Is it a sin to gloat over something I was going to write, but didn't?

T'other day when I wrote my little rah-rah about the premier, I was thinking of writing that like the past several elections in Ontario, we would soon see the Tories overtake the Libs in the polls. But prudence won the day and I held my tongue (figuratively speaking).

Soooo, imagine my complete surprise at today's newspaper headlines. The Globe and Mail had a headline about Liberal numbers slipping. The Sun had a headline suggesting that Ottawa boy Dalton McGuinty, is anti-Toronto.

Here:

***
Ontario Liberals' lead shrinking, polls find


By MICHAEL VALPY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail

E-mail this Article
Print this Article



Advertisement



Related Stories
This could be risky, Ernie
Electoral history suggests that Ontario's party leaders will soon wade into the muck
Pay hike for Ontario politicians deemed unappropriate




True to history's ruthless pattern of the past three Ontario election campaigns, the provincial Liberals are watching their initial lead in the polls melt away.

At the end of the first week of the 2003 campaign, the party's own polling showed a seven-point lead over the governing Progressive Conservatives, about half the advantage polls gave to the party in late August.

A news media poll broadcast yesterday, conducted by Compas Opinion and Market Research, fixed the Liberal lead at five points, suggesting the Ontario election will be much closer than anticipated.

The Compas poll gave 46 per cent support to the Liberals, 41 per cent to the Conservatives and 12 per cent to the NDP, with a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

And although the Compas poll's survey sample is small and therefore its margin of error is large, its findings are mirrored by a second media poll, conducted by Ekos Research Associates, also showing a significant shift in voter support away from the Liberals.

Conservative officials say their own polling shows they are just slightly behind the Liberals.

A precampaign poll done by Ipsos-Reid last month for The Globe and Mail and CTV found 49-per-cent support for the Liberals, 36 per cent for the Conservatives and 12 per cent for the New Democrats.

During a campaign stop in Toronto yesterday, Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty told reporters he had anticipated that the gap between his party and the Conservatives would narrow once the campaign got under way.

"I've told the caucus this all along," he said. "I fully expected that the gap would close with the Tories. I never believed that lead. We're going to have a very hard-fought campaign."

A good performance in the leaders' debate can often boost a party's standing. The leaders of the three main parties will face off on Sept. 23, a week later than usual to avoid scheduling conflicts with series finales of popular reality TV shows Canadian Idol and Survivor, and the Genie Awards.

Political scientists and senior executives of polling firms said in interviews that they still felt the "fundamentals" of the campaign favoured the Liberals — more so than in the elections of 1990, 1995 and 1999 when they came snorting out of the starting gate only to see their campaign momentum go limp within a few days.

But as John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos-Reid which polls for The Globe and Mail, cautioned, "It's not going to be over until it's over."

In part, the erosion in the Liberals' lead was expected by academics and poll-takers because of what is known as the Liberal default factor in Canadian political behaviour.

Canadians, when they are not paying attention to politics, tend to say they support the Liberals — both provincially and federally, in the case of Ontarians. When they do start noticing what's going on, some of that Liberal default support breaks loose.

Mr. Wright suggested the evaporation of the Liberals' lead also could stem from shrinkage of the undecided vote, which was abnormally large in August at 21 per cent.

But at the same time, Mr. Wright and other analysts thought Premier Ernie Eves and his strategists had campaigned flawlessly in the first few days, stiffening the backbones of the party's tepid supporters and keeping attention away from the substantive issues of education and health, where voters are so upset with the Tories.

Jane Armstrong, senior vice-president of Environics Research Group, said most Ontario voters were bunching up in the "somewhat satisfied with the government" group, meaning they're not wildly committed to any party. "The Liberals need to focus on the substantive issues, like health, for example, which is where the Tories get the lowest mark from the electorate."

In any event, Mr. Eves has problems of his own, which should remind him of the immortal declaration of Walt Kelly's cartoon character Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

What the polling numbers for the Conservatives don't show is that the Tories' biggest threat on voting day, Oct. 2, is likely to come from their own supporters.

Mr. Wright said the percentage of committed Conservative supporters who actually intend to vote has plummeted since the 1999 election from 74 per cent to 61 per cent.

The percentage of committed New Democrats who are certain they will vote has also dropped, from 64 per cent to 59 per cent. But the figure for the Liberals has crept marginally upwards, from 58 to 59 per cent.

The point is, Conservatives are expected to vote: They belong to the voting cohorts; they're by and large older and richer than other Ontarians and more likely to own property than rent. When they indicate they don't intend to vote, their party has got difficulties.

"They're saying, 'I just can't make myself vote for anyone other than the Tories, but they're not executing the policies I want,' " University of Windsor political scientist Heather MacIvor said.

It explains why Mr. Eves has been musing aloud about not liking homosexual marriage and bringing back the hangman's noose, two areas of public policy outside provincial constitutional jurisdiction but dear to the hearts of Mr. Eves's true conservative supporters.

At this point in the campaign, not a lot of what might be called off-stage survey data looks good for the Tories. The primary reason? Mr. Wright said the Conservatives are suffering from fuzzy-brand.

The party's own supporters are not sure what it stands for, resulting in support going soft in traditional Conservative groups such as well-educated men earning more than $60,000. Support is even melting in the Tory Valhalla of suburban 905.

Half of all Ontario voters believe it is time for a change in government, an important index for pollsters. (Which doesn't mean that half of Ontario voters believe it's not time for a change; a lot don't know or don't care.)

Environics's Jane Armstrong said that three times as many Ontarians declare themselves "not at all satisfied" with the Conservative government as "very satisfied."

In 1999, when voters were asked who would make the best premier, former Conservative leader Mike Harris had a 15-point lead over Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty. In leader preference in 2003, said Mr. Wright, there's a level playing field.

This is the first election where voters are seeing Mr. McGuinty as a seasoned leader, said political scientist Sylvia Bashevkin, director of University of Toronto's Canadian studies program.

"It's also the first time we're seeing issues that can damage the Tories about to be taken quite seriously."

In sum, said Mr. Wright, "the fundamentals have shifted significantly. The Tories are facing big headwinds.

But he also recalled the 1997 Toronto mayoralty election when Barbara Hall led Mel Lastman in decided votes, but Mr. Lastman won. Why? Because property-owners turned out in bigger numbers to vote than renters did. "That's the same constitutency [property-owners] the Tories are after," he said.