Tim Hudak is the Progressive Conservatives’ best bet for leader in a new Forum Research Inc. poll that shows him ahead of possible successors and with a slim lead on Premier Kathleen Wynne’s minority Liberals.

“The parties are pretty closely bunched,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said after the survey put the Tories at 35 per cent, the Liberals at 32, and Andrea Horwath’s NDP at 26 per cent — little changed from last month.

“Nothing is impossible for any of the three main parties. Any one of them could move forward with the right strategy. But right now, no one can close the deal.”

The results suggest the August 1 byelections — where five Liberal ridings were up for grabs, with Wynne holding two, the NDP gaining two and the Tories one — were more local contests than a “mini-election,” Bozinoff told the Toronto Star.

“The Liberals are really holding their own” despite lingering controversy over the $585 million cancellation of power plants in Mississauga and Oakville before the 2011 election, Bozinoff added.

It will be hard for the Liberals to grow their support while the gas plants are in the spotlight of a legislative committee with an auditor general’s report expected next month to update the costs of axing the Oakville plant and moving it to Napanee, the pollster said.

Opposition parties are trying to keep the pressure on, using their combined majority on the committee this week to request thousands more documents on the closures from the government and the Ontario Power Authority.

The poll was conducted Wednesday by telephone through interactive voice response with 1,063 randomly selected adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The Green Party had six per cent support and other parties one per cent.

Translated into seats in the 107-member legislature, Forum projects the survey would give the Liberals 53, with 36 Tories and 18 for the NDP.

Current standings are 50 Liberals, 37 Tories and 20 New Democrats.

Despite recent turmoil over his hold on the party after just one byelection win — a long-awaited 416 breakthrough in Etobicoke-Lakeshore by former deputy Toronto mayor Doug Holyday — Hudak bests six potential rivals as leader with the 35 per cent support, the poll found.

“The Tories should think about that,” Bozinoff said, referring to a push from a disgruntled group within the party for a new leadership review process after Hudak emerged from the byelections as the “perceived loser.”

“Who’d have a discussion about replacing a leader during a minority government?” he added.

For example, with Holyday at the helm, the Tories polled at 34 per cent versus 32 per cent for the Liberals and 26 for the NDP. But with Doug Ford, the Liberals jumped to top spot with 35 per cent and 28 per cent each for the Tories and NDP.

Meanwhile, Tory MPPs Frank Klees and Randy Hillier, who had been pushing for a leadership review, insist they no longer have designs on the top job, and Klees told the Star he will vote against any leadership review.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

There will be a vote at a Tory policy convention in London, Ont., next month on whether to approve a new process that would leave the party leader subject to a review at virtually any time. The constitution now calls for a review only after the party fails to win a general election. Hudak passed the last one with 78 per cent support.

Questions about his leadership are likely why Hudak has slipped in the approval ratings to 24 per cent from 27 per cent last month, said Bozinoff.

“He’s taking heat over the byelections.”

The Tories had been leading in the polls in London West, formerly held by energy minister Chris Bentley, but came second behind the NDP after the Liberal vote collapsed under candidate Ken Coran, who was head of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.

With a general election not expected until next spring at the earliest, should both opposition parties decide to defeat the government over its next budget, the poll found 56 per cent of people surveyed don’t want an election now while 39 per cent supported an immediate trip to the polls.