The longer Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne is in office the more Ontarians seem to like her, a Forum Research poll suggests.

“Premier Wynne gets more comfortable in her job the longer she's in it, and the voters seem to be getting more comfortable with her at the same time,” Lorne Bozinoff, founder and president of Forum Research, said Thursday.

This defies earlier predictions that she would have a short honeymoon in the wake of former premier Dalton McGuinty’s controversial reign. However, the party is trailing Wynne, who won the Liberal leadership on Jan. 26.

Of the 1,156 Ontario voters surveyed Wednesday, 40 per cent approved of the job Wynne is doing, up sharply from 34 per cent last month.

That compares to 27 per cent for Tory Leader Tim Hudak, up from 24 per cent. The highest approval rate goes to NDP Leader Andrea Horwath with 44 per cent.

“The new Liberal leader has a huge jump in approval ratings . . . this is exactly what the Liberals were hoping for (by changing leaders),” Bozinoff said. “It looks like Wynne is not going to be a one-hit wonder.”

The results of the popularity poll show that if an election was held today it’s anybody’s game.

More than a third — 35 per cent — would vote for the Progressive Conservatives if an election were held today, a jump of three per cent from last month, while just a third or 32 per cent would cast their ballot for the Grits.

The New Democratic Party slipped in the poll, which showed that last month 29 per cent of Ontarians supported them, but just 26 per cent when surveyed Wednesday.

Given these results, if an election were held today, the Liberals would capture a minority of 50 seats out of 107 seats in the legislature, down from 53 last month and the 53 they won in the 2011 election; 43 seats for the PCs up from 36 last month and 37 in the election; the NDP would take 14 seats, down from the 17 secured in the election.

These results come amid less than enthusiastic support for a provincial election, given that the last one was less than two years ago when the McGuinty Liberals won minority power.

Fifty-nine per cent of those surveyed turned thumbs down to the idea of an election, with 34 per cent favouring one. Tory supporters were the most eager to go the polls at 53 per cent, followed by NDP voters at 33 per cent, while only 18 per cent of Liberal supporters wanted an election.

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The Tories draw their strengths from older voters with both the Liberals and NDP appealing to middle-aged or younger Ontarians.

The poll was conducted by interactive voice response and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 per cent, 19 out of 20 times.

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