Latest national poll median date: October 20
Projections reflect recent polling graciously made publicly available by pollsters and media organizations. I am not a pollster, and derive no income from this blog.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

First Projection of 2015: The Situation Across the Country

BC: The vote shares here are very similar to the national vote shares, but with the Liberals a little lower and the Greens higher. The NDP's solid lead from early August has turned into a wafer thin lead. The Liberal vote is inefficiently distributed: it's looking very difficult for them outside the city of Vancouver and the North Shore. From the provincial numbers, the Greens look far from winning a second seat, but if the regional breakdown in the recent Insights West poll, which gave them 31% on Vancouver Island, is correct, Esquimalt--Saanich--Sooke could go Green.

AB: Still solid Conservative territory, but the NDP has a real shot at several Edmonton ridings (Griesbach is their best bet for a second seat) and Lethbridge, and the Liberals also have a shot in Edmonton Centre (a three-way race) and can fantasize about some Calgary ridings.

SK: The new map, which created urban ridings, will help the NDP: they will likely win Saskatoon West and Regina--Lewvan, and are in a tight race with the Tories in all other Saskatoon and Regina ridings (except, of course, Ralph Goodale's Wascana).

MB: Three of the five polls with specific Manitoba numbers have the Liberals in first place! The NDP is struggling badly, possibly due to the unpopularity of the provincial party. The Grits, after being nearly shut out in 2011 (Kevin Lamoureux won by just 36 votes), are likely to win multiple seats in the Winnipeg area.

Note on MB/SK: The current projection assumes that the swing is uniform across MB and SK. This is likely underestimating Liberal support in MB, and overestimating it in SK (with, of course, the reverse for the Tories and NDP). The former means that the Liberals could well be currently ahead in more than 4 MB seats, while the latter has little effect.

ON: As discussed in yesterday's post, if the Liberal vote share keeps increasing at the expense of the NDP's, we could end up with a three-way tie in the projected seat count rather soon. More GTA specific numbers would help - if the Liberals are up there more than elsewhere in Ontario (likely since the reverse was true in 2011), it could mean up to 5 more seats for them than with a uniform swing. Indeed, although I currently have the Liberals 2% ahead of the Tories, the latter still marginally lead the ON seat count due to an inefficient distribution of Liberal support.

QC: The NDP is projected to win every seat in Québec outside the Island of Montréal (where the Liberals should make small gains) and the area just south of Quebec City (where the Tories should hold on to a few ridings). The only two exceptions are Brossard--Saint-Lambert, a Liberal/NDP tossup, and Lac-Saint-Jean, a Conservative/NDP race. Apart from Louis Plamondon's seat, the Bloc's best shots at avoiding extinction are in Eastern Québec, but Forces et Démocratie is making their arduous task even more difficult.

ATL: This is the one area of the country where the Liberals are currently ahead in a majority of seats. The Tories are in danger of being wiped out outside of Southern and Western NB - except in that area, all of their current leads are tenuous. The NDP will keep their existing seats, but have few prospects for gains.

Overall, due to the situations in ON and MB, the situation is probably even tighter than in the projection: the Liberals might be closer to 95, while the NDP and Conservatives might be closer to 120. If the Liberal upswing continues, all three parties could soon be between 100 and 120 - setting us up for a potential constitutional crisis after the election... But that's a topic for another day.

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