Projection Update

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CPC - 129 (Trending up)
Lib - 103 (Stable)
BQ - 47 (Stable)
NDP - 29 (Trending down)


No Commentary

Hinman wins seat in provincial by-election

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Paul Hinman, outgoing leader of the right-wing Wildrose Alliance party has won a provincial by-election in Calgary. Hinman was elected in 2004 for the Alberta Alliance, and became it's only MLA. Hinman later ran for and won the leadership of that party, which merged with the Wildrose Alliance prior to the 2008 election. Hinman narrowly lost his seat in that election and has stepped down as leader, but now finds himself back in the legislature as his party's only representative. This is viewed as a bad sign for Alberta Pramier Ed Stelmach


Sorry, no extra data today!

Interesting facts

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I found out two interesting facts today. The closest embassy to the US Capitol building is the Canadian embassy. The closest embassy to the Canadian Parliament buildings, is the US embassy. The only embassy between both countries leaders residences (24 Sussex and the White House) and their legislatures (Parliament and Congress) are each other's embassies.


Sorry, no extra data today!

Minimax for each riding!

<- Click here to see the full post

I've re-applied the Minimax idea (IE the maximum and minimum we can expect the parties to take in this election to each and every riding. I've used the ElectoMatic to help me put in on a pretty table. The text is small, but this was necessary in order to fit all 308 ridings in. Tables below the fold.



CLICK EACH TABLE TO MAGNIFY!

And over in the provinces

<- Click here to see the full post

As always, we try to keep track of news from the provinces as well. Below the fold (IE read more) I've put the current political status (seat standings, party leaders, by-election data) of each province. I've decided to post the 'notes' above. Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but it fits better.

I've noticed that the new Saskatchewan Liberal and BC Liberal logos look an awful lot like the 1980 Ontario Liberal logo. The word Liberal, in red, with a raising sun over the letters ERA - much similar to the 2004 federal logo only with a sun in place of the Maple Leaf.

The Green Party is banned in Alberta. It's nothing political, the party failed to file its financial returns on time, and due to the law, will be unable to run in the next election. There is nothing preventing them from setting up a front party, so long as they are not caught, but their official plan is to run a non-party organization to keep all Greens together until the following election. The party in the province has been bitterly divided, and hopefully during their time off, they can get their act together.

The only major change is in the Yukon, where the government has lost its majority.



Ontario
71 - Liberal - Dalton McGunity
25 - PC - Tim Hudak
10 - NDP - Andrea Horwath
1 - Vacant - St.Paul's (Lib/PC tossup) Sept 17
0 - Green - Frank de Jong - New leader picked Nov 15 2009

Quebec
67 - Liberal - Jean Charest
50 - Parti Quebecois - Pauline Marois
6 - Action Democratique - Sylvie Roy (Interim) New Leader picked Feb 2010
1 - Quebec Solidarie - Amir Khadir
1 - Vacant - Rosseau (Leans PQ)
0 - Parti Vert - Guy Rainville

British Columbia
49 - Liberal - Gordon Campbell
35 - New Democrats - Carole James
1 - Independent - Vicki Huntington (Leans right)
0 - Green Party - Jane Sterk

Alberta
70 - PC - Ed Stelmach
9 - Liberal - David Swann
2 - New Democrats - Brian Mason
1 - Independent - Guy Boutilier (Leans right)
1 - Vacant - Calgary Glenmore (Strong PC) Sept 14
0 - Wildrose Alliance - Paul Hinman - New leader picked October 17 2009

Manitoba
34 - New Democrats - Gary Doer - New leader picked October 17 2009
19 - PC - Hugh McFadyen
2 - Liberal - John Gerrard
0 - Green - James Beddome
1 - Vacant - Concordia (Doer's riding, solid NDP)

Saskatchewan
38 - Saskatchewan Party - Brad Wall
18 - New Democrats - Dwain Lingenfelter
2 - Vacant - Saskatoon Riversdale, Regina Douglas Park (Both solid NDP) Sept 21
0 - Liberals - Ryan Bater
0 - Greens - Larissa Shasko

Nova Scotia
31 - New Democrats - Darryl Dexter
11 - Liberal - Stephen McNeil
8 - PC - Karen Casey (Interim) New leader picked 2010
0 - Greens - Ryan Watson
2 - Vacant - Antogonish and Inverness (3-way toss ups)

New Brunswick
33 - Liberal - Shawn Graham
22 - PC - David Alward
0 - New Democrats - Roger Duguay
0 - Greens - Mike Milligan (Interim) New Leader picked 2009/2010

Newfoundland and Labrador
44 - PC - Danny Williams
3 - Liberal - Yvonne Jones (Interim) New Leader picked 2009/2010
1 - New Democrats - Lorraine Micheal

Prince Edward Island
24 - Liberal - Robert Ghiz
3 - PC - Olive Craine (Interim) New leader picked 2010
0 - Green Party - Sharon Labchuck
0 - New Democrats - James Rodd

Yukon
9 - Yukon Party - Dennis Fentie
5 - Liberal Party - Arthur Mitchell
2 - New Democrats - Todd Hardy - New Leader Elizabeth Hanson to be confirmed sept 26
2 - Independent - John Edzerza (Leans NDP) - Brad Cathers (Leans Yukon Party)

Solid Ridings

<- Click here to see the full post

Using our new "read more" feature, I've included a full list of "solid" ridings below. These are seats that we are, at this time, 100% certain will be won by the party in question.

NDP: 6
BQ: 27
Lib: 34
CPC: 59 (This means we are nearly 100% certain the Tories will not be knocked into third place or worse)




NDP
Sackville - NS
Acadie - NB
Windsor West - ON
Hamilton Centre - ON
Timmins - ON
Winnipeg North - MB


BQ:
Quebec
Argenteuil
Berthier
Joliette
Montcalm
Repentigny
Riviere-des-Mille-Iles
Rivere-du-Nord
Terrebonne-Blainville
Trois-Rivieres
Abitibi-Temiscamingue
Montmorency
Chicoutimi
Manicouagan
Montmagny
Beauharnois
Chambly
Chateauguay
Bas Richelieu
Richmond
Saint-Hyacinthe
Saint-Jean
Sherbrooke
Vercheres
Hochelaga
La Pointe-de-L'Ilse
Laurier
Rosemont


Liberal:
Bonavista - NL
Humber - NL
Labrador - NL
Hull - QC
Bourassa - QC (Montreal)
Honore - QC (Mtl)
Lac-Saint-Louis - QC (Mtl)
LaSalle - QC (Mtl)
Laval-Les Iles - QC (Mtl)
Notre-Dame - QC (Mtl)
Pierrefonds - QC (Mtl)
Saint-Laurent - QC (Mtl)
Saint-Leonard - QC (Mtl)
Westmount - QC (Mtl)
Mississauga East - ON (Greater Toronto Area)
Mississauga-Brampton - ON (GTA)
Don Valley East - ON (Toronto)
Etobicoke North - ON (To)
Pickehring Scarborough - ON (To)
Scarborough Centre - ON (To)
Scarborough Agincourt - ON (To)
Scarborough Guildwood - ON (To)
Scarborough Rouge River - ON (To)
St. Pauls - ON (To)
Toronto Centre - ON (To)
Willowdale - ON (To)
York West - ON (To)
Markham - ON (GTA)
Vaughan - ON (GTA)
Ottawa South - ON
Ottawa Vanier - ON
Vancouver Quadra - BC


Conservative:
Fundy - NB
New Brunswick Southwest - NB
Tobique - NB
Beauce - QC
Elgin - ON
Lambton - ON
Oxford - ON
Perth - ON
Sarnia - ON
Cambridge - ON
Niagara West - ON
Wellington - ON
Barrie - ON
Durham - ON
Dufferin - ON
Simcoe-Grey - ON
York-Simcoe - ON
Carleton - ON
Haliburton - ON
Lanark - ON
Leeds - ON
Nepean - ON
Renfrew - ON
Stormont - ON
Dauphin - MB
Pirtage - MB
Provencher - MB
Cypress Hills - SK
Souris - SK
Yorkton - SK
Calgary East - AB
Calgary North Centre - AB
Calgary Nose Hill - AB
Calgary Southeast - AB
Calgary Southwest - AB
Edmonton-Beaumont - AB
Edmonton-Leduc - AB
Edmonton-St.Albert - AB
Edmonton-Sherwood Park - AB
Edmonton-Spruce Grove - AB
Athabasca - AB
Crowfoot - AB
Lethbridge - AB
Macleod - AB
Medicine Hat - AB
Peace River - AB
Red Deer - AB
Vegerville - AB
Westlock - AB
Wetaskiwin - AB
Wild Rose - AB
Yellowhead - AB
Abbotsford - BC
Langley - BC
Port Moody - BC
Chilliwack - BC
Kootenay - BC
Okanagan-Coquihalla - BC
Prince George-Peace River - BC

New feature

We are experimenting on adding a new "read more" feature to the blog Looks like it works.

Minimax

As recently reported by fellow projection blog, Three Hundred Eight, it is possible to take recent polls and show maximum and minimum levels of support. We've decided to take that one step further and go for broke, by expanding this and throwing it into the ElectoMatic.

First, we start with the Green Party. If every other party had their worst election projectable at this time, the Greens would walk away with 14 seats and 18.3% of the vote. This is, of course, a radical extreme, but still worth discussing. Which 14 ridings would they win? Central Nova, Fredericton, Owen Sound, Guelph, Brandon-Souris, Winnipeg Centre, and 8 seat from BC; Vancouver Centre, Kelowna, Nanaimo, the other Nanaimo, North Okanagan, Saanich, Victoria, and West Vancouver. Of course that's not going to happen unless we see some kind of unexplaniable change.

What about the Bloc, what if they maxed out? They would win a whopping 61 seats, and take over half the vote in the province. The Tories would be left with Beauce, and the Liberals would only take Hull and 12 Montreal ridings.

What if the NDP maxed out? They could displace the Bloc, but would fail to take the official opposition. They would take 66 seats. They'd gain only one seat in Newfoundland, but would sweep all 11 Nova Scotia ridings; take 19 in Ontario, 5 in Manitoba, 7 in Saskatchewan, 2 in Edmonton, and 16 in BC.

What if the Liberals maxed out, would they win a majority? Yes, with 165 seats.

And the Tories? 188 seats.

I will be using some of these numbers and our trendlines and baselines in application with riding results to project ridings that we already know at this time are "solid" for one or another party. Expect these results in the not too distant future.

The Senate, and The Election

The question on everyone's mind is how will this election change the party standings in the Senate... or rather, it should be.

Anyone with a list of Senator's birthdays, their party standings, and some math skills will know that on May 13 2011, a Liberal senator from Newfoundland will retire, and at this time, Stephen Harper, assuming he is still Prime Minister, could appoint enough Conservatives to fill the vacancies in the upper chamber to give his Conservative Party a majority. What most don't know is that a far more important date is January 2nd 2010. On this date, Jerry Grafstein, Liberal Senator for Ontario will retire. This will be the point in time where the Liberals will lose their majority in the Senate. More importantly, should Harper invoke the so-called "Mulroney Senate rule" and appoint 8 extra Senators, this is also the date when the Conservatives could count on a majority of their own. With Senate Reform being an issue for the government, we could concievabally see the Senate stacked in this way on such a date and have it quickly pass a Senate Reform bill.

Some wonder what the current party standings are in the Senate. I've outlined that below.

Lib - 53
CPC - 46
Ind - 6

Ters
CPC - 2
Lib - 1

BC
CPC - 4
Lib - 2

AB
Lib - 4
CPC - 1
Ind - 1

SK
CPC - 3
Lib - 3

MB
CPC - 3
Lib - 3

ON
Lib - 11
CPC - 10
Ind - 3

QC
Lib - 12
CPC - 10
Ind - 2

NB
Lib - 6
CPC - 4

NS
CPC - 6
Lib - 4

PE
Lib - 3
CPC - 1

NL
Lib - 4
CPC - 2


Note that 2 of the Independent Senators sit as "Progressive Conservatives". One was appointed by Joe Clark, while the other was appointed by Paul Martin. One of the Independent Senators is a former Liberal who is also now a former Conservative. The other three lean Liberal

Between now and January 2 2010, 1 Liberal from NL, 1 Ind from QC, and 2 Lib from ON will retire. Between then and May 13 2011, we add another Lib from ON, a Lib from QC, a CPC from QC, and a Lib from NL.

Tories heading into election with advantage

As we head into a (potential) election, Harper's Tories increase their lead on Ignatieff's Liberals.



The NDP is just edged out of Outremont. This us due to Liberal Weakness more than NDP strength, as the Liberal average in the province has dropped from 35% to 30% in the past two weeks.

The Tories are also projected, for the first time since the 2008 election, to win seats in Newfoundland. In this case, Avalon and St.John's South.

Projection Update

Please note I've adjusted the matrix to reflect new poll results showing the NDP over-performing in Montreal. If this is indeed true and holds, they will hold Outremont. I have them holding it in the current projection.

CPC - 120
Lib - 110
BQ - 44
NDP - 34

The Tories currently have an ever strengthening trendline, a few more polls in their favour, and we could see a dozen extra seats fall their way.

Projection Update

CPC - 120
Lib - 113
BQ - 44
NDP - 31

The Liberal gains are due to NDP loses. The Tories are up in terms of vote.

Projection Update

CPC - 120
Lib - 111
BQ - 44
NDP - 33

Think the Tories will sweep Calgary?
Not so fast!
Trivia time. What riding in the province did the Liberals do best in? Well thats Edmonton Centre. Which riding did they do second best in? If you said Calgary West your right.

Whats that you say, the Liberals doing well in Calgary? Its true. The Alberta Liberals won 5 seats in the city, and 4 everywhere else. The new Alberta Liberal leader is from Calgary. Part of his riding is in Calgary West. In fact, part of 4 of those Liberal Calgary ridings. In short, the idea that the Liberals could win here is not as crazy as one might think at first glance.

While I still have the Tories on top, it is not as big of a margin as you'd think. There is still a chance that the Liberals could steal this riding away, and no, I'm not joking.

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.

How to contact niXtuff

I have three e-mails I use that you can use to contact me, all through hotmail.

nixtuff
nickjboragina
thenewteddy

Add what you need at the end of those, and you'r off.

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Election around the corner.

So it looks like it's on. November 9th is still the day IIRC. What can you expect from niXtuff during the election?

We are hoping for daily polls. If we get that, we will update once a day. If not, we will update once a poll. Our update time will be between 11pm and 5am, thereby allowing all of the day's polls to have been registered.

We will be publishing a riding by riding guide, in the form of maps, showing the who should win each riding, along with a certainty - IE how sure we are that they will actually win.

We will continue our friendly rivalry with the math based Trendlines, the people based Election Prediction Project, new comer, Three Hundred Eight, and the inspiration for our own projections, Democratic Space

We wish them all luck.

Tories moving on up, slowly

CPC - 122 (33.69%)
Lib - 111 (31.14%)
BQ - 46 (9.25%)
NDP - 29 (16.24%)

Breakdown as follows

Newfoundland
Lib - 6
NDP - 1

Prince Edward Island
Lib - 4

Nova Scotia
NDP - 5
Lib - 5
CPC - 1

New Brunswick
Lib - 5
CPC - 4
NDP - 1

ATLANTIC SUBTOTAL
Lib - 20
NDP - 7
CPC - 5


British Columbia
CPC - 16
Lib - 11
NDP - 9

Alberta
CPC - 27
NDP - 1

Saskatchewan
CPC - 13
Lib - 1

Manitoba
CPC - 7
NDP - 4
Lib - 3

WEST SUBTOTAL
CPC - 64
Lib - 16
NDP - 15


Quebec
BQ - 46
Lib - 22
CPC - 7


Ontario
Lib - 53
CPC - 46
NDP - 7


Territories
CPC - 1
Lib - 1
NDP - 1



There is also news that Gary Doer has been appointed the ambassador to the US (once he is officially retired from his Manitoba NDP Premiership) In our judgement this is a strategic move on the part of Harper. First, and most visibly, he appears to be 'reaching across the aisle', but more importantly, he is eliminating a possible future Federal NDP leader from contention. As we've seen with Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh, provincial NDP leaders can go on to become Grits as well. Doer is very popular in Manitoba. A bit more about doer.

Gary Doer became Manitoba NDP leader in 1988, on the eve of / during an election in the province. Internal polling shows the NDP as low as 6% province-wide. Upon becoming leader, polls showed then NDP at 19%, and 23% on Doer's election. Doer was only able to gain a fraction of a point above this on Election Day, finishing with 12 seats, to the Liberals 20 and the Tories 25. Whats remarkable about this was the NDP was in government throughout the election. Doer specifically chose NOT to be sworn in as Premier. Doer would remain third party leader until 1990 when he became Leader of the Opposition.

Finally, on October 5th 1999, more than a decade before he was first offered the job, Gary Doer became Premier of Manitoba. He has held on to the job and his majority government ever since. Even the most recent polls show a Majority could easily be won should be decide to run again. What's the secret to his success? Pragmatism. Quite often the provincial NDP in Saskatchewan will claim that they invented the pragmatic centre position in the 90s. The reality is that Gary Doer wrote the play book. The Federal NDP tried to use a similar 'moderate' strategy, but fell flat. Doer made it work, and it is still working.

Thus we get to the present. Gary Doer is a strong politician. Would he become Federal NDP leader there is a good chance that the NDP could flourish, especially in the west. Due to the "brand" names of parties, the NDP could beat the Liberals in Alberta and walk away with a handful of seats. Should Doer switch to the Liberals and become Leader, he could all but kill the NDP on the federal level. All of this, however is dependent on two things. First, Doer's ability to win a leadership race, something which is hard to organize for when your living in another country, and second, the will. My read is the will is not there. Harper see's Doer as someone who could beat him in a fair fight and wants to get him out of the way. Doer, at least from where I'm sitting, is tired of bring Leader, and wants to move on.

Where all of this ends up remains to be seen. My prediction is that Gary Doer will never lead any federal party.

Projection

With the new EKOS poll included.

CPC - 120
Lib - 112
BQ - 46
NDP - 30


The Liberals summer gains (opening up a lead in Ontario, and forcing the Tories down in Quebec) are starting to disappear. The only place the Liberals have really held on to their gains is in BC, where the Tories might be in some serious trouble.

Projection

CPC - 119
Lib - 114
BQ - 44
NDP - 31

Tories are starting to come back to life in Quebec.

Ramping back up

Here at niXtuff we are starting to ramp back up in time for the fall season.

I will be maintaining a Monday and Thursday update schedule where possible (IE when I have polls that make it worthwhile to do so)

Three new polls are out. One from Ekos, one from Decima, and one from Ipsos Reid (IR), who has gone back to their bourgeoisie attitude of information elitism and has prohibited the masses from gaining access to the details of their polls. Even if we had the money here at miXtuff to buy a subscription (and we dont, we are a free site in all respects) we could not use the numbers we find in our projections since the content is protected (IR has shut down popular canadian election websites before through the threat of lawsuit due to them using their polls) With this Soviet-Style block on polling data, I will not be able to add IR data to the regional breakdowns except where they so graciously decided to make that information public. I will, however, use whatever national numbers I can find to 'reverse engineer' the current projection to a state that matches IR polling, and then apply that.

I will update when full details from Decima come out (which hopefully will be within 24 hours)

Upcoming elections

Federal - November 9 2009
New Brunswick - September 27 2010
Yukon - unknown 2010
Manitoba - unknown 2011
Prince Edward Island - October 3 2011
Ontario - October 6 2011
Newfoundland - October 11 2011
Saskatchewan - November 7 2011
Alberta - unknown 2012
Quebec - unknown 2012
British Columbia - May of 2013
Nova Scotia - unknown 2013

Update

The Matrix has been updated, very strongly, with only the newest of polls. The result, however is that nothing much changes - polls remain stable. Next update may be in 2 weeks or so, again, I'm on an official vacation (even from work!)

Update

CPC - 122
Lib - 112
BQ - 44
NDP - 30