Nearly Half of NDP, Grit Supporters Open to Merger

Poll of the day: Well, if it worked for the other guys ...

Nearly half of NDP and Liberal supporters say that a merger between the two parties would be a good way to make sure Stephen Harper's Conservatives don't return to power in 2015. An Ipsos Reid survey found that 41 per cent of Liberal supporters and 44 per cent of NDP supporters felt that a united, left-leaning party would be in both the parties' interests. Of course, the corollary to those numbers is that a majority of both party's supporters don't think too much of the idea. Among the NDP leadership candidates, only Nathan Cullen of B.C. has so far espoused any notion of working with the Liberals in the next election, suggesting that the NDP, Liberals, and Greens ought to pick just one candidate to run against incumbent Conservative MPs. The same Ipsos Reid poll found that all parties' support levels have generally stayed the same since May 2, with the Tories falling two percentage points to 37 per cent, the NDP holding steady at 31 per cent, the Liberals inching up two points to 21 per cent, the Bloc still existing at six per cent, and the Green Party slipping a bit to three per cent.