Entering Dog Days of Summer, Hudak's Tories (42%) Build Lead Over McGuinty's Liberals (31%)

Toronto, ON - As Ontario enters the dog days of summer, a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of Postmedia News, Global Television and NewsTalk 1010 finds that Tim Hudak and his Progressive Conservatives (42%) are building on their lead over Dalton McGuinty and his Liberals (31%), but those gains are only outside of the GTA.

If the election were held tomorrow, Mr. Hudak and the Tories would receive the support of 42% of decided voters, up 2 points since last month's poll. In comparison, Premier McGuinty and his Grits would receive 31% of the vote among decided voters, down 3 points. Ontario's NDP led by Andrea Horwath would garner 22% of the vote (up 2 points), while Mike Schreiner and the Green Party would receive 5% support (down 1 point).

While the gap between the PCs and Liberals has risen from 6 points to 11 points in the last month, Hudak's gains have been exclusively outside of the GTA, where his party is already the dominant force. In fact, in many regions outside of the GTA, the Liberals are being threatened by a bolstered NDP. Inside the GTA, Premier McGuinty continues to hold on to a small lead - just 2 points - which is, statistically speaking, a tie and within the poll's margin of error.

• In the GTA, the Liberals (39%) have a narrow lead over the Progressive Conservatives (37%), while the NDP (20%) and Green Party (4%) are well behind.
• In South-western Ontario, the Tories (52%) hold their biggest lead over the Grits (23%), NDP (18%) and Green Party (6%).
• In Central Ontario, the PCs (43%) lead while the NDP (25%) and Liberals (20%) battle it out for second place, with the Green Party (12%) in fourth place.
• In Eastern Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives (44%) hold a healthy lead over the Liberals (28%), with the NDP (24%) not far behind, and the Green Party (4%) lagging behind.
• In Northern Ontario, the PCs (45%) lead the NDP (30%) and Liberals (25%), while the Green Party struggles to gain support (0%) among those polled.

These are the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted exclusively for Postmedia News, Global Television and NewsTalk 1010 from June 7 to July 7, 2011. For the survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 802 adults living in Ontario was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 1773.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult population living in Ontario been polled. These data were weighted to ensure that the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Ontario population according to Census data.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Public Affairs
416.324.2002
[email protected]

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