New Ipsos-Reid Poll Shows Conservatives Are Moving Upward.

A new poll released Friday by Ipsos-Reid shows that the damage to the Liberal Party resulting from the Gomery inquiry has not started to quiet down, as per my prediction, but has in fact, started to accelerate.

This is absolutely terrible news for Liberals who were hoping that the damage from Brault's testimony was knee-jerk and ephemeral. This suggests that rather, the camel's back may have just shouldered one straw too many.

The Ipsos-Reid poll released in the days after the devastating Brault testimony went public showed the Liberal’s still had a small lead over the Conservatives in Ontario. Today’s poll, only a few days later, paints a much different picture. The Conservatives have taken a commanding lead over the Liberal Party from coast to coast, and for the first time ever, Stephen Harper is now seen as a more trustworthly leader at 40% versus Paul Martin at 35%. These are very important and earthshaking numbers for the Liberal Party.

If the Canadian public’s confidence in Stephen Harper has reached 40% and Paul Martin’s has fallen to 35%, then the tried and true Liberal line that: Harper can’t be trusted, isn’t going to resonate very well. Canadians already know about Harper’s supposed “hidden agenda” and now that the message has started to fall on deaf ears, it will place a significant damper on the Liberals ability to capitalize on such fear. Put more simply: if Canadians no longer trust the Liberals, then their characterizations of the Conservatives as extremists will be largely ineffectual. The attacks will be seen, correctly, as a Liberal tactic to hold on top power at any cost.

Other interesting patterns have emerged from this most recent poll, especially a drop in support for the NDP.

Also, given that most of the movement in this poll is an increase in support for the Conservatives, as opposed to a drop in support for the Liberals, it seems that much of movement has come from the (previously) undecided voters. Why this is particularly important, is that there was a significantly large block of voters who were floating between Liberal and Conservative in the June 2004 election. At the last minute, it seems, most of them broke for the Liberal Party. But given the changes in atmosphere, and the start of what’s becoming a successful exercise in improving the Conservative image, the Liberals may not be so lucky this time around.

Darrel Bricker from Ipsos-Reid, whose opinions on these matters carry a lot of weight, believes that the Conservatives are on the brink of a critical mass. If the Liberal’s fall much more than they already have, then a majority Conservative government is within striking distance.

Note: Before pointing out to me that Conservative support in Ontario is 29% (based on the text from the CTV article) I must inform any of you Liberal hot-heads, that this is a typo in the CTV article. The actual number is 39%, ahead of the Liberal's at 33%.