Two more polls have appeared on the weekend before the historic May 2nd election which show that the NDP is closing in on the Conservatives with the gap narrowing outside of Alberta. One of them by Angus Reid is featured on the front pages of the two of the  largest circulation influential newspapers in the country Montreal’s la Presse and the Toronto Star. The headline in La Presse LE NPD GONFLÉ  À BLOC makes it clear that the New Democrats are in the process of blowing the Bloc Québecois off the electoral map of Québec with 45 % of voter intentions compared to the Bloc’s 26 %. The Liberals are way below their norm in Québec at only 16 % and the Conservatives at 13 %. If these poll numbers held at election day the NDP would sweep the vast majority of seats in Québec capturing as least as many as the Bloc in previous elections. The Liberals would hang on to a handful,  the Conservatives would lose a number of theirs as well. In the rest of the country outside of Alberta the race is much closer a contest with the NDP vote rising in B.C. to within 3 % points of the Conservatives  and to a lesser extent in Ontario placing it neck and neck with the Liberals at 27 % but well ahead of the pack in the Atlantic region with 46 % of the vote. Only in Alberta and Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the Conservatives far ahead with 67 % in Alberta and 54 % in Manitoba Saskatchewan. Nevertheless, the Liberals and the NDP will win several seats in and around Regina and Winnipeg and probably one in Edmonton.

The second poll by Ipsos for Global News has almost identical  national results as the Angus Reid poll. Their subregional numbers differ somewhat but not by much except that in B.C. they show the Liberals with higher numbers and the NDP further behind the Conservatives at 29 % versus 39 % in the Angus Reid poll.The Conservatives in B.C. are at 42 % in  both Angus Reid and Ipsos. The Liberals  are 26 % in Ipsos but only 12 % in Angus Reid. Since the error factor in these regional samples is usually greater than 6 % the results are not very reliable at the regional level.

Despite the best efforts of the Toronto Sun in traditional Fleet street tabloid style to smear the NDP leader with only two days left to election day it would seem that the New Democrats’ momentum is very likely to produce a major shift in Canadian politics on Monday. We shall soon see if the Liberals’  determined effort to save the furniture in a number of ridings across Ontario bears any fruit on election day.