Pollster Decima has tongues in Ottawa wagging tonight and rightfully so. The Conservatives widen their lead over the Liberals and the Green Party is in a tie with and may even be more popular than the NDP. Here's the national numbers according to Decima:
- Conservatives – 36%
- Liberals – 27 %
- NDP – 13 %
- Green Party – 13 %
In Ontario, the Conservatives are positively giddy about these numbers:
- Conservatives – 40 %
- Liberals – 32 %
- NDP – 15 %
- Green Party – 13 %
Decima does not yet have the poll up on its Web site as I type this (late Thursday night Ottawa time) but I suspect they might have more information up on Friday. The poll, which was provided to The Canadian Press, claims that it is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Here's how the popular vote came down in the last federal election:
- Conservatives – 36 %
- Liberals – 30 %
- NDP – 18 %
- Bloc Quebecois – 11 %
- Green Party – 5 %
I find the Green Party's rise fascinating but I wonder how 'hard' this Green Party support is. In other words, I wonder if an election were indeed held tomorrow whether much of that Green support would evaporate and drift back to the mainstream parties — probably the Liberals and the NDP more so than the Bloc and the Conservatives. I suspect — though I have no polling data to support this — that many Green Party supporters are dissatisfied with the mainstream parties and are 'parking' their vote with the Greens, telling pollsters or anyone else who asks that they are looking long and hard at Elizabeth May and her band of revolutionaries but hoping that their dalliance with the Greens forces change at the parties they've traditionally supported.
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I believe you're correct David. The Liberals probably will have a little more support on election day than current polls would indicate. For many people the Green party is a horse of likeable colour but it has some legs missing.