Election fever may have cooled for now, but a new poll suggests the Conservatives would fare quite well if Canadians headed to the ballot box today.

A new Strategic Counsel survey, conducted Oct. 2-4 for CTV and the Globe and Mail, found that Tory support has surged to 41 per cent nationally, up six percentage points from September.

The Conservatives now have a 13 percentage point lead over the Liberals, who have now seen their national support diminish to just 28 per cent.

The Tories have been widening their lead over the Liberals ever since early July, when they were in a virtual tie at 34 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.

Here are the national results (the differences from a Sept. 3-6 poll are in brackets):

• Conservatives: 41 per cent (+6)
• Liberals, 28 per cent (-2)
• NDP: 14 per cent (none)
• Green Party: 9 per cent (none)
• Bloc Quebecois: 9 per cent (-3)

The Strategic Counsel's Peter Donolo suggested the Liberals' low numbers reflect a strong desire by voters to avoid an election. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has repeatedly stated he can no longer support the government.

Donolo said the drop in support echoes a similar situation to when the party said it would form a coalition with the New Democrats to topple the Conservatives.

"It's people wanting stability, being really allergic to an election and feeling very anxious about it, and therefore gravitating towards the governing party," Donolo told CTV's Power Play. "And also, they're feeling like the opposition is playing political games. That might not be fair -- the opposition is doing what it ought to do, maybe, which is oppose -- but the optics have been lousy for Mr. Ignatieff."

However, the survey shows some good news for the Liberals. Despite the resignation of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant, Denis Coderre, and the apparent rift that caused, the Liberals have actually seen their numbers rise in the province.

The increase seems to come at the cost of the Bloc Quebecois, while the Conservative support has hardly changed. Here are the results, when Quebec respondents were asked which local candidate they would vote for (differences from a Sept. 3-6 poll in brackets):

• Bloc Quebecois: 40 per cent (-9)
• Liberals: 33 per cent (+10)
• Conservatives: 15 per cent (-1)
• Greens Party: 8 per cent (+1)
• NDP: 4 per cent (-2)

But the poll also shows the Conservatives continue to make gains in Ontario and in Western Canada at the Liberals' expense.

In Ontario, the Liberals have lost nine percentage points (differences from a Sept. 3-6 poll in brackets):

• Conservatives: 46 per cent (+5)
• Liberals: 30 per cent (-9)
• NDP: 16 per cent (+5)
• Green Party: 9 per cent (same)

In the West, Conservative support is at 58 per cent, up a whopping 15 percentage points from September. The Liberals are down six percentage points to 18 per cent, while the NDP are down seven percentage points to 15 per cent.

Sample size and margin of error:

• Canada: 1,000 -- 3.1 per cent
• Quebec: 243 -- 6.3 per cent
• Ontario: 383 -- 5.0 per cent
• West: 300 -- 5.7 per cent

Technical notes:

• Interviews were conducted between Oct. 2 and Oct. 4, 2009.
• Findings were based on a telephone survey of 1,000 voting-age Canadians - 500 men and 500 women, all living in Canada.
• The sampling model relies on stratification of the population by 10 regions (Atlantic Canada, Montreal CMA, the rest of Quebec, Toronto CMA, the rest of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Vancouver CMA and the rest of British Columbia) and by four community sizes (1,000,000 inhabitants or more, 100,000 to 1,000,000 inhabitants, 5,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, and under 5,000 inhabitants).