What a difference a week makes.

Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have taken the lead over Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives in two new public opinion polls six days into the Oct. 6 election campaign.

A Nanos Research-Globe and Mail-CTV survey has McGuinty at 38.1 per cent, Hudak at 34.7 per cent, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath at 24.3 per cent and Green Leader Mike Schreiner at 2.7 per cent.

The phone poll of 507 people has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points and it was done Saturday and Sunday.

A CFRB-Global News-Ottawa Citizen poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid had McGuinty at 38 per cent, Hudak at 37 per cent, Horwath at 24 per cent and Schreiner at 1 per cent.

The phone survey of 800 people was done between Thursday and Sunday and is considered accurate to within 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Both polls appear to suggest that voters’ initial reaction to Hudak’s gambit casting a Liberal employment tax credit as a scheme to help “foreign workers” has not been positive.

Prior to last week’s election launch — and the Labour Day unveiling of the Liberal platform — Hudak had led in nearly every public opinion poll for the past year.

But the rookie PC leader has fixated on the “No Skills Left Behind” measure, which has enabled McGuinty to go on the offensive against him for using divisive politics.

It has also allowed the two-term Liberal to avoid awkward questions about the harmonized sales tax, rising hydro bills and other issues.

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