EKOS of the Week: Oh, Liberals. Can't you keep it together for one little weekly polling cycle?

Meanwhile, the best day for the Liberals, at least from the EKOSbots' perspective, was Monday, although they did manage to close out the cycle at a reasonably respectable 29.2. The Conservatives, on the other hand, hit the heady heights of 34.1 percent last Thursday, but saw their support deflate over the weekend, and finished up at 31.8.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's check out the regional numbers: 

British Columbia (MoE 5.89)
Conservatives: 34.7 (+2.2)
NDP: 28.1 (+3.8)
Liberals: 21.6 (-4.1)
Green: 13.3 (+0.4)
Other: 2.3 (-2.3)

Look at those Dippers -- and, to a slightly lesser degree, those Conservatives -- go! It's hard not to wonder whether this particular Liberal free fall may be at least partly the result of a bit of brand confusion with the provincial Liberals, especially given the steady upward march of the NDP, but you have to wonder whether certain occasionally renegade-ish MPs -- yes, Keith Martin, I'm talking about you -- might nonetheless take these results as a sign that perhaps this isn't the best time to knuckle under to the leader on certain upcoming private members' business.

Alberta (MoE 7.00)
Conservatives: 56.4 (-4.1)
Liberals: 16.7 (+2.1)
Green: 11.8 (+0.3)
NDP: 10.5 (-1.2)
Other: 4.7 (+2.0)

Oh, Alberta. How you tease. Last week, the Conservatives were this close to galloping past the 60 percent threshold. This week, they're back in the mid-fifties -- which, of course, would still mean that they could run household appliances in a handful of ridings and still come back with a full slate. Meanwhile, the 1.2 point drop for the NDP could bode ill for that dash of orange amid the blue, although if there is any riding in which the Guergis Jaffer factor might affect the outcome of a local race, it's Edmonton Strathcona.

Saskatchewan/Manitoba (MoE 7.77)
Conservatives: 43.8 (+2.2)
Liberals: 23.2 (-0.9)
NDP: 18.2 (-5.6)
Green: 11.8 (+4.4)
Other: 2.9 (-0.1)

Another not terribly auspicious omen for the NDP, which actually wins seats in Saskitoba, and, as such, would prefer to be within striking distance -- or, ideally, a smidgeon ahead -- of the Liberals, who ... really don't, for the most part, apart from a handful of hardy holdovers from the majority years. Good news for the Greens, though! (And, of course, the Conservatives, but it's not like they were in any particular danger.)

Ontario (MoE 3.97)
Liberals: 34.6 (-2.0)
Conservatives: 33.1 (+2.0)
NDP: 17.0 (+0.5)
Green: 13.1 (+1.2)
Other: 2.3 (-1.5)

The Liberals manage to keep the mathematical lead in Ontario for a second -- or is it third? -- week in a row, although it really is a statistical tie at this point, given the nearly four point margin of error, and anyway, weren't they ahead by like, six points a few polls back? The Conservatives, on the other hand, are slowly but surely creeping forward, and may well oust the big L from first place by next week.  

Quebec (MoE 4.76)
Bloc Quebecois: 38.4 (+3.7)
Liberals: 22.7 (-1.4)
Conservatives: 13.8 (-2.2)
Green: 12.0 (+1.2)
NDP: 9.8 (-2.5)
Other: 3.4 (+1.3)

Yikes. Not a banner week for Team Not The Bloc Quebecois, was it? The NDP sinks to fifth place -- seriously, fifth place? -- but there's little to celebrate for any of the various and sundry federalist forces as the Liberals slump back into the low twenties, the Conservatives slip from the high to the barely mid-teens and the Greens -- well, the Greens are up, at least, as are The Others, so there's that.

Atlantic Canada (MoE 8.20)
Conservatives: 34.7 (-2.5)
Liberals: 32.1 (-4.2)
NDP: 20.0 (+4.3)
Green: 13.2 (+5.4)
Other: 0.0 (-3.0)

And finally, to Atlantic Canada, which always gets short shrift when Thursday morning rolls around and I spend far too much time trying to come up with something interesting to say about Alberta, only to run up against deadline when I finally make it out East. Sorry about that, y'all. In any case, both the Liberals and the Conservatives are down, although the latter managed to hang onto first place, and the NDP pulls out of the tailspin that saw its numbers plunge dramatically over the last month with a four point pop, although to be fair, support for the Green Party leapt by even more impressive 5.4 points. Also, awww, poor Others. I always feel bad when you goose egg. I wonder how many respondents have to pick one of your unspecified number for you to show up as even 0.1 percent? 

Oh, and as for the weekly direction of government question, both the Thumps Uppians (41.4) and the Thumbs Downians (46.6) went down, the former by an ever so slightly higher degree, although that could be explained by the rising numbers of those who simply skipped the question. If I were the party in government, however, I would be at least a little bit unsettled by the fact that, amongst undecided voters, just 24.5 percent approve of my navigational skills, with 52.9 opposed. Then again, if I were a party in government, I'd probably spend far too much time obsessing over tiny subsets of data, to the point that my chief of staff would issue strict instructions to keep any and all such information out of my desperately grasping little hands. 

That's it for me -- over to you, commenters! 

By the way, as some of you may have noticed, we now have working tags (!) which means you can revisit the complete collection of EKOS posts with a simple click of the mouse right about here. Nifty, no?