien.
In the Prairies, the Conservatives maintain a strong lead and are trending upwards, with 53.8 per cent support. The New Democrats follow with 26 per cent, with the Liberals trailing in third place with 14.6 per cent.
In B.C., the Conservatives lead with 45.3 per cent support. The NDP follows with 26.9 per cent and the Liberals are in third place with 23.1 per cent support.
In total, 49 per cent of the Canadians polled said that party policies were the main vote-driver affecting them at the ballot box.
Methodology
A national random telephone survey is conducted nightly by Nanos Research throughout the campaign. Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprised of 1,200 interviews. To update the tracking a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of error for a survey of 1,200 respondents is plus-minus 2.8%, 19 times out of 20.
