The 2011 Campaign is Underway!

It's official: Canadians will be heading to the polls on May 2. (Well, a minority of Canadians, since minors, people that don't vote and absentee/early voters will, in fact, not be at a polling station on Election Day. Sadly, I will not be part of this minority.)

Will the Conservative teflon coating hold? Will Ignatieff finally tell us what he and the Liberals are now about - and will it be too late? Will the NDP hold on to their near-tripling of seats in the past decade in an election where the economy will likely figure prominently? Will the Greens finally manage to elect an MP? Will the Bloc... Well, we know they'll win 40-55 seats anyway.

Five weeks is an eternity in politics. That's even more true during a Canadian campaign, where changes in the public mood are often large, brisk and unexpected (see 1993, and to a lesser extent, 2006).

I hope to issue new projections every day or two during the campaign. The poll weighting formula will use more rapid depreciation - probably roughly twice as fast as usual.

Later today, or whenever the details of the latest Angus Reid poll comes out, I will issue a regular projection, which will be mapped. For now, here's a writeup of a Segma poll in the five ridings of Quebec City proper. The Conservatives won 3 of these 5 seats in 2008, with an overall 3% edge over the Bloc in popular vote. The survey shows that the Tories retain the lead in only one of these ridings (Louis-Saint-Laurent, held by Josée Verner), and trail the Bloc by 7% citywide.