polls, green going up; dion slipping ...

Tories widening lead over Liberals: poll
March 1, 2007 CBC News

A new poll suggests Stephen Harper's Conservatives are surging ahead of the Liberals, even in the crucial province of Ontario, where Liberals have long held an advantage.

The Decima Research poll released Thursday showed the Conservatives held 36 per cent support nationally, which is similar to the Tories' numbers when they gained power just over a year ago.

Support for the Liberals fell to 27 per cent, well below the mid-30s the party held shortly after electing Stéphane Dion leader in December.

In Ontario, the Tories surged to 40 per cent support this week, compared with 32 per cent for the Liberals, 15 per cent for the NDP and 13 per cent for the Green party.

The survey of just over 1,000 Canadians was conducted between Feb. 22 and Feb. 26, with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The numbers suggest the prime minister and his party are succeeding in convincing women, urban and Ontario voters that the Tories are a moderate rather than hard-right government, Decima CEO Bruce Anderson said Thursday.
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"We are now seeing them pull ahead of the Liberals among those groups that have been really resistant to the Conservatives for some period of time now," Anderson told the CBC's Don Newman.

Greens gaining, Bloc flagging

The poll also suggested the Green party continues to show momentum across Canada, with 13 per cent support nationally, tied with the NDP for the first time in Decima's polling.

"We've seen for some time that the Green party has been slowly but surely accumulating support across the spectrum," Anderson said.

The poll recorded 35 per cent support for the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, down significantly from its numbers in the run-up to the last election, when the Bloc was regularly closer to 50 per cent support in its home province, Decima said.

"It seems more the case that they can find little to rally anti-Ottawa emotion with," Anderson said. "And so those voters in Quebec who are nationalist but not separatist feel free to consider their other options, which now decidedly include the Green party."

The Liberals followed the Bloc in Quebec with 23 per cent, with the Green party at 13 per cent, and the NDP with seven per cent.

In an average of the last three weekly polls, the Conservatives have 33 per cent, the Liberals 30 per cent, the NDP 14 per cent, the Bloc nine per cent and the Greens 11 per cent.