Surging N.B. NDP tied with Liberals: poll

New Brunswick's NDP has caught the Liberals for second place in popular supportamong voters, according to the latest Corporate Research Associates poll.

The Liberals and the NDP are tied at 20 per cent among decided and leaning voters. But both parties are trailing David Alward's Progressive Conservatives, which was picked by 56 per cent as their preferred party.

The Corporate Research Associates quarterly political poll found the number of undecided respondents was 37 per cent.

The rising NDP numbers comes after theparty's strong performance in the federal election in May.

Stephen Harper's Conservatives won 43.9 per cent of the popular vote in New Brunswick compared to the NDP that won 29.8 per cent and the Liberals finished third with 22.6 per cent of the vote.

The provincial NDP also saw the support for its leader rise in its latest poll.

NDP Leader Dominic Cardy is the preferred choice of premier for 14 per cent of those polled compared to 15 per cent for whoever the next Liberal leader is and 39 per cent for Alward.

Cardy wasacclaimed as the party's leaderin March after the only other contestant was disqualified. But he hasfaced questions about that process and even had to deal with the resignation of a member of the provincial executive.

The poll was in the field after the Alward government released its first budget that included a series of cutbacks and tax increases on fuel and cigarettes.

Those tough choices have not dented the Alward government's popularity in New Brunswick.

The percentage of voters who are completely or mostly satisfied with the Alward government's performance is 68 per cent compared to 62 per cent in February. The number of people who are completely or mostly dissatisfied with the Alward government's job dipped to 19 per cent from 22 per cent.

The survey was conducted by Corporate Research Associates and was a random sample of 800 adult New Brunswickers. The margin of error for a sample of this size is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Interviewing was completed during the period from May 12 to May 31.