The New Democrats’ decision to topple the Liberals and force a June 12 election appears to be backfiring, the first poll of the campaign suggests.

While the Progressive Conservatives lead in the Forum Research survey, the Liberals are poised to form another minority government due to the efficiency of their vote.

The poll showed Tim Hudak’s Tories at 38 per cent, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals at 33 per cent and Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats at 22 per cent. Mike Schreiner’s Greens came in at 6 per cent.

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It’s the first poll conducted since Horwath announced Friday that her party could no longer prop up the Liberals and would join the Conservatives in defeating Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s left-leaning budget tabled the day before.

That forced Wynne to ask Lieutenant-Governor David Onley to dissolve the minority legislature, launching the 41-day election campaign.

“I think the Liberals set a trap and the NDP fell into it,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff told the Star on Saturday.

“She turned down her dream budget. It doesn’t get better than that for New Democrats,” said Bozinoff.

Using interactive voice-response phone calls, Forum surveyed 1,845 people across Ontario on Friday and Saturday. The results are considered accurate to within two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Horwath triggered the election just one day after Sousa introduced a budget crafted to appeal to New Democrats and avert a campaign but could also serve as a Liberal platform if need be.

The $130.4-billion fiscal blueprint — which was endorsed by many private- and public-sector union leaders — included a new Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, modelled on the Canada Pension Plan, to force people to save more.

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Sousa’s plan would have increased taxes on the top 2 per cent of earners — all 220,000 Ontarians making $150,000 and up — to help fund $29 billion in public transit and transportation infrastructure over the next decade.

It also raised wages for home-care workers who help seniors and daycare employees who look after children.

Forum found 48 per cent of respondents approved of the budget. Thirty-two per cent disapproved, and 20 per cent didn’t know.

More than two-thirds — 68 per cent — approved of the income tax hike for wealthier Ontarians, with just 24 per cent disapproving and 8 per cent with no opinion.

While those budget policies were popular, 39 per cent think Sousa’s spending plan will be bad for the economy while 21 per cent think it will be good, another 21 per cent feel it will have no effect and 19 per cent were unsure.

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Bozinoff said extrapolating the polling results would see the Liberals winning 49 seats in the 107-member legislature, the Conservatives taking 45, and the NDP holding 13.

At dissolution, there were 48 Grit MPPs, including Speaker Dave Levac, 37 Tories, 21 New Democrats, and one vacancy.

“We still see a lot of bias in the seat-distribution model toward the Liberals,” Bozinoff said, noting the Conservatives pile up in votes in rural areas while the Liberals do better in urban Ontario.

“The Tories need to get over 40 per cent for a lot of seats to fall their way,” he said. “It appears the Tories could pick up a few Liberal seats, but the Liberals are going to pick up a few urban New Democrats’ seats.”

The pollster said he was “really surprised at the hit that Andrea Horwath has taken in personal approval.”

Horwath came in at 36 per cent in the new poll, compared to 34 per cent for Wynne and 26 per cent for Hudak. However, in last month’s Forum poll, she was at 40 per cent. (Wynne was at 34 per cent and Hudak at 27 per cent.)

Last month’s poll had the Tories at 38 per cent, ‎the Liberals at 31 per cent, the NDP at 23 per cent, and the Greens at 7 per cent.

Like most polling firms, Forum uses a weighting formula, which has been shared with the Star, to more accurately reflect the broader electorate. Raw data from this poll will be housed in the Political Science Data Library at the University of Toronto.

Speaking to supporters in Hamilton, where she was formally nominated Saturday as a candidate, Horwath said she could no longer abide by a government that has spent “billions on scandals and waste.”

“In 40 days, we’re going to have an election and people will have a real choice,” she said.

“You deserve a better government that values your tax dollars and invests them in your priorities, that creates jobs and makes your life affordable — a government that makes sense — and we’re going to deliver,” she said.

Wynne aimed her fire Saturday at Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose federal Conservatives publicly oppose her Ontario pension scheme as a payroll tax.

“It’s very early in the campaign and the federal government has jumped in to criticize our plan,” she complained, ignoring the fact that she launched a salvo against Harper on Friday after launching her campaign.

“If Prime Minister Harper isn’t interested in partnering with us, then he should move out of the way,” she said.

Hudak, meanwhile, was quietly focused on promoting his plan to create one million new private jobs over eight years.

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