I have to be brief.
The election campaign may have reached a critical turning point with two new polls published this morning showing the NDP leading the Liberals in one and extremely close in the other.
Here are two polls:
- Forum Research -- Con 36% NDP 25% Lib 23% BQ 6% Grn 6% (Canada) -- NDP 36% BQ 25% Lib 18% Con 16% Grn 4% (Québec)
- EKOS -- (Canada) Con 34.5% Lib 25.8% NDP 24.9% (within 10% of 1st place) ; NDP 31.4% Bloc 27.2% Con 18.4% Lib 15.5% (Québec)
The fulcrum of these polls have one common factor: the NDP is now the leading party in Quebec.
The NDP leads the BQ in Quebec.
That's right.
It appears the NDP is doing even better than this around Montréal, as local polls in other regions earlier this week had the NDP doing less well than the average when they were still at a quarter of the vote (the third poll is done by CROP):
Beauport-Limoilou Con 35 (28.4) BQ 32 (26.5) NDP 20 (34.1) Lib 11 (7.9)
Louis-Hébert BQ 37 (29.4) Con 28 (21.7) Lib 17 (13.9) NDP 14 (33.9)
Portneuf--Jacques-Cartier Ind (King Arthur, Con for all intents and purposes) 37 (32.2) BQ 32 (26.1) NDP 17 (26.9) Lib 9 (9.0)
All three are Quebec City area polls which suggests the Tories' vote structure is the same as in 2008 absolutely static. The numbers in parenthesis were obtained by putting the new polls in a projector.
Abitibi--Baie-James BQ 30 (32.3) Con 24 (23.4) NDP 22 (31.9) Lib 20 (10.9)
Abitibi-Témiscamingue BQ 45 (38.9) NDP 21 (32.9) Lib 16 (11.4) Con 15 (14.6)
These are two Northern ridings, Abitibi--Baie-James was a top Tory target.
The last poll, of Québec only:
BQ 34% (31% CROP), NDP 24% (36%), Lib 20% (13%) Con 20% (17%) (province-wide poll, the latter is the new poll)
Winning a large number of seats in Montréal could give the NDP Official Opposition if NDP and Liberals are close, as the Liberal vote produces a large number of seats around Toronto.