Ontario Poll Wackiness, Looking Good for the PCs

I just saw some tweets from the Star's Martin Regg Cohn (@reggcohn) with some Ontario polling results. One tweet that was interesting was Nanos pre-election results, with the Liberals and PCs tied at 36 with the NDP at 21.6%.

The reason that's interesting is that historically Nanos polls have been strangely Liberal biased, with Forum polls often having the PCs way ahead. For instance, I blogged about a Nanos poll on March 20th, that had the Liberals in the lead at 36% and the PCs at 33% with the NDP at 25%. Perhaps it was a rogue poll, but federally and provincially, Nanos often has a Liberal skew.

In another tweet today, Cohn says that Ipsos Reid had the PCs at 37%, the Liberals at 42% and the NDP at 27%, with a possible PC majority. I'm assuming the tweet was wrong with the PCs at 42% and the Liberals at 37% but who knows.

Anyways, if Nanos has the Liberals and PCs tied, that's probably bad news for the Liberals. The NDP being far back probably isn't as bad as one would think. The NDP always has a good ground game in the ridings they hold, and after picking up a bunch of bye election seats, I expect the NDP to hold them. However I'm not sure what Howarth thinks, and she may chicken out from calling an election when the budget comes up.

Nanos Poll Has Hudak and Wynne Close, Horwath in Third

Nanos has a new poll out, showing that the Ontario Liberals have 36%, the PCs at 33% and the NDP at 25%. Nanos' previous poll in January had the Liberals at 36%, the PCs at 28% and the NDP at 27%.

I'm going to try and keep track of all Ontario polls from now on. I've noticed that in Ontario Nanos seems to have the Liberals higher than other pollsters. For instance Forum's last poll I believe had them well back of the Tories. Seems strange, but I'll be keeping track of Ontario polls from now on.

I'm skeptical that the Liberals would poll currently higher than the Tories if an election were held today, but one should never underestimate the propensity of the Ontario voter to vote Liberal provincially.