Article content

The federal election is neck–and-neck nationally, but local Conservative candidates appear to be in trouble. There is a reason why Prime Minister Stephen Harper has suddenly been spending a lot of time wooing Ottawa voters.

The Conservatives hold five local seats and were considered likely to win the new Nepean riding, but internal party polling shows that they currently trail the Liberals in four of those seats. Only Pierre Poilievre has a comfortable lead in Nepean-Carleton. The Tories are also close in Kanata-Carleton. They are said to be hopelessly far behind in Orleans and behind by mid-single digit margins in Nepean, Ottawa West-Nepean and Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Denley: Why the Conservatives are in trouble in Ottawa Back to video

The party’s internal numbers are supported by the riding breakdowns provided by the poll tracking website threehundredeight.com.

Riding-level polling information can be unreliable, but there are several reasons why the Conservatives could be looking at a poor result locally.