Poll shows that provincial election has become a tight three-way race

The provincial election has turned into a tight three-way race with just seven points separating the major party leaders, a new poll has found.

The CP24/CTV Ipsos Reid poll of 800 Ontarians has determined that 35 per cent of decided voters support Tim Hudak’s PC party compared to 31 per cent for Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal party, 28 per cent for Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats and six per cent for the Green Party/Other. Hudak is down four points from last week’s poll, Wynne is up one point and Horwath is up four points. The Green Party and other choices were down one point.

About 19 per cent of respondents remain undecided.

The poll also gives the PC party an advantage in terms of the commitment of its supporters with 47 per cent of those who said only an unforeseen emergency would keep them from polls intending to vote Tory (up six points) compared to 30 per cent for the Liberals (down one point) 26 per cent for the NDP (up one point) and three per cent for other parties (down three points).

It’s not all good news for Hudak and the PC party, though.

The poll asked respondents for their second choices and the data suggests that most NDP and Liberal supporters are unlikely to hop aboard the Tory bandwagon anytime soon.

In fact about 41 per cent of Liberal voters listed the NDP as their second choice compared to 14 per cent for the Tories and 12 per cent for another party.

Conversely, 39 per cent of NDP voters said the Liberals were their second choice compared to 19 for the Tories and 19 per cent for another party.

PC supporters were more likely to vote for the NDP (25 per cent) than the Liberals (14 per cent).

“This data suggests that the potential for significant changes in support is more plausible among the Liberals and the NDP than it is among the Progressive Conservatives,” an Ipsos-Reid analysis accompanying the poll states. “In other words, at this stage the PCs only have limited room for growth from vote switching; the Liberals and NDP have a greater potential for growth if supporters of these two parties decide to rally around one party at the expense of the other, something that the data suggest is a distinct possibility.”

Tories give up ground in Toronto

An identical poll conducted last week showed the PC party was closing the gap in the traditional Liberal stronghold of Toronto but the data now shows those gains are disappearing with 40 per cent of Toronto respondents saying they will vote Liberal (up three points) compared to 32 per cent for the NDP (up 11 points) and 22 per cent for the Tories (down 12 points).

Meanwhile, the Tories continued to lead in the GTA but are seeing their support start to take a hit, dropping to 39 per cent from 48 per cent.

The Liberals support in the GTA remained at 34 per cent while the NDP shot up eight points to 24 per cent.

The poll, which was conducted May 20-21, is considered accurate to within 3.9 percentage points, though Ipsos-Reid cautions that a larger margin of error is possible with the regional numbers.

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