A new poll by AP-Ipsos, based on a survey done during the debate over the no-confidence motion, shows that the Liberals have dropped into a dead heat with the Conservatives on a national basis. This data has not received wide release -- in fact, I had to buy a membership at Ipsos in order to see the data. Based on a sample of 1,000 adults -- a sampling type that normally would overreport Liberal support -- the results surprisingly mirror those of the private Robbins Research poll taken earlier this month. Both parties get 31% of the national vote, and NDP picks up 18%. BQ gets 14%, all of it from Quebec.

However, the details have to disturb Liberals who hope to return to power in the next Commons. Their support base in Ontario appears to have seriously eroded. Earlier polls show that the Liberals once enjoyed a double-digit lead in their power base. Now that lead has collapsed into a statistical tie with the Conservatives, 37%-35%. The NDP appears to have taken advantage of Liberal slippage, moving up to 21% support in the province. The Tories now outstrip the Liberals in British Columbia, where the Liberals had made inroads in provincial voting last March; the Tories have a 34%-28% advantage on the West Coast province. Liberals only have an outright plurality in the Maritimes; they lead the Tories 24-7 in Quebec but get trounced by Conservative partner Bloc Quebecois, 58-24, showing that the Liberals can expect to lose seats in the region most touched by Adscam.

If these trends continue, it would appear that the Tories will have a chance to form a minority government in January. I'll keep a close eye on the polling and the subsidiary results. If anyone wants to toss in some loose change to help support the Ipsos membership, my Paypal link is on the sidebar.

UPDATE: I received an update and correction from Ipsos, which has been terrific in terms of customer service already:

First, AP doesn't do any political polling in Canada, with the exception of their quarterly Globus poll. Rather Ipsos Reid is the pollster of record for the CanWest News Service and its flagship news broadcast Global National News and flagship daily the National Post. All of these polls, including the one you quoted, are reported in these outlets which have national audiences here in Canada. In addition, we release the results over a national wire service and post the results to our website. FYI Ipsos Public Affairs is the polling partner of the AP and conducts regular political tracker polls in the U.S. So Ipsos Reid does Canadian political polling for CanWest and Ipsos Public Affairs does U.S. political polling for the AP. Hope this helps ...

Happy to add the correction, and thanks for the assistance!

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