In our reader polls, as Canada prepares for a federal election Monday, the Liberals have kept their commanding lead.
Starting in March, the Conservatives, Greens and (especially) NDP saw their support sag, and the Liberals saw theirs rise. This more or less reflects the trend in national polls.
In recent polls, Liberal support has been in the 50 per cent range, and Conservative support in the 40 per cent range.
Looking again at the national polls, the most important trend seems not to be so much that Conservative strength has fallen (it has, somewhat) but that NDP, Green and, in Quebec, Bloc support has swung heavily to the Liberals.
This earlier published graph of ours, contrasting horse race numbers from December with April, shows the trend in our reader polls very dramatically.
Given that English Canada seems to be home to a lot of independent centre-left voters who can contentedly vote either NDP or Liberal depending on the election, what if we took things a little further and introduced a preferential ballot for federal elections?
About 62 per cent of you were against the idea, but answers varied strongly by party.
Who would benefit? Probably the Liberals in the big picture, since they would likely be able to pick up second- or third-preference votes from the Greens and NDP, while probably the Conservatives would only get second-preference votes from the PPC.
(If Canada ever brought back per-vote subsidies, the smaller parties would have something to gain, since voters would be free to vote for their true first preference without fear of their votes being wasted.)
The Conservatives, at least, seem to realize that a preferential ballot would mostly work against them, while small party supporters find the idea most appealing:
About 70 per cent of readers were opposed to a formal merger of the Liberals and the NDP.
Reading between the lines, and referring to our polling about recent voter shifts, it would seem that there are a number of New Democrats who are voting Liberal in this election, potentially as a one-off, but who would oppose taking things further and uniting the parties.
This week, we also polled for a personality trait, asking: "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?"
The answers have a very close relationship to voting intention, and to the major parties' leaders, with PPC and Conservative voters being far less trusting.
It also has a relationship with income, though one that appears most strongly at the lowest band.