Five Québec Riding Polls, Fun with Forum Numbers

Skoblin once again alerts me to riding polls, five of them this time!

Two of these, from Segma, were conducted in Eastern Québec (Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Haute-Gaspésie--LM--M--M). They are very old (April 6-13, before the orange wave struck) and both give huge leads to the Bloc. Still, the NDP was already up a few points provincially, and the Bloc down a few. These polls instead had the Bloc gaining significantly, the NDP gaining less than elsewhere in Québec, and the Liberals down more than elsewhere. These surveys will help these ridings stay in the Bloc fold, and move HG-LM-M-M back from being narrowly projected Liberal.

Two more polls, by Connexion, were conducted April 12-16 in two Conservative ridings, Lévis--Bellechasse and Lotbinière--Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. Both had the Tories first, a few points in front of the Bloc, which was in turn a few points ahead of the NDP. Compared to contemporaneous provincial polls, they show the Tories dropping by more, the Bloc holding up instead of dropping, and the NDP rising slightly more than elsewhere. Nevertheless, because these seats were so safe, they remain Conservative for now in the projection.

In Hull--Aylmer, the NDP led by 13% over the Liberal incumbent according to a Segma poll conducted 4/21-23. This is virtually identical to what the model predicted!

As a result of the change in HG-LM-M-M, the projection is now:

CON - 156
NDP - 71
LIB - 54
BQ - 26
IND - 1

I've also played around with the Forum Research poll, and made a projection based on it alone. I turned off the popular vote adjustment, since I want to see what the projection would look like if the poll were entirely accurate. I did keep other features of the model, like the GTA adjustment and tweaks due to riding polls. The result: 143 C, 103 N, 54 L, 8 B. Forum's projection based on that poll is 137-108-60-3. The NDP vote outside Québec would be very inefficient, causing them to be well behind in the seat count despite being just 3% short of the Tories. So nothing we have suggests that the NDP may win the seat count... yet.