The latest Angus Reid poll released today shows some interesting numbers:
Conservative: 147 (anywhere from 146-184)
New Democrats: 99 (anywhere from 10-99)
Liberal: 44 (anywhere from 44-68)
Bloc Quebecois: 17 (anywhere from 17-46)
While looking at the actual polled numbers it appears like a Conservative minority again, we do see that the Liberal+NDP numbers are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to bypass the Conservative plurality; which means they’d need to rely on the Bloc Quebecois for support to put Jack Layton into 24 Sussex Drive. First, it is highly unlikely that Michael Ignatieff would be able to stomach that idea, and second, the Canadian public would never accept a coalition – formal or informal – with the Bloc.
The numbers are very positive for the Conservative party. Despite polling 35%, the concentration of NDP support is in Quebec, at the expense of all other parties. This pulls down the national support figure for the Conservatives, and pulls up the same figure for the NDP.
Excluding Quebec, you see some startling changes (and, because I don’t have sample sizes for each province, this is a rough estimate based on an extrapolation, and the numbers do NOT add up):
Conservative: 42
New Democrats: 28
Liberal: 25
This is a more accurate glimpse of what’s going on in Canada, when you take out the NDP surge in Quebec.
I can’t imagine how Michael Ignatieff can sleep at night, knowing he’s made the biggest blunder of his (abbreviated) political career.