Ask and ye shall receive

An article from the star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/572739

The headline is "Harper edges ahead of Ignatieff in poll"

In general the poll does not change the 'ball game' in a major way from the projection below, though the Liberals are down in Quebec, and the NDP is up in BC. It appears as though more and more, much of the Tory success, pollwise, comes from Alberta. While it’s always been the case, the simple fact is that now more and more people live in Alberta, meaning a lead there will weight higher in national polls. The Tories are behind the Liberals in Quebec, and just about tied with them in Ontario. The biggest edge appears to come in Alberta and the other Prairie provinces. We may be entering a time where we will see the opposite of historical poll trends come true. In the past, the Liberals needed a 1%-2% lead nationally to win an election, even just barely, since so much of their vote was “wasted” in Quebec, where they would rack up huge wins. It may now be the Tories turn to experience this problem with huge wins out west. In the west, Conservative poll numbers are at, or are above 2008 numbers, but in Ontario they are steady, if not they’ve dropped. The problem is that many NDP voters have switched from the NDP to the Liberals according to the polls. Last election the NDP won 17 seats in Ontario, their highest ever in a federal election. All signs say that at least a dozen of these will revert to the Liberals.

The Bloc is another issue that I will deal with later. In short, their ‘weakness’ does not appear to be temporary. The Bloc does not appear set to ‘rebound’ to poll numbers that had them 15 points or more ahead of the nearest party for the past number of years. The Liberals do indeed appear to be back in Quebec.

We will keep an eye out for other polls as well.