It’s been three weeks since former Bloc Quebecois leader Mario Beaulieu announced he'd be handing the reins back to Gilles Duceppe, and now the numbers are beginning to show this shift in power.

Though the NDP are still on top, the Bloc have risen three points on the Nanos Party Power Index over the past two weeks, climbing up to 30 points out of a possible 100.

  • NDP: 55 (down one point)
  • Liberals: 52 (down one point)
  • Conservatives: 51 (up one point)
  • Green: 31 (no change)
  • Bloc: 30 (up two points)

Leadership numbers skyrocketing

At the beginning of the month, only about 20 per cent of those polled believed Beaulieu had the qualities of a good leader – 19 points behind the 39 per cent of poll respondents who this week said Duceppe had good leadership qualities.

This rise is also somewhat reflected in the preferred prime minister numbers, though the Bloc leader still sits much further back than his competitors. About three per cent of those polls chose Duceppe as their preferred prime minister, up from less than one per cent a month ago.

NDP still leading

The New Democrats, led by Tom Mulcair, have now maintained a five-week lead in the Party Power Index, though their rise in numbers seems to have halted.

The largest percentage of people also believe Mulcair has the qualities of a good leader – 59 per cent, compared with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 55 per cent and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s 50 per cent.

However, when it comes to the question of preferred prime minister, most Canadians would still prefer Harper, at 28 per cent, over Trudeau or Mulcair, at 27 and 25 per cent, respectively.

The Nanos Party Power Index comprises a basket of political goods that includes ballot preferences, accessible voters, preferred PM views and evaluations of the leaders. It is modeled similar to a standard confidence index. The results are based on a four-week rolling average of opinion solicited through a random telephone survey of 1,000 Canadians in the period ending June 26th, 2015. It is considered accurate plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.