Progressive Conservative support in Toronto is plummeting, according to a new poll.

The party has slipped to third place in the city, dropping 10 percentage points since June 1 to 24 per cent support.

The Liberals, who hold 19 of 23 seats in Toronto, is at 39 per cent, up from 34 per cent three months ago.

The NDP, which has four seats here, has leapfrogged the Tories and is at 30 per cent up from 26 per cent.

The Forum Research interactive voice-response phone survey of 1,046 Toronto residents was conducted Monday and is considered accurate to within 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The results may reflect reaction to Tory Leader Tim Hudak’s attacks on a Liberal employment program for new Canadians as “affirmative action for foreign workers,” suggested Forum president Lorne Bozinoff.

“I think someone has made a real screw-up,” he said. “Right now, the Tories aren’t going to win any seats in the 416 with these kind of numbers.”

Breaking through within city limits in the Oct. 6 election is seen as crucial to Hudak forming a government. The provincial Tories have not won a Toronto riding since 1999. Buoyed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s success here in the May 2 federal election, the PCs hope to win four or five seats.

But Bozinoff said it appears as if the Tories’ deriding of the $12 million “No Skills Left Behind” program — designed to give businesses $10,000 tax credits if they hire skilled immigrants like architects and engineers — has hurt Hudak.

“I don’t know if they framed it the right way when they called them ‘foreign workers.’ I don’t think it’s helping them. It’s thrown them off message. They’re not talking about McGuinty’s record,” the pollster said.

While Hudak has tempered the attacks somewhat, McGuinty had a spring in his step Tuesday, insisting Ontarians are embracing his optimistic vision for the province.

“There’s only one poll that counts and it’s the poll that will be taken on Oct. 6 and we’ll be working as hard as we can to ensure that Ontarians understand that we’ve got a really important choice before us,” he said at a Scarborough solar-panel factory, one of two green energy plants he toured Tuesday.

“It’s not just about tomorrow and the next week. It’s about where do we want to go during the course of the next 10 or 20 years,” he said.

Liberals were buoyed Tuesday by a Nanos Research survey that had the Liberals at 38.1 per cent, the Tories at 34.7 per cent, with the NDP at 24.3 per cent and Greens at 2.7 per cent. That poll surveyed 507 people on Saturday and Sunday, and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Another poll, conducted by Ipsos-Reid, had a narrower Liberals lead, 38 per cent to 37 per cent, with the NDP at 24 per cent and the Greens at 1 per cent. That phone survey of 800 people, done between Thursday and Sunday, is considered accurate to within 3.5 percentage points.

In London, Hudak maintained people “are looking for change” despite his slide in the polls and said voters should be getting to know him better a full week into the campaign.

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“Every day I’m going to be out talking to families about our plan for change, to give families relief, a chance to catch up,” he said.

With files From Rob Ferguson

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