Ontario Liberals, NDP Gaining Ground on PC Lead

Take this poll for what it's worth, but it does suggest a reversal in Tim Hudak's fortunes over the summer.

Since we've been pounding out the poll coverage this week, and there's a relative dearth of interesting news in the final days before the Ontario provincial election gets underway, a Forum Research poll has the Progressive Conservative's lead over the Liberals dwindling to just five percentage points. Tim Hudak's PCs are holding on to 35-per-cent support, while Dalton McGuinty's Liberals are inching closer with 30 per cent and Andrea Horwath's NDP is up to 26 per cent. The PCs, who polled nearly 20 points higher than the Liberals around Canada Day (41 per cent to 22 per cent), are well clear of majority territory before the official campaigns have even kicked off. The surge in NDP support probably has something to do with the passing of federal NDP leader Jack Layton (that's the easy answer, at least), so we're now seriously thinking of laying down a couple hundred in Vegas on the unlikely result of a three-way tie for seats: 38, 38, and, well, 37 for the NDP just because there are only 107 seats.