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The beneficiary has primarily been Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. Trudeau has the apparent momentum now, although his poll numbers are still short of what they were a year ago.

Polls aside, the regional nature of NDP support was always going to make the road to government a challenging one. At the beginning of the election, the NDP held 94 seats. With only 41 seats outside of Quebec, they were a blip in the Atlantic provinces and a distant second in Ontario. They held only three seats in the Prairies and a dozen in B.C.

Even when the NDP was polling much better, their numbers weren’t going to translate into a huge number of seats, mostly because they have been weak in Ontario throughout the campaign.

The Mulcair campaign’s failure to build any momentum is really not that big a mystery. It was conceptually flawed from the outset. Mulcair is a former Liberal running as a New Democrat while espousing a Conservative approach to spending. It’s no wonder voters might be confused.

Rather than going aggressively after the numerous “progressive” voters, Mulcair and the NDP have hedged their bets with policies aimed at both Liberal and Conservative supporters. Personally, I like that Mulcair believes in balanced budgets, but since the budget has already been balanced, he’s not promising to do anything new. Voting for Mulcair because you believe in balanced budgets is like drinking Diet Coke.

On the progressive side of the NDP agenda, there are a number of policies that sound attractive but don’t amount to much. Mulcair’s plan for $15-a-day child care relies on the cash-strapped provinces to pay for 40 per cent of the bill. His $15-an-hour minimum wage will benefit only those who work in federally regulated jobs.