Polls suggest Liberals may be on their way to forming a majority government

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - As Canada prepares for an election, which may be called sometime before parliament is recalled on March 24, polls show the Conservatives and Liberals in a statistical tie. But 6 out of 8 recent polls also show the Liberals rising quickly and now narrowly ahead. On Sunday 338Canada projected the odds of a Conservative forming a majority government has fallen from 99% on January 19 to a mere 13%. About 8 AM Tuesday - an hour after Cortes Currents sent in its daily radio broadcast! - 338Canada revised its projections to suggest Mark Carney’s Liberals may be on it’s way to forming a majority government.

That may have been because the first of this week’s polls.

The Angus Reid Institute suggests the Liberals may be on their way to a majority.

Mark Carney is believed to be better equipped to:
handle the trade war with the United States (55%-30%),
develop or expand new trade relationships outside the US (54%-28%)
handle Trump’s threats of annexing Canada (53%-31%)
protect Canada’s economy (53%-33%)
deal with the provinces (47%-31%)
protect health care (44%-26%)
and reduce the cost of living (41%-35%)

That said, Angus Reid only found the Liberals leading by 5% in the popular vote.

Leger gave them a 3% lead and also identified a ‘wild card.’ 28% of their respondents said they did not know enough about Carney to have an opinion, compared to just 12% who said that about Poilievre.

338Canada’s latest projection, from this morning, suggests the Liberals could be elected in 177 seats, which is 5 more than what is needed for a majority.

The Liberals are now projected as leading in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario the Yukon and Northwest Territories. They are tied with the Conservatives in Manitoba. The Conservative Party currently only leads in BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Angus Reid and Leger suggest the NDP’s support is now down to a single digit (9%).

In British Columbia, where 338Canada projected the Conservatives may be elected in many as 22 seats, a dozen former NDP seats may be going Conservative or LIberal. Six of them are on Vancouver Island, where there is not a single NDP candidate leading in the race.

North Island Powell River (NIPR) has been an NDP riding since Rachel Blaney was elected in 2015, but Blaney stepped down and the new NDP candidate, Tanille Johnson, is 25 points behind Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn. The big story in this riding may be the Liberal’s jump from 12% to 20% since Jennifer Lash announced her candidacy last week. While the NDP are currently second in this riding, they just lost 6 points and the Liberals picked up 5.

338Canada suggests the progressive vote in North Island Powell River is split between three parties: with the NDP falling to 23%, the Liberals rising to 20% and the Greens unchanged at 6%.

Sometime in the next two weeks, Prime Minister Carney will dissolve parliament and an election will be declared. Once the writ is dropped, there will be a campaign of at least 37 days and no more than 51 days.