The endgame

There's still more positive polling news for the NDP, including two polls showing the party in first place in Quebec with up to 36% support. But it's worth taking a closer look at what we can expect as a result of that jump.

In Quebec, I've already noted that the Bloc's main line of defence against the NDP was a strategic voting argument which is now utterly obsolete. And with nowhere near enough time left in the campaign to mount a brand-new set of attacks on a popular party and leader, that means the main question for the balance of the campaign figures to be how many seats the Bloc's election-day machine can save from the NDP's rising tide.

On that front, the most obvious precedent doesn't figure to work in the Bloc's favour.

After all, the 2007 Quebec election saw the ADQ make a jump to 31% on election day, with little ground game to go along with that boost in popular support compared to the province's two historic governing parties. But it doesn't seem to have suffered from any major inefficiency in converting votes to seats, winning 41 seats to the PQ's 36 (with 28% of the vote) and the governing Libs' 48 (with 33%).

Granted, there would figure to be relatively limited overlap between the ADQ's voters and the NDP's. But the example still goes to show that the Bloc/PQ doesn't have any special ability to prevent a third party's popular support from turning into seats.

Which means that the list I posted this weekend now figures to serve only as the first wave of possible NDP wins in Quebec. And barring some major turnaround in the polls based on a last-gasp effort from the Bloc (keeping in mind that the NDP may yet have room to grow now that it's been legitimized as an option), the default expectation looks to be that the NDP will emerge on May 3 as the leading federal political party in Quebec.

And that has ramifications going far beyond Quebec's borders.

To start with, the prospect of the NDP passing the Bloc in Quebec alone sets up a far stronger chance that a post-election government can be formed from two national parties holding a majority of the seats in the House of Commons.

But then, the sudden shift in Quebec also changes the relative positioning of Canada's national parties. If the NDP goes from 13 seats behind the Libs in Quebec to (let's say) 20 seats ahead, then there's effectively no difference in the parties' national starting points even if one ignores the NDP's campaign gains so far.

And unlike the parties who are now scrambling to rewrite campaign scripts which relied on strategic voting to make the NDP go away, the NDP's campaign message that voters do have a choice beyond the Cons and Libs is only reinforced by the party's strength. Which means that the surge in Quebec should only encourage voters across the country to vote for what they really want, rather than settling for the lesser of any number of evils.

In sum, the rest of the campaign now looks to come down to two questions arising out of the NDP's gains in Quebec: whether anybody can counter the momentum within Quebec, and whether the NDP can build on it nationally. And there's plenty of reason for optimism that both answers will turn out in the NDP's favour.

Update: Alice has more.

Update II: And for anybody wondering if the NDP still has any upside in Quebec, here's part of Frank Graves' EKOS analysis:

In a stunning but very real development, the NDP has moved from a curious afterthought to front-runner in Quebec. The patterns are clear. Quebeckers not only pick the NPD as their first preference, but also showing a clear lean to the NDP as their preferred second choice. And this is a direct transfer from the Bloc, where the NDP continues to be the by far preferred second choice and destination of BQ defectors.

So even after pulling into first place, the NDP may still have more additional votes within reach than any other party. Stay tuned - there may be another couple of peaks left in NDP support in Quebec.

Update III: More from Graves:

What happens next is uncertain. While the NDP have grown, they have held on to a major advantage on second choice and now lead all parties by a large margin in terms of their theoretical ceiling (around 50 points).

The rising fortunes of the NDP have been largely at the expense of the Bloc in Quebec and the Green Party in English Canada.

Place your bet now as to how many seats the Star will declare to be in play if the NDP does reach 50% in Quebec. The over/under is 12.

[Edit: fixed typos.]