Do you like Nanos? I like Nanos:

CPAC-Nanos Daily Election Tracking CP 34, LP 30, NDP 19, BQ 10, GP 7 (ending October 4)

If one looks at the regional polls today, we see that the Liberals have taken a decisive lead in Atlantic Canada (not a particular surprise), but the Liberals have now risen to 28% in Quebec, still behind the BQ by a good margin, but well in front of the Conservatives, who continue their nosedive with a 16% showing today. As for Ontario, the Liberals have narrowly edged ahead here within the MOE, and they’re going to need to extend that gap to have any hope of forming a minority government.

The next thing to watch is to see if the media bother to report on Nanos. I’ve speculated that many of the major dailies and tv media are reluctant to report other polls findings, because many of them have agreements with polling companies to do polls exclusively for them.. so you’ll not often see other polls reported on - particularly if it contradicts what their particular poll is finding. But, I think it’s the media’s duty to at least sidetrack their narrative of the Conservatives running away with this race to at least report that the pollster who got it right the past 2 elections is showing a slightly different finding.

Decima is showing a tightening as well - just not as dramatic as of yet - but most are saying the Conservative majority is in peril. That’s heartening news for the progressives out there, but we can’t let up now. We must keep working to boot these Conservatives right out of office. They are a toxic party.

UPDATE: The analysis from Nik Nanos:

The fallout from the French and English debates shows the previous pre-debate 10 point Conservative margin is now four percentage points. Tracking shows incremental movement in favour of the Liberals and Stephane Dion. Dion registered his highest score as the person Canadians think would make the best Prime Minsiter at 20% although he still trails Stephen Harper by 12 points.

His more detailed analysis is on CPAC’s Dale Goldhawk show tonight at 7 pm (EST). It should be very interesting to listen to.

UPDATE 2@ 3:30 pm: Well, at least 1 member of the media has noticed the race is tightening: Andrew Coyne, with a title that really brought a smile to my face: The Tories are in trouble

If the latest 2 polls released today from Decima and Nanos are an accurate indicator of a Liberal turnaround in the polls and not just statistical noise, then all we engaged in the last blogpost of mine was some fun hypothetical situations.

Harper showed his “not likable streak” last week that he’s more or less masked this election, and that may have helped to trim the poll gap, as progressive moderate voters got reminded just what a nasty angry mean Conservative Party this is, led by a nasty angry mean leader. That positive momentum for the Liberals needs to be kept up. Keep the gap to single digits until we get to the leaders debate, and let’s see what happens at that and afterward.

There are a lot of polls out there. You also have a lot of newspapers declaring this and that over their particular poll they’ve sponsored without mentioning a thing about other polls that may contradict their specific pollster’s narrative. See the doom and gloom predictions of the Toronto Star and Jim Travers in this past Saturday edition for evidence of that.

Well, Nanos has come out with their tracking poll today, and it shows a tightening of the race down to 6 points between the Liberals and the Cons, down from 8 points the past 2 days. Note also the big undecided vote in that poll - this election is still in play, despite what some in the media would have you think. Decima is still showing a good lead for the Cons, but their poll is also trending well for the Liberals (they have gained back 6 points against the Cons in the past 2 Decima polls), and as BigCityLib and Steve say, the Conservatives policies and such may be coming under greater scrutiny now by the electorate… and the warm and fuzzy sweater ads may be wearing off.

With all that said, the timing of this new ad below to be played in the English language market by the Liberals is well-timed, in my view. It’s a little harder in tone, which I think is going to be necessary, but exudes a positive frame at the end.  Keep hitting them where it hurts, as Warren K. opines today, and don’t be afraid to hit hard.

UPDATE @ 3:52 pm: Warren approves of the new ad.

Let’s list those bad optics as I see them:

- Two polls come out yesterday from Decima and the election guru, Nanos, showing the Liberals leading within the margin of error. Both breakdowns in regional vote would lead to a Liberal minority government if they were to translate to Election Day.

- You have the tainted meat scandal; “Deli-Gate”, as some are calling it. Up to 15 people possibly dead, with the Health Minister Tony Clement in Denver not bothering to return to address the crisis, all while cracking food jokes and meeting with American Big Oil over the Alberta tar-sands. Plus, a document revealed to show that the Conservatives have already implemented some hands-off approach to inspecting, with a proposal in Cabinet to be even more hands-off and let the industry do its own testing, and now another report today showing that the Conservatives were pushing for LOWER industry standards on listeria. Walkerton redux.

- You now have Quebec up in arms over the cuts made to several cultural and arts programs. How much up in arms? Enough that Chantal Hebert, daily Dion critic who not a couple of days ago reminded everyone how the Liberal brand is still suffering in Quebec, now writes in today’s column that Harper and company may have thrown Dion and the Liberals a lifeline there.

You still want that election call Harper, with the additional optic of basically ignoring your own fixed term law and trying to dissolve Parliament before it even meets?

Be my guest.

… and we must never jump to conclusions too soon on only one poll, but traditionally when Parliament is not sitting, the governing party’s poll fortunes rise.  We have also seen the Cons. unleash the “tax on everything!” attack on the Liberal’s Green Shift, but in this particular poll’s results, it appears that neither scenario is in play:

The Canadian Press, Harris-Decima survey suggests the Liberals have pulled ahead in support in Ontario and Quebec, crucial battlegrounds that will determine the outcome of a nationwide vote. Nationally, Liberal support was up slightly to 33 per cent, statistically tied with the Tories at 32 per cent and followed by the NDP at 15 per cent and the Greens at six per cent. In Quebec, the Liberals were statistically tied with the Bloc Quebecois, at 30 per cent and 29 per cent respectively, followed by the Tories at 24 per cent, the Greens at 8 per cent and the NDP at 6 per cent. In Ontario, the Liberals enjoyed a healthy lead with 40 per cent, compared to the Tories with 31 per cent and the NDP and Greens with 14 per cent each.

Perhaps Canadians are also paying a bit more attention to Conservative shenanigans then some think - and not liking it. This poll was taken just as the Ethics Committee investigation into the Conservatives “in and out” electoral financing scheme was getting started up, and the polling was completed before all the delicious testimony of former Conservative candidates and silly Conservative stunts like what Doug Finley tried to pull on Monday. It will be interesting to see if this testimony has any more of a negative impact on Conservative polling numbers. It will also be interesting to see if the poll numbers hold any relevance  for the three byelections and how voters vote in those ridings on Sept 8th.

You don’t need me to remind you what my views on pulling the plug on Harper and his government are, do you?

I will anyhow.

ASAP.

UPDATE@7:42 pm: I saw her blogpost earlier, but stuff like this that Danielle commented about at her blog probably doesn’t thrill Canadians much either.

Apparently, according to some readers, I only bring up polls I like on this blog. First off, I’ll mention that Angus Reid released an (online) poll for the Toronto Star the past couple of days that showed the Cons. up by 10 over the Liberals, had the NDP near 20%, and which seemingly put Chantal Hebert into overdrive mode at the Star in her op-ed columns claiming this poll showed that the Liberals and Dion were dead in Quebec; she was already doing this after the CROP/La Presse poll came out earlier that had the Liberals down by 10 to the Cons. and BQ in Quebec.

This was done a week or so after another column where she played down other polls which showed Conservative strength much lower in Quebec and had her arguing those polls didn’t match what was heard and seen on the ground (which curiously enough, is what Antonio over at Fuddle-Duddle has been claiming as well to me as well - coincidence?). So, I’ll be very interested to see if the new Harris-Decima poll gets mentioned by her - or others - that shows another polling deadlock:

read more from "Libs and Cons deadlocked in new Decima Poll. Will Chantal Hebert mention it?"