Rumblings of a Landslide

The NDP’s current strategy of appealing to Liberal voters may or may not be working, but it seems pretty smart to me. Attack ads work best in a two-party race; because they slime the accuser as well as the target. All very well if the voters have nowhere else to go; but look what happened to Howard Dean and Richard Gephart in Iowa a couple of years ago. They blew each other away, handing it to Kerry and Edwards, who stayed out of the mud.

By appealing to disaffected Liberals, among other factors, Layton can reap the advantages of the Liberal attack ads without being blamed for them.

Negative advertising, after all, gives no reason to vote for you.


Ipsos' seat projection model suggests that if a vote were held tomorrow, the Tories would take 149-153 seats; the Liberals 64-68; the NDP 29-33; and the Bloc 57-61. Note how close the BQ is to the Liberals. If present trends continue up to voting day, they could supplant the Libs as Official Opposition.

Hill & Knowlton thinks the BQ would surpass the Liberal even now, with 61 seats to 49 (!). They also show the NDP up to 41 seats, more than doubling their caucus, and Tories with a bare majority of 156. Nothing could be better for the Tories: a majority plus a split opposition. The NDP and Liberals might even duke it out for who ends up as the more credible alternative government next time. It could be the mirror image of the Reform-Tory struggle.

But I doubt those projections are right.


Decima shows the Tories now at 28%, the Liberals down to 14%, in Quebes. Fourteen percent. That’s NDP territory.


Andrew Coyne points out this from a recent Ipsos-Reid poll: “Those who have immigrated to Canada most strongly support the Conservatives (38%) over the Liberals (35%) and the NDP (19%).” Coyne suggests a fundamental political realignment is taking place: immigrants are moving to the Conservatives