The mud the opposition has thrown at the Liberals in the last few months simply isn't sticking.
According to a new Ipsos-Reid poll for CTV and The Globe and Mail, the Liberals have many positives right now that hint they could form a majority government.
Here's the Globe and Mail and CTV.ca stories. CTV.ca did a second story that looked at same-sex marriage.
Some key points:
- 47 per cent of the respondents think the Liberals deserve to be re-elected (an 18-percentage-point jump since the election
- 56 per cent approve of Prime Minister Paul Martin's performance
- 49 per cent say hes's the right leader for difficult times
However, the Liberals remain at 37 per cent support -- a two-point drop since the last poll.
The Conservatives are at 26 per cent, the NDP 17 and the Bloc is at 10 per cent nationally, 39 per cent in Quebec.
In that sense, while we've had roughly eight months since the June 28 federal election, little has changed on the national political landscape.
While Martin has decent approval numbers, voters' opinion of the man the Economist dubs Mr. Dithers is worsening.
In Quebec, where the Liberals must make big gains, they are only five points behind the Bloc, but Duceppe is far more popular than Martin -- and tracking upward.
Another thing about Quebec is that the Liberal vote tends to be concentrated in Montreal, where they usually win by massive margins. For the Liberals to make significant gains, they would have to be running well ahead of the Bloc, which isn't likely to happen any time soon.
Jean Charest is running a very unpopular government in la belle province that has the label "Liberal" hanging around its neck.
For the Tories, Harper isn't impressing people. In Alberta, 44 per cent of people didn't think he was the best choice for prime minister -- absolute bedrock Conservative country.
Ipsos pollster John Wright told CTV.ca that same-sex marriage has given the Tories about a three-point boost. However, they need to rise more like 12 points or more to have a chance at forming government.
Rather than being an issue that breaks chunks of support off the Liberals, it appears that same-sex marriage is merely hardening Conservative support at this point.