Your Home, Your Vote Friday summary

Ontario is roughly half-way through its election campaign. And this week, pollsters took stock to try to determine which party — and which leader — are out in front. Two major polling firms crunched the numbers and they came up with two wildly different answers.

The two polls show roughly consistent support for Tim Hudak’s Tories, at around 35 percent. That’s minority territory. But depending on which poll you choose, the Liberals are either way ahead and looking at a majority government or slowly closing the gap, behind Mr. Hudak.

The Forum Research poll pegs Liberal support at a surprising 41 percent. That would give them roughly 60 seats in the Legislature — a comfortable majority. But the Ipsos-Reid poll actually shows the Conservatives out in front, with a four point edge on the Liberals — enough to stop them just short, of a majority victory.

Both polls have Andrea Horwath’s NDP trailing the front runners by anywhere from three to ten percentage points — but Horwath says the numbers, may be deceiving: “When you look at Mr. Hudak’s plan — I don’t think that anybody takes that plan very seriously at all! So, I don’t think Mr. Hudak has the kind of support that people might suspect.”

Premier Wynne brushed off the polls — but not the voters: “The only thing I would say to people in the province is to pay close attention and to, on June 12th, make sure to get out and vote.”

That last, part may be especially important for Wynne, and her government.

Although Tim Hudak ranks last in personal popularity amongst the three leaders, his voter support is by far, the best. A full 53% of Conservative voters say they are solidly committed, and will be out on June 12th, to vote for their man.

That compares to 42% for the NDP and only 37 % for the Liberals. If that holds, and only one out of three Liberal voters actually goes to the polls. June 12th could be a very rough election day for Premier Kathleen Wynne.

The wild card in all this of course is the undecided vote and that currently stand at 19%. That’s a lot of voters. But that doesn’t necessarily bode well for Mr. Hudak. With his number being faily stable throughout this process, and only the Liberals and NDP going up and down, it suggests that perhaps that undecided vote will be split between those two parties, and not necessarily go to Mr. Hudak