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Abacus pegs support for the NDP in Quebec at 30 per cent. The Liberals are second with 24 per cent, the Conservatives third with 21 per cent and the Bloc last with 20 per cent.

When the election started, Abacus said a 37 point gap separated the NDP from the other parties. The gap is now 6 points.

Nationally Abacus has the Conservatives still ahead with 32 per cent of the vote. The Liberals are at 29 per cent while the NDP slid into third place with 27 per cent.

The Quebec results are based on the opinions of 638 Quebec residents. The poll was conducted Sept. 27, after the first French leader’s debate in Montreal.

Abacus does not hypothesize on factors for the drop but NDP leader Tom Muclair had to defend his party’s position on the niqab issue during the last debate, a hot issue this election.

While the Conservatives and Bloc are in favour of a ban on use of the niqab, a veil which partially covers the face, during Canadian citizenship services, the Liberals are against the ban in the name of personal freedoms.

The NDP position has evolved with Mulcair now defending the right of women to wear one.

The niqab issue was the most debated subject on social media during the debate.

The poll lands as the leaders prepare for Monday evening’s Munk debate in foreign policy. A second French debate, this on TVA, takes place Friday.

The poll was conducted online with 3,814 Canadians aged 18 and over from 9:30 pm ET on September 24 to 3:00pm ET on September 27, 2015. The survey reports that the “margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/- 1.6%, 19 times out of 20. The data were weighted according to census data to ensure that the sample matched Canada’s population according to age, gender, educational attainment, and region.”