Ontario Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty is greeted by supporters as he arrives for the leaders' debate in Toronto on Sept. 27, 2011.Frank Gunn
Ontario's election could come down to vote splits in key ridings and the parties' respective ground games, as the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives remain close in popular support and the NDP sits high above its totals from the last election, new numbers suggest.
The result will also turn heavily on "vote efficiency" – or how a party's support is concentrated. A party, for example, may end up winning a larger percentage of the popular vote than it does ridings if its support is concentrated extremely heavily in some regions and is non-existent in others.
The Nanos Research tracking poll, commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV, surveyed voters from Oct. 1 to 3 and shows the Liberals with a narrow lead of 37.7 per cent to the Tories' 33 per cent and the NDP's 25.8 per cent among decided voters. When only the two most recent days of the poll are considered, the Liberals' lead expands to 40.1 per cent, but it is still to small to give them a significant advantage, said pollster Nik Nanos.
The three-day results are considered accurate within 3.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The two-day results have a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
The figures make a minority government likely, and its colour would be determined by how well the parties manage in getting their supporters to the polls and small shifts between candidates in tight ridings.
"Vote splits have almost completely unpredictable outcomes," Mr. Nanos said.
Adrian Morrow