Ping pong polls: Numbers suggest Liberals leading, days after Conservatives had the edge

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Follow the bouncing ball…

A few days ago, it was the Conservatives topping a national poll by a wide margin.

Now, it is the Liberals leading, with the NDP slipping even further behind.

We are seeing some big swings in the final days of the federal election and the founder of Forum Research suggests it has a lot to do with strategic voters choosing which side they want to take on Stephen Harper and the Tories.

“For the first time in our polls since the election was called, the Liberals are ahead with 35 per cent support. That’s the highest we’ve had them,” says president Lorne Bozinoff.

Forum’s latest poll has the Conservatives at 31 per cent support and the NDP at 26 per cent.

Earlier this week, a Mainstreet poll put the Conservatives on top (37%), with the Liberals well behind (29%), trailed by the NDP (24%) among decided and leaning voters.

“The NDP has been losing a point or two per week, pretty consistently,” Bozinoff tells NEWS 1130. “When the election was called, they were at 40 per cent.”

Bozinoff believes the national surge in support for the Liberals is because people are beginning to make up their mind about which party they want to take on the Harper Conservatives.

“They were torn between the NDP and the Liberals for quite a while, but they now seem to be going toward the Liberals.”

In total, more than a quarter of voters who answered the Forum poll say they are voting for “the party that can defeat the government” (28%), rather than voting for “the party they believe in” (64%).

But Bozinoff says that increases to four in 10 among Liberals (39%) and New Democrats (41%).

If the election were held today, Forum predicts the Conservatives — despite trailing in the popular vote — would take 122 seats, to an almost identical 120 seats for the Liberals.

The NDP would have the balance of power with 94 seats and the Greens and Bloc would each take a single seat.