New Poll

A new poll reported by CTV (found here) has been added to the matrix. While there were quite a few changes to our popular vote numbers, our seat numbers remain stable, confirming the current'plateau' of support for the Liberals.

Lib - 121
CPC - 115
BQ - 47
NDP - 25

Also in the report, CTV says that "Pollster Peter Donolo of the Strategic Counsel says the Conservatives should be concerned about the trend line, which firmly shows their support dropping and the Liberals' support growing since January." all but indicating that we were spot on with our post from yesterday (before this story broke)

We continue to have confidence in our numbers and our trendlines.

Libs solidify

Not much in terms of hard numbers, but rather a reflection of feelings:

The Liberals seem in a much better place to win this coming election than the Tories. Iggy is more popular than Harper by certain measures, and does not have to wear the recession. As well the Tories pretty well "maxed-out" last election, while the Liberals have room for growth.

At this time we are projecting a Liberal win, but at this time we also feel it will be a minority.

New Projection

I've also included the CROP poll as reported at the 308 blog

NATIONAL

Lib - 121
CPC - 118
BQ - 44
NDP - 25


ONTARIO
Lib - 61
CPC - 38
NDP - 7


QUEBEC
BQ - 44
Lib - 24
CPC - 7


WEST
CPC - 66
Lib - 15
NDP - 14


ATLANTIC
Lib - 21
CPC - 7
NDP - 4

Why the sudden jump for the Liberals? Well most of these gains are in Ontario, despite only a 2 point swing in that province. We've reached the point in first-past-the-post systems where the vote for the leading party becomes very efficient. This is normally around 40% While the difference between 25% and 35% might mean a dozen seats, the difference between 35% and 45% could mean three dozen. Followed by another dozen between 45% and 55%; keeping in mind the votes received by the opposition matter for quite a bit as well.

Map

We are trying to jazz up niXtuff with graphics and images. Here is a beta version of a map, with bar graphs representing seat projections in each electoral region.

Newest Projection

CPC - 126
Lib - 104
BQ - 48
NDP - 30

Details to follow.

Trends

We currently see a clear trendline in only one province; Quebec. The Tories are heading down, as are the Greens (though the latter is mostly the result of the unrealistic 26% poll) while the Liberals and Bloc are heading up.

This will be factored into our newest projection, to be posted within 12 hours.

Where the parties stand.

Our newest 5-poll average has the parties standing at the following numbers in each region.

Ontario
Lib - 39%
CPC - 36%
NDP - 15%
Grn - 10%

Quebec
BQ - 36%
Lib - 29%
CPC - 15%
NDP - 11%
Grn - 9%

Atlantic
Lib - 39%
CPC - 32%
NDP - 25%
Grn - 4%

British Columbia
CPC - 42%
Lib - 23%
NDP - 22%
Grn - 10%

Alberta
CPC - 56%
Lib - 20%
NDP - 12%
Grn - 8%

Prairies
CPC - 46%
Lib - 23%
NDP - 21%
Grn - 7%


Expect a full projection tomorrow.

Nova Scotia update

Our current projection is as follows.

NDP - 29-20
PC - 19-14
Lib - 18-10

The Liberals have the biggest gain in our projection as their poll numbers have finally solidified, and more and more voters express discontent with the current government.

New Projection

CPC - 126
Lib - 102
BQ - 47
NDP - 33


The NDP is up due to gains in the West, while the Tories have also bounced back as the "bump" Ignatieff received after becoming leader finally dies off.

There is also a note about the newest strategic council poll. It seems their problems in Quebec are far from done, as they are reporting the Tories at only 10% in Quebec, tied with the Greens, which would be an all-time low for the Harper government. We do not believe this poll is accurate (as with the last strategic council poll in Quebec showing the Greens at 26%) but have included due to the fact that our system is designed to filter out these "bad polls"

In review.

A history of projections at nixtuff.

I thought it might be time to stop and look back at some of our past numbers to see where the parties have gone over the time this blog has been in operation.

Lets start with December 7 2008.
This follows on the heels of an Angus Reid poll, shown here http://www.angus-reid.com/uppdf/2008.12.07_FederalScene.pdf that had the Liberals at their lowest number ever. Never before had they been at 22% nationally. They have, on many occasions, dropped to 23%, including during 2008, as well as during the late 80's, but never before had they hit 22%. As a result, this is also the highest number ever recorded for the new Conservative party in terms of our seat projection. Let's take a look at those numbers:

CPC 204
BQ 48
Lib 35
NDP 16

This would have seen the Liberals drop to an all-time low of 13 seats in Ontario, yet still manage to capture at least 1 seat in at least 6 other provinces.

Compare these numbers, especially the Liberal number, to our most recent projection. The Liberals are up 79 seats from this point.

On October 6 2008, we projected the NDP with 45 seats due to strong polling numbers. On September 12 2008, we had the NDP in third place, though with only 35 seats. Compare this to their devastating December 7th numbers. They, along with the Liberals, have recovered since then.

The Bloc meanwhile, have gone from their low of 33 seats on September 12th to a high of 52 on October 10th. There is no doubt that it is this gain that prevented Harper from getting his majority.

As the spring political season heats up, we plan to introduce more political commentary, as well as continue our quest to find historic polling numbers.

Newest Numbers

Our newest national numbers, including one new poll, and both our trendline and baseline adjustments, show the following:

CPC - 119
Lib - 114
BQ - 46
NDP - 29

While the Liberals have been on the rise, they appear to have temporarily plateaued. Most of their gains so far have come from Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic. The West may be their new focus area.

New projection

National numbers are as follows. Provincial numbers will follow shortly.

CPC - 128
Lib - 102
BQ - 45
NDP - 33

Note that we did use the so-called "Green 26% Quebec" poll; however due to our sophisticated weighting system which is designed to weed out these one-offs, the Greens only raised a single percentage point in Quebec, we now project them at 7.22% in that province.

BC election

We've updated our projection for BC

BCL - 51
NDP - 33
GRN - 1

The margin of error is still gargantuan,

BCL - 37-67
NDP - 18-48
GRN - 0-2

We may, or may not, have further projections as the election date nears.

New Polls

There are now enough new polls that we will update our matrix.

Expect this update within the next 24-48 hours

Nova Scotia election 2009

Roomer is that it is right around the corner.

Our projection currently has the following numbers:

NDP - 28-21
PC - 22-16
Lib - 10-6

We project an NDP government, at the moment we feel it may be a majority, but in the event it is a minority, we expect a coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, weather "official" (Dion style) or "unofficial" (David Peterson style)

Federal Budget

I'm sure you've read most of this on news websites, but there is one thing I wish to point out. The amendment proposed by the Liberals will give the opposition a chance to bring down the government in March, June, and December.

I predict a mid-July election.

BC election

Our current projection for the final result is as follows:

BCL - 47
NDP - 38
GRN - 0

However the margin of error is gargantuan,

BCL - 37-57
NDP - 28-48
GRN - 0-1

We may, or may not, have further projections as the election date nears.

British Columbia 2009

A notice to our readers, unfortunately we will not be covering the BC election in great detail. We will offer our projection prior to the vote, but we will not be keeping a constant "running tally"

New Projection

New engine, new projection

The much vaunted new engine is finished a day early! All that’s left to do is individual riding tweaks for places where things happened in 2008 that are unique (IE strong independent candidates who are not running again, the Elizabeth May situation, etc) I’ve put a poll average of all the 2009 polls into the engine and it popped out some results. I do note that the poll average was without weighting (we prefer a minimum of 5 polls, we only had 4 to work with in most provinces) and that due to the differences in reporting (“West”, Vs BC and Alberta and the central Prairies) we had to try to break down certain polls and that could be problematic. The same is true for both central Prairie provinces and all 4 Atlantic provinces, part of the tweaking that will be done will fix these issues. Regardless, here is our projection:

TR
C-1
L-1
N-1

BC
C-16
N-11
L-9

AB
C-27
N-1

SK
C-12
L-1
N-1

MB
C-7
N-4
L-3

ON
C-46
L-53
N-7

QC
B-42
L-24
C-9

NB
L-5
C-4
N-1

NS
L-6
N-3
C-2

PE
L-3
C-1

NL
L-6
N-1

TOTALS
C-125
L-111
B-42
N-30

Some questions. Why are the Liberals so strong? Partly this is due to some of the weighting issues I mentioned earlier, but more importantly, the Liberal vote is very efficient at these levels. The Tories and Liberals are tied in Ontario, yet the Liberals have a 7 seat edge here, while hundreds of thousands of Tory votes are wasted in rural Alberta and Saskatchewan. The NDP also appears to be strong, but much of this strength is in BC and Manitoba, which is more likely due to the small sample size and weighting difficulties, this will likely disappear as we tweak the system.

Riding by Riding projections (info access)

When we have our first batch of riding by riding projections, they will go here http://s1.zetaboards.com/nixtuff/index/ to save space on the blog itself.

Update

The much talked about 'engine' is nearly complete. All that's left is to input data (and that's being done, with 7 provinces and 3 territories finished) from 2008. Following that we will further refine the data by adding 2006 and 2004 data. For complicated reasons, I already have year 2000 data and I've noted how much the voting patterns for the Conservatives in 2008 have mirrored the Canadian Alliance in 2000, with the exception of Atlantic Canada. Perhaps I'm reading too much in to this however.

We also recommend checking out Canadian blog 308 dot com - http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/

We fully expect a new projection to be on this site within the next 48 hours, the first using our new engine. A seat by seat breakdown will also be available.

Ask and ye shall receive

An article from the star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/572739

The headline is "Harper edges ahead of Ignatieff in poll"

In general the poll does not change the 'ball game' in a major way from the projection below, though the Liberals are down in Quebec, and the NDP is up in BC. It appears as though more and more, much of the Tory success, pollwise, comes from Alberta. While it’s always been the case, the simple fact is that now more and more people live in Alberta, meaning a lead there will weight higher in national polls. The Tories are behind the Liberals in Quebec, and just about tied with them in Ontario. The biggest edge appears to come in Alberta and the other Prairie provinces. We may be entering a time where we will see the opposite of historical poll trends come true. In the past, the Liberals needed a 1%-2% lead nationally to win an election, even just barely, since so much of their vote was “wasted” in Quebec, where they would rack up huge wins. It may now be the Tories turn to experience this problem with huge wins out west. In the west, Conservative poll numbers are at, or are above 2008 numbers, but in Ontario they are steady, if not they’ve dropped. The problem is that many NDP voters have switched from the NDP to the Liberals according to the polls. Last election the NDP won 17 seats in Ontario, their highest ever in a federal election. All signs say that at least a dozen of these will revert to the Liberals.

The Bloc is another issue that I will deal with later. In short, their ‘weakness’ does not appear to be temporary. The Bloc does not appear set to ‘rebound’ to poll numbers that had them 15 points or more ahead of the nearest party for the past number of years. The Liberals do indeed appear to be back in Quebec.

We will keep an eye out for other polls as well.

Projection

I’ve decided to do a projection now for a few reasons. One, if we do get a new poll later today it will likely be only one, perhaps two polls. To mix them with the 2 polls from over a week ago does not sit right with me. Secondly, in the run up to the budget, we still expect to see more polls come out, ‘just in case’ there is an election.

Therefore, I’ve combined the 4 polls we do have since Ignatieff has become leader, and I’ve made our first official projection of 2009. It is as follows:

C = Conservatives
L = Liberals
N = New Democrats
B = Bloc Quebecois
G = Green Party
I = Independent

Ters
C-1
L-1
N-1

BC
C-19
L-11
N-6

AB
C-28

PR (Prairies. Sask and Man)
C-24
L-2
N-2

ON
C-50
L-50
N-6

QC
B-42
L-27
C-6

AT (Atlantic. NS, NB, PE, and NL)
L-17
C-10
N-5

TOTALS
C – 138
L – 108
B – 42
N – 20


No independents (Casey is not running and Arthur would likely lose if the Tories run someone – no reason to suggest they wont.) and no Greens (though Guelph would likely remain their strongest riding)