The NDP continues to hold on to an insignificant lead, but they have been brought back to Earth by the return of Gilles Duceppe in Quebec and a mild revival of Liberal and Conservative numbers. This week’s poll offers some encouraging news for the Liberals in the form of a mild rebound, possibly linked to the major announcements of earlier in the week. This rebound has left the Liberal party just five points out of the lead, half the distance they encountered last week.

The brief ascent of the NDP in Ontario has halted and the Conservatives now have a slight lead, with the NDP and Liberals tightly bunched at 30 and 27 points respectively. This is a potentially major development in favour of the Conservatives, who — if these numbers persist — could now win many more seats with slender pluralities due to vote-splitting on the center-left. The NDP’s decline was particularly pronounced with men.

Gilles Duceppe’s surprising return to lead the Bloc Québécois has produced a modest but significant shake-up of the Quebec electoral landscape. The development got widespread attention but mixed reactions in Quebec; one-quarter of Quebeckers say they are now more likely to vote for the Bloc Québécois, while two-fifths say they are less likely.

Looking at the impact of Mr. Duceppe’s return to politics broken down by party affiliation, we see that Bloc Québécois supporters are largely excited; two-thirds say they are now more likely to vote for their party. Conservative and Liberal supporters couldn’t care less; virtually no one in these two groups is reporting a tilt towards the Bloc.

NDP supporters, however, are somewhat more open to voting Bloc now that Mr. Duceppe is back and it appears that many former Bloc supporters who defected to the NDP are now re-considering their options.

In the end, the net impact of Mr. Duceppe’s return may end up being insignificant — but the immediate impact has been to greatly shore up the Bloc Québécois base and to eat into the NDP’s now much smaller lead in Quebec. The Liberals have seen a sharp uptick in Quebec and now find themselves within the margin of error of the somewhat diminished NDP (flowers on the way to Gilles from Justin, no doubt).

The second-choice responses continue to point to deep challenges facing Stephen Harper. The Conservatives have very little room to grow, while the NDP and Liberals have high ceilings. Unfortunately for those seeking a change of government, the symmetry of second choices for Liberal and NDP voters shows the two parties are fishing from the same pond; growth for one party is cannibalized from the other, which will aid Harper’s prospects.

That dynamic is pretty critical for the Conservatives for two reasons: the party has precious little room for growth and the rating on the broad direction of the federal government has reached one of its worst scores in seven years.

From coast to coast, Canadians believe that something needs to be done about the Senate. Just one Canadian in ten is content with the status quo. It seems that, against a backdrop of partisan noise about outright abolition versus fixing the Senate’s democratic deficit and lack of accountability, the reform option has come out one top. Forty-five per cent say that Senate reform is the best option, while 35 per cent say only abolition will do.

And notwithstanding the fact that NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has been leading the fight for abolition for some time, NDP supporters still prefer reform to abolition.

Our tracking on Senate abolition reveals that, despite the scandals that have rocked the upper house in recent years, support for abolition has actually receded in recent years. (An important caveat: we last asked this question during the height of the Senate spending scandal, just days after Mike Duffy alleged that Stephen Harper had coerced him into accepting a personal cheque.) Not surprisingly, support for abolition is notably higher among NDP supporters.

Whatever the future ultimately holds for the Senate, it’s clear that average citizens want to be part of the decision-making process. Six in ten would like to see a national referendum on the issue.

Overall, the mild NDP regression to a statistical tie may reflect an electorate just catching up with the party’s newfound polling prominence. We see a lot of uncertainty among voters as to what will happen in October — but a very sharp rise in the number of those who see the NDP as a potential winner. No doubt this new outlook is causing voters to take a more critical look at the NDP and other possible government configurations. It also may have raised the hackles of Conservative supporters, causing the party’s numbers to rise marginally over last week.

So, we’re back to familiar territory: a three-way race with clear NDP strength. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals may be showing signs of getting their ‘mojo’ back following their recent policy announcements. Canadians are now as uncertain as we are about what’s going to happen in October, but the race continues to evolve and shift as we approach the real campaign period.

Frank Graves is founder and president of EKOS Polling.

Methodology:

This study was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The field dates for this survey are June 10-16, 2015. In total, a random sample of 3,834 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/-1.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.