Tories keep 6-point lead: EKOS poll

The popularity of the federal Conservatives has slipped slightly but they still have a six-percentage-point lead over their Liberal rivals, a new EKOS poll suggests.

The poll results, released exclusively to CBC News, show 33.9 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for the Tories, now running a minority government, if an election were held today. That’s slightly down from the 34.4 per cent who said they would do so in a similar poll two weeks ago.

Liberal support remained steady at 27.8 per cent.

The random survey of 1,312 Canadians aged 18 and over — including a sub-sample of 1,140 decided voters — was conducted Oct. 20-26 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The period for the previous poll, released Oct. 14, was Oct. 6 to 12.

The NDP had the support of 15.1 per cent of respondents, down from 15.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, support for the Green Party rose to 11.6 per cent, up from 10.4 per cent.

Support for the Bloc Québécois remained steady at 9.3 per cent, the poll suggested.

Some 2.2 per cent of respondents said they would vote for a candidate not affiliated with any of those parties, down slightly from 2.3 per cent in the previous polling period.