Outremont - NDP & Liberals in Tight Race

That is the view of Chantal Hébert in the Sept. 4 Toronto Star as she suggests Liberal strategists must "fret about the closing gap between their candidate and Jack Layton's". (The CROP poll she discusses is described here in French.) It reports the Liberals at 21% province-wide and the NDP at 13%. It has been little noticed but the NDP's numbers have been getting better in Quebec.

TC's projection based on the CROP poll would put the NDP five points back but that is simply calculated from the performance of the NDP and the Liberals in the 2006 election (when the Liberal candidate was Jean Lapierre.) It takes no account of NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair's considerable strengths.