Momentum building

Something's happening here:

An Angus Reid poll shows one quarter of Canadians say they would vote for the New Democrats, an increase of four percentage points since early this month.

That puts the party in a tie for second place with the Liberals, who are also at 25 per cent after seeing their support drop by two percentage points over the same period.

And here:

But the big winner from the debates in the short run is NDP Leader Jack Layton—at the expense of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his party, the Forum Research poll of 2,241 Canadians found.
...
The poll of voter preferences nationally for the four main parties and the Green Party showed the NDP was the only party to significantly gain ground since the results of the last Forum Research poll conducted April 5 and April 6, edging up to 22 per cent support from the 20 per cent in the earlier poll.

And even here:

A new poll, done exclusively for QMI Agency by Leger Marketing, shows that Layton and the NDP are the only party to win significant new support on the campaign trail in the last two weeks.

The party is now the preferred choice of 22% of voters, up from 18% two weeks ago.

"Both ends of the country are turning to Jack," said Leger's Christian Bourque.

Of course, all of the pollsters are quick to pair the NDP's gains with a declaration that they might not last until election day. But however tempted some respondents might be to shift their votes, they'll have absolutely no reason to do so when there's no meaningful advantage to doing so - which means that the NDP's effective parity with the Libs (paired with greater popularity on issues and in leadership) may offer exactly the right set of conditions for lasting change for the better.