Ekos poll, Friday Jan 20

[Minstrel Boy]

The Toronto Star:

A new tracking survey by EKOS Research Associations done yesterday for the Star and La Presse found the Tories at 37.4 per cent support nationally, the Liberals at 27.3 per cent, the NDP at 20.8 per cent, the Bloc Québécois at 10.1 per cent and the Green party at 3.9. There were 835 people surveyed yesterday, and the poll's margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.

[daleo]

1. Well, Conservative support definitely seems to have peaked

Polls are finally starting to agree that they are no higher than 36% or 37%, which makes a majority extremely unlikely. The NDP is polling high - have they ever topped 20% in popular vote? I could see some shifting there, still.

On edit: Answering my own question (NDP pct of popular vote, from Wiki):

Election % of popular vote
1962 13.57%
1963 13.24%
1965 17.91%
1968 16.96%
1972 17.83%
1974 15.44%
1979 17.88%
1980 19.67%
1984 18.81%
1988 20.38%
1993 6.88%
1997 11.05%
2000 8.51%
2004 15.70%
Avg 15.27%

So, their polling is high but not unprecedented.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. NDP actually led some polls around '87-'89

though unfortunately not on election day. Even in Quebec. It was the birth of the BQ that sent that dream crashing.

What makes this election an optimistic one for New Democrats is not only the strength of our vote but also the relative weakness of both other parties, especially the Liberals. It makes for many more three-way splits, which opens up another tier of possible victories to us.

[daleo]

3. I remember the NDP polling that high

The 1988 free trade election also upset a lot of calculations, I think.