10:00p: Conservative majority projected.
10:08p:
NL: 1-2-4 as projected, but Tories take Labrador, not Avalon.
NS: 4-3-4, NDP doesn't take Central Nova or South Shore--St. Margaret's.
PE: 1-0-3, Tories don't take Malpeque.
NB: 8-1-1, Tories also take Madawaska--Restigouche.
Atlantic: 14-6-12, Tories 2 above projection, NDP 2 short.
10:17p: Bloc leads in just 4 out of 72 Quebec ridings.
10:19p: Iggy trailing.
10:26p: So to all those that said I had the Tories too high and the Bloc too low. Well, it's the opposite.
10:31p: Tories about 5% higher than polls virtually everywhere. Pollsters appear to have failed miserably.
10:40p: Have we just witnessed the death of the Liberal Party of Canada?
10:43p: With the polls this wrong, obviously none of the projectors did well. In fact, if someone came very close, that means their model converting votes into seats has a problem! But it looks like I'm among the least bad...
10:48p: Conservative majority, Bloc loses official party status. Only suspense left: will the Greens elect MPs? Nothing yet from Saanich--Gulf Islands or Vancouver Centre.
10:53p: 3 of 5 leaders ahead in their ridings. Iggy not among them...
11:02p: It is conceivable that the Liberals could be down to one seat west of the GTA (Ralph Goodale in Wascana), and the Bloc could be down to one seat overall!
11:06p: It's the opposite of 2004, when many Americans considered moving to Canada. Several of my friends are already considering moving South...
11:23p: If the Conservatives end up with 41-42% of the vote, that would be within the margin of error of the last poll of none of the 11 pollsters that have released a national survey during the campaign. Everyone was too low, except for COMPAS, who would be too high. We'll see if that's where things end up... One also wonders if this whole campaign was fake, and the Conservatives were in fact always comfortably in majority territory and toying with the media.
11:37p: All 28 Alberta races have been called, and went as projected.
11:39p: Interesting tidbit: Tories win popular vote in PEI, but just 1 of 4 seats.
11:51p: Will having your supporters intimidate the media and just taking 5 questions a day that you don't answer anyway be the standard way to campaign in Canada from now on? Will asking for emails of the government's critics and removing social scientists' tools to evaluate policy be the standard way to govern Canada from now on? Clearly, Canadians don't give a damn.
11:57p: The only Bloc candidate declared elected up to now is Jean-François Fortin, in the open seat of Haute-Gaspésie--La Mitis--Matane--Matapédia. The reason why he won is that the Liberals presented a very popular candidate, who split the vote with the NDP.
12:04a: Elizabeth May declared elected in Saanich--Gulf Islands!
12:14a: Michael Ignatieff lost in Etobicoke--Lakeshore!
12:37a: All 14 Saskatchewan ridings have been called, and the outcome is the same as in 2008, so the projected NDP gain did not materialize. In the 6 provinces where all races have been called, I was correct in 67/74. This score will certain decrease when the 4 other provinces, Ontario, Québec, BC and Manitoba, are included.
1:02a: All 14 Manitoba ridings have been called, and the Tories make a net gain of two on the NDP. They take Elmwood--Transcona from the Dippers and Elmwood--Transcona from the Liberals, who avoid being shut out by holding onto Winnipeg North, which they won in a by-election.
1:09a: Well, it's time to call it a night! For now, if one assumes candidates leading at this point will win their ridings:
QC: 6-59-6-4, 58/75 correct
ON: 72-22-12, 90/106 correct
BC: 21-12-2-1, 34/36 correct
North: 2-1, 2/3 correct
Canada: 166-103-34-4-1, 262/308 = 85%
Tomorrow, I will post maps of the results and compare my projections to those of the 7 other websites using poll averages.
27 comments:
I heard the Atlantic results on my way home from my son's baseball game and said "Conservative majority".
Signing up for French lessons tomorrow.
Mr. Canadian Election Watch...call me a political neophyte...but is it signifigant that this early in the game the Cons are almost at majority in early returns? Or is this just a mirage and blip? As far as I can tell..the only thing that the pollsters have predicted and agreed on that is correct is a NDP second...but no one predicted a Tory Majority on this what is shaping up to be a landslide! And it looks like the BQ is on the verge of instinction!
Sorry...meant to say extinction....
Anon 10:22p: It's basically a sealed deal.
Do pollsters go back to the drawing board tommorow? Not you I mean! Your my favorite. But all the other ones lol! ;-)
Haha thanks. Well, I'm not a pollster, just somebody using polls to project seats on his spare time. But yeah, it looks like Ipsos was right all along, and everyone else was wrong.
So why CBC will not call a Tory majority? They already called a NDP 2nd place win. And no...I know you are not a pollster...personally..of all the pollwatchers you have done pretty darn good...
I can't believe that NDP candidate that doesn't speak french and went to Vegas is winning, I have lost all confidence in the Canadian public...
The non-dufus Liberals have gone Conservative. There was an NBN (nonody but NDP) group of Liberal voters courted by Harper at the end of campaign.
Anonymous 10:43..I on the other hand have had my faith in the Canadian Public restored! The extinction of the Seperatist party. The beginning of the end of the Natural Governing Party...and a Conservative Majority!
And why are people so obsessed with predicting the death of the Liberal party? They died after Turner too. They will be back.
Why is there not more talk by these stations about the Bloc having 4 freakin seats, these political commentators cannot contain their joy about the demise about the liberal party. But prediction - they get a real leader come back and all these people cry.
Anon 10:48p: The Liberals were able to come back after Turner because the NDP was weak. This is different. The NDP now has Quebec.
I agree with Anon 10"48PM..even though I am tickled to death about a Con Majority! I do not think for a minute the Liberal gov is gone forever. They will be back. And I think anyone who voted NDP will shake their heads in 4 years! As for the Bloc..you are right! This is the best news ever! I look forward to Ducepppes speech most of all!!!!
That assumes that Quebec doesn't just change their mind again in 4-5 years after they realize the NDP did nothing for them, they could go back to the Bloc or to the Liberals if they have a French leader they like.
I just don't get why people are assuming its going to be same in Quebec 5 years from now. That is such a far time away. It is ideal for the Liberals to have this scenario to have time to regrouop and come back in 5 years.
Plus Layton will be another 5 years older! 5 years older! So much can change in 5 years, I just think all this talk is extremely premature.
And I'm not even a hardcore Liberal voter, my vote changes with each Election, I just think people need to take a deep breath, the next election is FIVE years away.
True, but there will now be enormous pressure now to merge with the NDP.
On this night, your biggest disappointment is a single MP in Quebec? We just gave a majority to the most mean-spirited government in our history.
I think that Quebecers are going to view the results from English Canada very differently, and I do not think that tonight's result will be a blow to the sovereigntist movement at all. Quebecers will need to rely even more on their provincial government to protect them from the Harper government's attack on the last vestiges of social democracy in Canada.
I hope that I am wrong, but given the way this Conservative government behaved as a minority...
Well, so long.
Thanks EW.
This is the best result for the Liberals, as a die hard supporter the conservatives can now implement their agenda and Canadians can really see what he is all about.
With this we dont have to back up the ndp which would have put us in a tough situation in terms of rebuilding. We will be back in 4 to 5 years when Canadians see what has just happened.
Re: Anonymous 10:56
I find it highly doubtful that Layton will stick around for the next election. If anything he will likely resign leadership of the NDP within two years. The most natural choice party leadership will then be Thomas Mulcair. This will likely cement the NDP as the dominant party in federal Quebec politics.
MA, I think you're right. If Layton resigns in the next year or so, he can go out on a high note.
As for the Liberals, I don't think you can look at this election in isolation. The fact is, the Liberals have been bleeding for 26-odd years now. For most of their history, the Liberals formed the government because they won Quebec. Well, they haven't won Quebec in 30 years. Once upon a time they could ignore the West. Well, the West now accounts for a third of Canada's seats - of which the Liberals have 4.
The problem for the Liberals is that the division of the right in the 1990s has masked the fact that the Liberals were much weaker in the 1990's than they had been earlier in the century.
Today's result isn't just a "one-off" is a culmination of 30 years of Liberal decline. Maybe they can recover, but the end of the Liberal party is a real risk.
Carl: Yes, I totally agree. A very good election for the Liberals nowadays would see maybe 15 seats out west, 20 in Quebec, 65 in Ontario and 20 in the Atlantic. That's barely enough for a very weak minority.
I am so thrilled to see the Liberals crushed and the BQ wiped from parliament.
Is it not obvious that the Conservatives will govern for at least two more terms as a majority?
Anon 1:11a: Well, the Liberals were crushed in 1958 too. The Tories then did not win another majority until 1984...
@Carl The Liberals been in power too long might have caused this, if you look at some of the ndp candidates that won especially in Quebec there is nothing the ndp did to get so much support.
Its the same Jack that ran in the previous elections
@1:26 - That is a good point. This is the same Layton that was nothing more than a nice guy who was a bit of a clown. As mentioned, his candidates were far from being stars who drew new voters into the realm. There was no issue arising which cast the NDP in a new light.
@1:11 There is no correlation between the current election and the prognosis for any long-term Conservative hold over the country. In fact, I would say the opposite, and for a very good reason: Stephen Harper hates politics. This may seem a strange thing to say about a man who has been involved in politics for much of his adult life. However, there is a difference. Harper likes politics as an abstract exercise, from the perspective of ideology and power. As for actual campaigning, interacting with other people, dealing with opposition, he hates it. He has mentioned before - in the list of 500 things Harper said, compiled by the Conservative party - that if ever elected PM he would only be interested in serving one term. In other words, expect him to try to push all his ideological positions through parliament with little concern over opposition or even damage to the Conservative party. By the time he is done, I would expect the fortunes of the next Conservative leader to be as promising as the next Bloc leader. In the meantime, the damage to the country will be done - and that will take a long time to recover from.
@MA
I think it's too easy to draw conclusions based on one quote from Harper. On many occasions Harper has expressed a desire to have the Conservative replace the Liberals as the "natural governing party" of Canada. And to a large extent he's been successful in that regard (as EW pointed out, these days, even if things go great for the Liberals, the best they can reasonably expect to achieve is a very thin minority government).
Harper isn't a conservative revolutionary, he's a conservative evolutionary - his goal is to gradually. That's been his modus operendi for the last 8 years (since the (re)formation of the Conservative Party) and there's no reason to expect that to change. Moreover, Harper' still a young man (he's only 52) he has time on his side. He isn't going to jeopardize his life's work by pushing some (undefined) "ideological positions" through parliament and the long-term expense of his party.
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