It’s not exactly a great send-off for Michael Ignatieff’s summer bus tour.
A new poll by EKOS Research between June 30 and July 6 and released Thursday puts Mr. Ignatieff’s Liberals at their lowest point in recent history – even below levels of support endured by his predecessor Stéphane Dion.
And, according to a projection calculated by EKOS President Frank Graves, the Liberals could be reduced to 64 seats from their current 77 were an election held in the first week of July, opening the door to the possibility they might not even form the Official Opposition.
Conducted for the CBC, the poll suggests the Liberals have the support of 23.9 per cent of decided voters. That’s nearly 11 points back of the Conservatives who had the support of 34.4 per cent, which Mr. Grave predicts would give them 142 seats.
The findings represent a marked shift from the middle of June when the race seemed to be tightening.
The NDP garnered the support of 17.9 per cent of those surveyed, the Greens took 11.2 per cent, and the Bloc Québécois 10 per cent.
“There must be grave doubts rising in Liberal land as the new question is how low can they go?” Mr. Graves said.
The drop for the Liberals may be attributed to a rise in Canadian spirit, he said.
“The fortunes of the Conservative Party of Canada and Stephen Harper now appear to oscillate more clearly with the national mood. When Canadians now feel better about the country they tend to assign special bonus points to Stephen Harper.”
The country’s relatively good economic performance – compared to our international partners – along with a feel-good Canada Day and the visit of the Queen may all be contributing to this.
The only minor cloud for the Conservatives, Mr. Graves said, is the continued dissatisfaction with federal government direction and the fact they are still short of last election levels and majority government.
EKOS has adopted a new reporting cycle for the summer months and actually released two sets of data. In the week of June 22 to 29, the poll put the Conservatives at 30.6 and the Liberals at 26.2.
Some pretty strange regional numbers created the dramatic shifts. The NDP, for instance, had 42 per cent in Atlantic Canada in the second week of polling, up from 17 per cent the week before. And the Liberals were 13 points behind the Conservatives in Ontario – a province where Mr. Ignatieff’s party is traditionally strong.
That raises the possibility that there may be some rogue numbers at work. Polls are expected to be accurate only 19 times in 20, meaning duds do happen.
But Mr. Graves dismisses the hypothesis that the results of the second week were a random survey error saying the pattern is too pronounced.
The poll of June 22 to 29 had a larger sample size than the one conducted the following week – 2,342 compared to 1,166 – and is expected to have a slightly lower margin of error – plus or minus 2.02 per cent compared to plus or minus 2.87 per cent.
Here is the Ekos seat projection:
