Blue swayed

Conservatives move into commanding lead in new poll

MONTREAL— Stephen Harper’s Conservative party has taken a commanding lead in the federal election race, a new poll suggests.

With less than a month to go in the campaign, and heading into the first of three leaders’ debates, the Tories have moved ahead of their rivals with the support of 35.4 per cent of voters, according to the Ekos poll conducted for Montreal’s La Presse newspaper.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party has 26.3 per cent support and the NDP has the backing of 24.5 per cent of survey respondents. The poll questioned 2,343 people between Sept. 17 and Sept. 22 and is considered accurate to within two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The results would seem to smash the notion of a three-way horse race that has been recorded in polls conducted through the first eight weeks of the election campaign.

“If (the Conservatives) keep those numbers up they’re very close to a majority—if not there already,” said pollster Frank Graves. “The numbers are about as good as we had for the final weekend of polling (in the 2011 election) when they achieved their majority.”

Graves credits the Tory swing into the lead both on the missteps of Harper’s opponents and the targeted, emotional appeal to traditional Conservative voters that is bringing them back into the fold.

“It’s clear that there has been growth in some of the constituencies they won their majority with in 2011 — people who had been sitting on the sidelines unhappy with them or whatever they were doing,” the poll- ster said. “They seem to have returned as a consequence of what has been going on over the last week.”

Harper may also be getting a credibility boost out of the wrangling about the importance of balanced budgets.

Trudeau’s Liberals have committed to infrastructure spending that would result in three years of deficits, arguing that this is the right time to make such large capital investments. The Conservatives have committed to balanced budgets after several years of deficits following the economic downturn in 2008. Mulcair’s NDP have also pledged balanced budgets, saying they would increase the corporate-tax rate and cancel Tory initiatives like income-splitting to pay for their promises.

The poll results now show the Conservatives with clear leads in British Columbia, Alberta, the Prairie provinces and in Ontario, where 38.7 per cent of respondents are backing the Tories compared to 30.3 per cent for the Liberals and 19.9 per cent for the NDP.

Mulcair’s party still leads in Quebec with 32.8 per cent voter support, but the Tories have experienced a surge in support, rising to 23.7 per cent in the province.