Conservative support slips as race with the Liberals tightens, poll analysis shows

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This article was published 12/09/2021 (1199 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA—Polls suggest the Conservatives and Liberals are locked in a tight race for the final sprint to election day, as Erin O’Toole made his most pointed attack on Justin Trudeau since the start of the federal campaign.

According to the latest numbers from The Signal, a statistical model that analyzes public polling data to forecast the election result, O’Toole’s Conservatives command 32.7 per cent of the national popular vote with one week left in the campaign.

But the Liberals are in a very close second with 30.7 per cent. The New Democrats are holding steady at 18.3 per cent, while the far-right People’s Party is at seven per cent and the Greens are at 3.3 per cent.

If an election were held today, the Signal projects no party would win the 170 seats needed for a majority in the House of Commons. Instead, the Liberals would clinch 139 seats and the Conservatives would get 134. The NDP, meanwhile, would win in 36 ridings, while the Bloc Québécois would get 27 seats.

The Greens and the People’s Party would each win one seat, according to the Signal.

When Trudeau called the election, the Liberals held 155 seats in the House of Commons and the Conservatives 119.

The Signal is developed by Vox Pop Labs in partnership with the Star. It uses a computer modelling program to analyze federal polls in a way that accounts for the “house bias” of various polling firms over several years, as well as differences between their survey findings and the actual results of Canadian elections.

Clifton van der Linden, chief executive officer at Vox Pop Labs and a political science professor at McMaster University, said the latest Signal projections account for all national polls released as of Sunday. It shows the Liberals inching up in Ontario, he said, where the party is now ahead with 35.6 per cent to the Conservatives’ 33.7 per cent.

At the same time, the Conservatives have seen their national support shaved down thanks to bumps in support for the Bloc in Quebec and the People’s Party in Ontario and the other provinces, van der Linden said.

The Signal has also picked up a significant boost in NDP support in British Columbia, he added, with the party seeing a “mini orange wave” in the province that has lifted it from around 25 per cent when the election was called, to passing the Liberals and closing in on the Conservatives with 29 per cent in the most recent data.

But it’s the situation at the national level between the Conservatives and Liberals that is making the contest “very tight” with a week left before election day, said van der Linden.

“It’s a mix of a shift in support towards the Liberals in Ontario, and Conservative votes being siphoned off,” he said.

That dynamic is occurring as O’Toole emerged Monday morning — exactly one week before election day on Sept. 20 — to make his sharpest attack yet on Trudeau’s record at the head of a Liberal government. Speaking in Ottawa, O’Toole thrashed Trudeau for ethical lapses like the SNC-Lavalin scandal and accused the Liberal leader of prioritizing his pursuit of power above all else.

“I’d say he’s all talk and no action, but this is worse: a person so blinded by his own ambition that he can’t see the rot in his own party, a man who is not a feminist, not an environmentalist, not a public servant, a man who’s focused solely, squarely on himself,” O’Toole said.

Trudeau later responded at an event in Vancouver that the Liberal critiques of O’Toole during the campaign have focused on policy — such as the Conservatives’ about-face on gun control — instead of “impugning” his character.

“I’m going to continue to stay focused on Canadians, on what Canadians are telling me about what they need for their families,” Trudeau said.

Voting in advance polls started on Friday, when roughly 1.3 million Canadians cast their ballots, according to Elections Canada. In the 2019 federal election, almost 4.9 million people voted over four days of advance polling.

Meanwhile, as of Monday, almost 1 million people had requested kits to vote via special ballot with 448,103 voters having submitted their votes this way, according to Elections Canada.

About 660,000 people voted by special ballot in 2019, up from around 619,000 in the 2015 election.

Alex Ballingall is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @aballinga