OTTAWA - A new poll shows that when it comes to the Senate expense scandal, the court of public opinion has an early verdict -- and it shows that all the senators involved as well as Prime Minister Stephen Harper may be losers.

The Ipsos Reid poll finds that two out of three Canadians agree with Harper when he says senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau should be suspended without pay.

But the poll, taken in the three days before Monday's bombshell revelations from Duffy that there was a second cheque given to him, also suggests Canadians are not buying Harper's story about what he knew and when he knew it.

For example, Harper and his aides have, as recently as Monday, insisted that the PM had no idea that his former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, was going to write a $90,000 cheque from his personal account and give that to Duffy so the embattled senator could re-pay the Senate for what had been deemed ineligible housing expense claims.

"The Prime Minister has been clear: he was not aware of the agreement between Wright and Duffy; had he known he would not have approved of it because it is inappropriate and that is why Mr. Wright is no longer working for the Prime Minister," Harper's chief spokesman Jason MacDonald said Monday.

And yet, when Ipsos asked survey participants if they believed Harper's claim of ignorance, 65% did not and 35% did. Even in Harper-friendly Alberta, 48% don't believe and 52% do.

When Ipsos asked its 1,102 survey respondents if they approved of the way Harper was handling the Senate expenses issue, 67% of respondents said they did not.

Of those who told Ipsos they were inclined to vote Conservative if an election were held today, one in three disapproved of the way Harper was dealing with the scandal.

Ipsos had more bad news for the Conservatives in its poll: When it asked its respondents who they would vote for, just 29% said they'd vote Conservative -- behind the Liberals and NDP who were tied at 31%.

That's the first time in ages the Tories have been third in any "vote intention" poll and certainly the first time the NDP has been anywhere near first since Justin Trudeau became Liberal leader.