Polls

The headline in La Presse today read: "Conservatives Cruising Towards Majority"
The headline in The Globe and Mail read: "Conservatives Losing Ground In Key Ridings"

The reality is somewhat in between. The Conservatives are still comfortably leading with just under 40% of voter intentions. However, the Liberals picked up some steam in the past few days and gone up by a few percentage points. How do I know this? Because the Globe and Mail has a handy system called "The Poll of Polls" which finds overall trends by finding the average of all national polls. You can visit it at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/national/politics/

The small Liberal rise in popularity is most likely due to their decision to finally start showcasing their team. Bob Rae and Ken Dryden have been making regular appearances on the campaign trail with Dion in the past two days and Michael Ignatieff is scheduled to join them tomorrow at a rally in Toronto. There is concern among Liberals that the team may end up overshadowing the leader and send his personal plummeting ratings even lower, but I've always believed that those "leadership ratings" are overrated. After all, in contrast with our neighbours to the south, voters here choose their party, not their Prime Minister.