The long-standing deadlock between the Tories and the Liberals appears to be broken, a new poll says.JONATHAN HAYWARD
The wonderful website ThreeHundredEight.com has the May polling average up this morning - essentially a poll of all of the polls released over the last month. As usual, the results reaffirm the current prevailing Ottawa narrative.
The NDP: They're on the move. Hugely popular leader, taking full advantage of the weak Liberal Party. They averaged 16.4 per cent in May. This result is worse than Jack Layton did in 2008 (18.18 per cent) or 2006 (17.48 per cent). But boy, do they have momentum.
Stephen Harper: The man is in control. He's toying with the opposition like a cat with a mouse. He's having more fun right now than Tony Clement doing late-night tweeting about the music he's downloaded. Harper's May average? 34.6 per cent. Also down a full 3 per cent from 2008's 37.6 per cent, and down from 2006's 36.27 per cent; but expect him to call an election any moment now because he has the opposition right where he wants them.
And then there are the Liberals: Pauvre Michael. So sad. Things are going so very, very badly. He averaged in May was 27.8 per cent. Not a good number - no doubt about it. It of course happens to represent the only party (Bloc aside) that has actually grown its vote in May since the last election (up from 26.26 per cent) but boy, things are awful in Liberal land right now.
And to save my friendly commenters some breath, I am not spinning that the Liberals are doing well just because they are the only party that is up in May compared to 2008. Not even a tiny little bit.
The real, continued message from the polls is all three parties - the NDP, the Conservatives and the Liberals - are sucking wind right now. None of them are connecting with voters. None of them have momentum. None of them should want an election right now.