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11 December 2005

More work for dogsbodies

As the election campaign enters its third week, polling from different firms shows a general pattern of Liberals leading nationally, although different polls reports somewhat different margins.

Decima's ongoing online polling for Canadian Press shows the party standings at beginning of week three of campaigning, with the Liberals at 36%, The Conservatives at 27% and the New Democrats at 20%.

This is similar to the most recent Strategic Counsel (SC) poll, but differs somewhat in the numbers from SES.

Earlier this spring and during the last election, some of the variation between polls could be explained by different polling dates. SES, SC and Decima all polled within the same time frame.

The general positioning of the parties nationally is similar, except for SES which shows the gap between Liberals and Conservatives narrowing in the past two days.

Interesting to note that Decima's results for British Columbia are closer to SES than SC. Decima shows the Liberals leading New Democrats 36-32 with the Conservatives at 27. SC reported a three way tie (give or take a point) but a margin of error of seven percent, plus or minus.

EKOS reports results similar to SC but its margin of error (+/- 4.9%) leaves its analytical value in question.

While you have to pay to get the meat of their report, Ipsos is reporting a mere four point spread between Liberals and Conservatives nationally. Their Ontario numbers show the Liberals leading the Conservatives by seven points.