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QUEBEC — The Coalition Avenir Québec continues to lead the pack in provincial voter intentions but Quebec’s Liberals are far from dead, making fresh gains as non-francophones drift back to the party, a new poll suggests.

Despite efforts by CAQ Leader François Legault to make inroads in the minority community, 69 per cent of non-francophones say they plan to vote Liberal on Oct. 1. That’s a seven percentage point increase over the last 10 days.

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It’s not quite the 80 per cent levels the Liberal Party used to bask in, but combined with other factors — including Philippe Couillard creeping up in the category of voter trust, pollsters say the Liberals are still in the game.

The CAQ lead remains fragile and this poll was conducted before the bad optics of Tuesday’s stunning resignation — in the middle of the campaign — of CAQ party president and candidate Stéphane Le Bouyonnec.

After almost one full week of campaigning, the new Léger poll conducted for the Montreal Gazette and Le Devoir pegs support for the CAQ at 37 per cent, a point higher than a similar poll by Léger 10 days earlier.