Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives would supplant the ruling Liberals to form the government if an election were held today, a new survey suggests.

The Forum Research poll says the Liberals, with just 30-per-cent voter support in the survey conducted Tuesday, would be turfed as about 40 per cent of voter support leans to the PCs.

The New Democrats, with 21-per-cent support, would finish third.

Cast across Ontario’s 107 ridings, that would translate to a projected 57 seats for the PCs — a slim majority.

The Liberals would win 26 seats and the NDP, 24 seats.

The Forum survey puts the Tories on top in every region of the province, with a razor-thin edge on the Liberals in their Toronto-area stronghold.

Perhaps not surprisingly in Southwestern Ontario, where the Tories hold the most seats, the Liberals and Premier Kathleen Wynne fare worst in the poll among the three parties and their leaders.

The Liberals have been in power since 2003.

“Most governments after the second term are on thin ice. By that time they’ve made enemies, (voters) are bored of them or tired of them,” said pollster Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research Inc.

“The Liberals are in this mid-term slump and it’s an open question about whether they can snap out of it.”

From their sell-off of a majority stake in Hydro One, to its introduction of a new sex-education curriculum, “they’ve got to think long and hard about how to find a path from where they are now,” Bozinoff said of the Liberals.

But political scientist Peter Woolstencroft said opinions this far out shouldn’t be seen as predictors and he noted that the results of the two previous elections didn’t reflect early polling.

“The bottom line is it’s early days because we know campaigns matter,” said Woolstencroft, a veteran Queen’s Park watcher and professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo.

He said the Liberals have a low-trump card in which they can claim to be good money managers. And while he believes their record on that has been “lousy,” they may benefit ultimately from an improved economy in the next election in 2018.

“For most people, the question is, ‘Are things getting better and are things likely to get better?’ That would be the high-trump card.”

The only time the Liberals have seen worse Forum poll numbers since Wynne won a majority government two years ago was in February, just after the provincial budget.

“Looking at it now, the momentum will be with the Conservatives, unless they shoot themselves in the foot,” Bozinoff said.

The Tories hold seven of the London region’s 10 seats but have been shut out of power since 2003.

The poll identifies a big gap in perceptions of the leaders, even by party faithful. Wynne and rookie PC leader Patrick Brown both have lower approval ratings than their parties, while New Democrat leader Andrea Horwath polls higher than her party.

Wynne has the support of just one-fifth of the electorate and three of every 10 Liberal voters don’t approve of her, the poll suggests.

Brown, only a year on the job, fares only slightly better, with the approval of only one-quarter of voters, and a high percentage of voters – more than half – who don’t know enough about him to rate him. “He’s got the greatest room for growth potential,” Bozinoff said.

Woolstencroft said Brown is still trying to become better known and has to work hard to “find a plausible political alternative” to Liberal economic policies.

“It’s very difficult for opposition party leaders to get attention because Ontarians are notoriously not interested” in them between elections, Woolstencroft said.

Asked who’d make the best premier, almost half the voters surveyed chose chose none of the Big Three leaders or said they didn’t know.

Most troubling to the Liberals is likely their weakness in the 416 and 905 area codes, their traditional Toronto-area fortress, Bozinoff said. “If they can’t win here, they can’t win anywhere.”

About one-third of respondents who voted Liberal last time said they’d bail on the party next time — half to the Tories, half to the NDP. That split would leave the Liberals with few policy options to regain those voters, Bozinoff said.

“So, the centre is melting and that’s the disaster scenario for the Liberals,” he said.

About the survey:

— Forum Research Inc. surveyed a random sampling of 1,172 voting-age Ontarians by phone Tuesday.

— Results of the poll are considered accurate to within three percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.

THE POLL:

Full results of the poll are here.

THE BREAKDOWN

Voter support by region in the survey:

Ontario-wide: PC, 40; Liberal, 30; NDP, 21; Green, 7; other, 2

By region:

Southwest: PC, 43; Liberal, 22; NDP, 28; Green, 6; other, 1

Eastern: PC, 46; Liberal, 32; NDP, 14; Green, 6; other, 2

416 area code: PC, 36; Liberal, 35; New Democrat, 20; Green, 7; other, 1

905 area code: PC, 42; Liberal, 32; New Democrat, 17; Green, 7; other, 1

GTA: PC, 40; Liberal, 33; NDP, 18; Green, 7; other, 1

North: PC, 30; Liberal, 27; NDP, 29; Green, 10; other, 2