Thursday, September 3, 2009

Fun with numbers

I took the July 23 Ekos poll and had some fun with it. Inside, it shows the "second choice" of voters, broken down my their "first choice" parties. This allows me to find out just who is torn between which parties. I point out that due to the small sample size of the July 23rd poll, results would be problematic. Due to the small sample size of the broken-down table, they certainly are. My plan is to update this chart as time goes on to make it more accurate. For now, it can only be described as "Fun with numbers"

Regardless, here is what I found out...

BASE SUPPORT (Canada wide)

CPC - 13.2%
Lib - 5.7%
Grn - 2.8%
NDP - 2.6%
BQ - 1.0%

MAXIMUM SUPPORT

Lib - 54.5%
CPC - 45.7%
NDP - 33.6%
Grn - 24.7%
BQ - 9.0%

Normally I would break down the Bloc numbers, but my guess is due to small sample size, its not worth it. 9% their max, is lower than the 10.3% they took in their first election. Hence I'm skeptical about these numbers.

SPLITS

Lib-CPC - 19.5% (These voters swing between the two parties)
Lib-NDP - 16.9%
Lib-Grn - 9.3% (FTR, this is where I am personally)
CPC-NDP - 6.2%
CPC-Grn - 5.4%
NDP-Grn - 5.4%
BQ-Lib - 3.1%
NDP-BQ - 2.5%
BQ-Grn - 1.4%
BQ-CPC - 1.0%

This breaks the myth that 'all voters' are torn between the Liberals and Tories. Lets find out how many 'swing' voters actually are!

42.6%. Thats the number of voters who will vote either Liberal or Conservative who had to decide between the two.

Lets have some more fun and throw some of these numbers into the ElectoMatic.

What if the Greens maxed out?

Lib - 106
Grn - 70
CPC - 70
BQ - 38
NDP - 24

What if the Tories bottomed out? How many seats would they take?
17.
2 each in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and 13 in Alberta (only 2 in Calgary, the remainder are all rural.

What if the NDP maxed out, could they take government? Where would their seats come from?

Yes, they would form a minority government with seats as follows.

NL - 2
PE - 0
NS - 10
NB - 3
QC - 12
ON - 33
MB - 8
SK - 11
AB - 3
BC - 28
TR - 3

Whats interesting is that many of the NDP's gains in Ontario would be in Western Ontario, and not in Toronto or the GTA. The NDP's strongest region in Quebec would not be Montreal, but rather Quebec City. This is likely due to the fact that the vote is already fractured here, and it therefore takes fewer votes to win a riding.


Regardless, this is all just a bunch of fun, that I hope has been as interesting to you as it has been to me. I hope to be able to continue to refine this with time.