Harper's Majority Hopes Slipping Away

Going into last night's French Language Debate Stephen Harper's Conservatives were already in trouble in Quebec. Harper's positions on youth crime and arts and culture had both cost him with Quebecers. According to a recent poll by Leger Marketing the Tories were down 8 since mid-September going into the debate.

"A poll of 3,624 Quebecers by Leger Marketing shows that if the election had been held last week, the Bloc Quebecois would have received 33% of the votes in Quebec and the Conservatives -- who have slid 8 percentage points since mid-September -- would have come away with 26%. The Liberals would have received 23% of ballots cast, followed by 12% for the NDP and 5% for the Green Party."

Seat projections based on those numbers would have given the Conservatives 12 seats in Quebec compared to 47 for the Bloc and 14 for the Liberals. That would be just two more seats than the Conservatives won in Quebec in 2006. Last night, it appears, Quebecers felt that Harper lost the debate and badly. An instant polls held after the debate showed that only 13-16% of Quebecers felt that Harper won the debate compared to 40-41% for Stephene Dion, and 22-24% for Gilles Duceppe. If these numbers hold it would be fair to assume that the Conservatives will pick up no seats at all in Quebec and will have to work hard to hold the ones they have. Without gains in Quebec it is difficult to see how Harper would gain a majority of seats nationally.

If the Conservatives win only 10 seats in Quebec, they would need to win 145 of the 233 seats in the remaining provinces to form a majority and the Conservatives are currently trending downward nationally. Currently at 35% which is down 6 points since the election was called.