Quite the Election

Fascinating bit of analysis from John Duffy:

The NDP may be in first place, or pretty darn close to it.

Let me explain. The Nanos research poll, probably the heaviest covered of the campaign, this morning reported national voting intentions of Conservative: 37.8 per cent; NDP: 27.8 per cent; Liberal: 22.9 per cent; BQ: 5.8 per cent; and Green: 4.7 per cent for the period ending April 26. It takes a little arithmetic with this three-day rolling poll, but when you isolate last night’s numbers, you get the NDP in first place with 36.2 per cent; the Conservatives second with 35 per cent; the Liberals with 17.5 per cent, the BQ with 4.4 per cent and Greens with 6.9 per cent.

That’s right. Nanos’s April 26 sample had the NDP in first. This is not definitive; it has a high margin of error; it must be handled with great care. But add to that today’s Forum Research poll, which showed a mere three points separating the Conservatives and the NDP, and it’s pretty clear what is happening. The NDP either has closed, or is close to closing, the gap with the Conservatives.

None of this means that Jack Layton will be our new PM. In fact, as NDP support tends to hurt the Liberals rather than the Tories, there is a risk that a modest NDP surge will hand Harper the majority he has been begging for.

But it certainly does mean we’re having an exciting election, with an uplifting campaign from Layton, desperation from Ignatieff, and delicious fearmongering from Harper and others. At this point I’d expect a bit of a pullback in the NDP surge, with the end result being a Harper minority with the NDP as official opposition, which would most likely spell the end of the road for Ignatieff. But seeing as the weekend will be busy with weddings and hockey and such, who knows.

That all-bets-off feeling sure is fun, isn’t it?