The polling trend had suggested for some time that the major federal parties were rolling along in roughly the same ruts they had carved themselves in the previous two electoral outings. The major uncertainty was whether the Conservatives would pay the price of some of their Quebec City-area seats for the Harper government's gutsy decision to abstain from blatant vote-buying by declining to fund a new NHL-calibre arena there.
But heading into the home stretch, the dominant feature of the campaign is something no one had anticipated: a surge by Jack Layton and his New Democratic Party that is threatening the long-standing dominance of the Bloc Québécois in election races here in Quebec. Some are going so far as to call it an orange revolution. Whether it amounts to that or not, this bodes well for national unity and badly for a sovereignist movement that imagines itself in resurgence.
A Léger poll issued at the beginning of this week showed the NDP running second in Quebec voter support with 24-per-cent backing, double the 12 per cent the party registered in the 2008 election, while the Bloc was at 34 per cent, down four points from last time around. It further showed Layton by far the most popular of the federal leaders, with 36 per cent of voters expressing the most confidence in him, as opposed to 27 per cent for Gilles Duceppe and 13 and 9 per cent respectively for Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff.
A later survey by the equally reputable CROP firm showed the NDP had surged out front of the pack with 36-per-cent support, to 31 per cent for the Bloc, 17 for the Conservatives and the Liberals down to 13 per cent.
Mind, these are only newspaper polls. The only poll that counts is the one registered at the ballot boxes. But what they do suggest is that Quebecers are tiring of the Bloc and its increasingly tedious litany of manufactured grievances, and that they no longer find its goal of advancing Quebec sovereignty a compelling attraction. What the polls indicate is that Bloc support has been reduced to the hardline separatist element of the electorate.
Certainly the Bloc is taking the polls seriously, as evinced by the increasingly hysterical tone of its attacks on Layton. Duceppe most recently stooped to ridiculing Layton's moustache, while another Bloc candidate denigrated the NDP leader's "car-salesman" French. Imagine what umbrage Bloquistes would take if some anglo pol made fun of the quality of Duceppe's English.
It remains doubtful whether the NDP surge will translate into more seats. The support the party has received in the recent polls might be too soft to hold up on election day, and is probably too thinly spread to amount to seat gains. However, there is a good chance that it will deprive the Bloc of enough votes to save some Conservative or Liberal seats that appeared threatened, and possibly cost the Bloc some of the 49 seats it held at dissolution.
This is now Duceppe's great fear in the final days of the campaign. The great hope for federalists is that it comes true on election day.