Poll: Hudak's hard right turn not impressing voters

 Forum president Lorne Bozinoff says a lot of the Tory planks are “just not authentic enough for people in urban areas,” which is bad news for a party with a caucus made up of mostly rural MPPs.

The Toronto Star:

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s swing right appears to have his polling numbers going in the wrong direction.

While the Conservatives still lead Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats and Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, some of Hudak’s new policies seem to be hurting his party, the latest Forum Research survey shows.

The Tories are at 33 per cent, the NDP at 31 per cent, the Liberals at 27 per cent, and the Greens led by Mike Schreiner are at 8 per cent.

Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said the most recent survey suggests that some of Hudak’s right-wing proposals are not resonating beyond his diehard supporters.

“He’s maintaining his base, but he hasn’t done much in the ‘horse-race’ in a few months. He’s down a little bit — he always has a problem where he can’t close the deal,” said Bozinoff.

“They’re trying to connect with urban Ontario, which is their problem (area), but there’s just something not quite right about it.”

For example, only about a third — 34 per cent — of respondents believe compulsory union dues should be outlawed while 45 per cent disagreed with that plan and 21 per cent were unsure.

Continue reading here.