Info on the provinces

Province by Province:

Newfoundland is not expecting an election until 2011. There is no sign either the Liberals or NDP could knock off the Tories, who are, at this time, expected to win another large majority.

Prince Edward Island is also not expecting an election until 2011, and as above, the government is expected to retain it's majority.

New Brunswick is likely to see an election in 2010 or early 2011, and as with the above, the government is expected to win, however by a much smaller margin (though still a majority)

The Yukon could have an election by next year. Due to the political nature of the territory, any predictions would be closer to 'guesses' as personality plays a big role. Any party could potentially win, but chances are if the Government goes down it will be to the Liberals and not the NDP. If I had to 'guess' I'd put my money on a Liberal minority.

Quebec will not have an election until 2012 or 2013. Any 'predictions' this far out would also be 'guesses'. My 'guess' is a PQ majority.

Manitoba will be set for an election in 2011 or even 2012. The NDP will by this point be seen as a "tired and old" government and could well lose to the PC Party, however the current government is still popular, and it can expected to be a close race. My money is on the NDP.

Saskatchewan will also be due for an election around 2011. There is a history in this province of electing governments to a minimum of two terms, and unless the government manages to botch it, I expect this to continue.

Alberta's next election will happen around 2012. The PC Party can, again, be expected to cruise to victory with a large majority. I do, however, expect the Liberals to win a 'surprisingly' large number of seats, especially in Calgary, and potentially set themselves up for a win in 2016.

Ontario is a more interesting case. For decades it elected PC governments, mostly to majorities but some minorities, and the PC Party governed in a moderate "Red Tory" style. Since the mid 80's, however, this has not been the case. John Tory should have won the last Ontario election, but his poor campaigning lost it for him. Now the Ontario PC Party has shifted to the right yet again, while Ontarians have not indicated that they want this. There is a very good likelihood that this will push the Liberals to a third victory, one that will outlast McGunity (who is a very weak premier) If current trends continue, and nothing suggests they will not, the Ontario Liberals will become the new dynasty. This, coupled with Federal success in the provinces, will allow Ontario to take on the role abandon by Quebec in the 80's, and become the Liberal party's new "bedrock" of support.

Finally we come to the two provinces with elections coming up.

Nova Scotia has a potential for an election this spring. The Liberals are trigger happy as polls show them as the #2 party. The NDP, while quiet, would also be happy as they have been polling over 35% since the last election and would likely win a very strong minority or even a weak majority in any election. Current trends point towards a weak majority for the NDP, as voters in the province are becoming more comfortable with the idea of an NDP government (IE, it does not scare them anymore) and are likely to jump on the bandwagon and vote for the winner. The Liberals meanwhile could well supplant the PC Party as the second most popular party in the province, and become the official opposition. Should this happen, however, it will likely mean that minority governments are still in the future for this province.

BC has an election scheduled to take place in exactly one month. While individual polls have jumped about, the general trend has been stagnant since the middle of the last election. This is also a general trend that was, generally, true for most of BC's modern history. In short; the governing party is a free-market coalition of all sorts that tends to win 60% of the seats, while the main opposition, socialist in nature, wins the other 40%. This would gives us numbers of 51 and 34, and I still expect the final result to be close to this, though likely with a few more seat for the NDP.

New Projection

We have updated our trendlines and baselines and have a new projection that is as follows:

Lib - 121
CPC - 113
BQ - 49
NDP - 25

Note that we have not included the Nanos "Poll" mentioned earlier. Rather this update is based on, to put it in a simple way, "pulling" the data forward. We effectively have re-weighted polls based on date, thereby "pulling" the matrix forward in time; This has also caused it to slide further up our trendlines, and be further balanced with the baselines.

What's important is where the parties stand in the provinces. Specifically, Ontario and Quebec.

West:
CPC - 66
Lib - 15
NDP - 14

Atlantic:
Lib - 21
CPC - 7
NDP - 4

Quebec:
BQ - 49 (Trendlines favour a seat target around 48-51)
Lib - 21
CPC - 5

Ontario:
Lib - 64
CPC - 35
NDP - 7

These numbers are closer to the CPC's 2006 targets in Ontario. Here is a map of what this might look like according to our riding by riding numbers:

New "Poll"

Nanos put out a poll - Click Here - that identifies "second place" support for the parties. It is an interesting read for that alone; However at the bottom it lists the number of answers for the first question - which party do you support. The national breakdown is as follows:

Lib - 36%
CPC - 32%
NDP - 13%
BQ - 10%
Grn - 8%

Compare this to the most recent poll form Strategic Counsel:

Lib - 34%
CPC - 32%
NDP - 15%
BQ - 10%
Grn - 9%

And the last poll from Nanos, 3 weeks ago:

Lib - 36%
CPC - 33%
NDP - 13%
BQ - 10%
Grn - 8%

It seems that the plateau continues.

More on the last poll

After taking a look at the official PDF file for the poll we spoke of earlier, we have been able to reverse engineer a result from the Atlantic provinces:

Lib - 36%
CPC - 35%
NDP - 18%
Grn - 11%

However, since this did not come directly from strategic counsel, and since our methods of reverse engineering can add incongruities, plus the large margin of error that we are likely facing here; we have not added it to the matrix.

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.