Talk Elections

Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, PEI, and Newfoundland all vote in the fall of this year (either October or November) and I thought it might be reasonable to open a thread on it.

Edit - And that's it folks. After tonight's Sask election, this thread will go unused.

Possibly BC as well.

I believe that each province gets its own thread.

Quite so.

Bye bye, Ontario Liberals. It probably pleases the Tories that the seats the NDP will pick up are all Liberal ones. Tentatively, anyway.

I wonder if any Liberal -> NDP voters from the federal election will remain so in October. I'm sure the Liberal -> Tory voters are more likely to stay loyal to the Conservatives, especially with McGuinty as leader. Also, if Rocco Rossi is elected, I will puke.

Tim Hudak as Premier is an horrible thought. Harpo + Hudak.

Ontario seems to be going through quite some Conservative phase, no? Definitely doesn't help that most of Southern Ontario has aligned itself with the Tories indefinitely.

That remains to be seen. I remember how in 1984 the federal Tories under Mulroney won a crushing majority and took 3/4 of the seats in Ontario - then eight months later the provincial Tories lost power in Ontario for the first time in 42 years!

I still say, Hudak, "who dat"? They picked the least well known of the leadership candidates.

Anyways, he has been getting lots of press lately actually. Unfortunately, the NDP hasn't (provincially), but it's too early to look into this too much.

Based on the most recent polling, all but PEI appear poised to go PC (or Sask Party, the de facto PC).

NWT also has an election in October (same day as PEI)


Monday Oct 3rd - PEI/NWT (1st Mon/Oct)
Tuesday, Oct 4th - MAN (1st Tues/Oct)
Thur, Oct 6th (1st Thur/Oct)
Tuesday, Oct 11th - NFLD (2nd Tues/Oct)
Monday, Nov 7th - SASK (1st Mon/NOV)


In 2015, these provinces will have to compete with the next federal election on Oct 19, 2015 (3rd Monday in October). If another majoirity gov't the process will repeat in 2019.

It might be an idea to have a 4 year electon calendar like in USA.

Year 1 - Federal Election
Year 2 - Local Elections (some of the provinces)
Year 3 - Provincal Elections
Year 4 - Local Electionss (rest of the provinces)

The provincal and local elections do not have to be on same day.

The problem is that in the parliamentary system, legislatures can be dissolved early even with fixed election dates (as we've seen recently in federal elections).

There are a few ways to mitigate this. The first is to have US-style legislatures that cannot have early elections. If a government falls, a new one must be appointed.

The second is to have "by-elections", similar to how Utah has special gubernatorial elections. If a government falls and a new election is held, the new term only runs until the last one would have ended.

The third (and my preferred choice) is to have "equilibrium-seeking" elections. If a new election is held more than two years before the original fixed date, the new term runs until that date like a by-election. If a new election is held less than two years before the original fixed date, the new term runs until that date plus 4 years. This stops a fixed term from being shorter than 2 years or longer than 6 years.

Wow, we're going to have fun that week...

Anybody notice how 2015 is going to be a super-election year with federal elections and a bunch of fixed-date provincials?

Also, Yukon last voted in 2006 so it's supposed to go to the polls this year.

I plan on starting up my blog for the provincial election

First post: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/05/ontario-election-2011.html

If anyone else would like to contribute, maybe turn it into a Canadian version of this site, by all means!

It should be interesting.  BC is a wildcard, although unlike Campbell, Clark is actually more popular than her party.  Campbell dragged down his party support, while Clark helps it.  As for other provinces, here are my predictions

Manitoba - Tight race, could go either NDP or Progressive Conservative

Ontario - Favours the PCs, but go Liberal if Hudak makes a major blunder.

PEI - Liberal landslide, possibly a complete sweep

Newfoundland & Labrador - PC majority although probably with fewer seats since Kathy Dunderdale doesn't have the same popularity as Danny Williams did.

Yukon - Don't know enough to predict here.

BC - If there is an election, I would give a slight edge to the BC Liberals, although the big wildcard is the BC Conservatives.  If they do well, then the NDP will win, otherwise a BC Liberal win.  I predict whatever the results are the BC Liberals + BC Conservatives will beat BC NDP + BC Green Party

Christy Clark doesn't seem particularly formidable at the moment.  She barely squeaked it out in the by-election in Vancouver-Point Grey in what was supposed to be a cakewalk, and a few days it was reported she was considering moving over to a super-safe Liberal riding.

Asides from 2001, Campbell never won Vancouver-Point Grey by large margins and she got 49% which is more than what Campbell got in 2005 and 1996 although 1% less than 2009.

Nanos has come out with their first poll since the federal election for Ontario:

*PC 41% (-3 since March)
*Lib 34% (-1)
*NDP 19% (+3)
*Grn 5% (+1)


disappointing, I'd hoped the NDP would be higher. 

I thought that the whole rationale for picking an airhead like Christy Clarke as leader was that she was supposed to MORE popular than Campbell. The fact that she barely managed to hold the vote share that her hated predecessor had in a riding tailor-made for her kind of appeal (ie: full of ostentatious federal Liberal types) speaks volumes about her appeal.

Not to mention Christy Clark was lucky that the BC Conservative Party did not field a candidate in the by-election.

I guess. But Ontario's Liberal party (although in bad shape) isn't in shambles compared to its federal counterpart. And there are quite a bit of people who won't be voting for the provincial NDP party after Rae's government, so it'll be a while until they're in the minority. Not to say the NDP can't improve on that 19%, but maybe the 26% it got in the federal election may be its provincial ceiling for the time being.

Just got a call from the PC Party of Ontario. It was an old lady so I acted polite. But damn, they're already calling people? Especially in northern Ontario? They must want this. lol

Federal Conservatives were callng in my area since 2008 election.
And NDP started phone calls in Outremont in February.

I think the big thing which could impact the NDP is how the public perceives Hudak.  When Davis was in power, the NDP frequently got around 25% in Ontario, but under Mike Harris they languished in the low teens.  Most NDP supporters didn't have too strong a preference between Davis and the Liberals, but most hated Mike Harris with a passion and would vote Liberal simply to block him.  If Hudak is seen as a Harris clone which many would argue he is, then expect several unions to endorse the Liberals and much of the NDP support to flock to the Liberals.  Off course that might not prevent a PC win, especially if they get 44% which their federal counterparts got in which case they would still win a majority albeit with fewer seats than the federal Tories.  The NDP can make the strong case for voting for them, but the desire to block the Tories is something they have little control over.  Off course one could argue the Ontario PCs benefit more from a right wing leader than a more centrist one since despite a right wing one being hated by more, at least it motivates the base to show up and to contribute to the party.  Also it forces Ontarioans to take sides whereas with a centrist one they could do really well if they are personally liked, but do really poorly if not so well liked.

I think the issue with the NDP during the Harris years had more to do with the damage done by the incompetence of the Rae government (which, as you all know, managed to piss off it's own natural supporters about as much as right-wingers) than a desire to rally round the largest opposition party.

Except that in the last Ontario election the Tories were led by the very moderate, inoffensive John Tory - and the NDP didn't do all that well with 17% of the vote and 10 seats. The NDP did do well in 1985 when the Ontario Tories were led by an ultra-rightist named Frank Miller (he of the loud tartan sports jackets). The conventional wisdom in the recent federal election was that everyone remotely progressive was soo "freaked out" about "evil Harper" that they would all flock to the federal Liberals in a national epidemic of strategic voting to stop Harper and that the NDP would get squeezed. Remind me what the results of the last federal election were?

Once you get beyond a few professors of social work living in downtown Toronto ridings where the Tories are not a factor - very few people think in terms of voting for "x" even though they prefer "z"  because they want to stop "y" - they just vote for who they like the best.

I disagree. The 1995 election wasn't that bad for the NDP, after all... it got 21% of the vote, which is pretty good for the party.

I lived through the Harris years, and it's why I was a big provincial Liberal supporter right up until 2003. Harris had a polarizing effect on people, and it had to do with why the NDP didn't do well in 1999 and 2003.

It's only 'not so bad' when looked at outside of any context. To pick just one... there were a lot of NDP incumbents running for election and incumbents - even ones with no chance of being returned - will normally poll better than non-incumbents. As has been seen federally wrt the collapse of the Liberal vote following the removal of an incumbent.


Sure, but the key question is why the NDP was stuck where they were (as the party to get squeezed, rather than the party doing the squeezing) when they had formed the government just a few years earlier. And the only logical answer is one of credibility. So it all links up, in that way that these things tend to.

Actually 21% for the NDP in 1995 was pretty bad - especially for a party with 74 MPPs running for re-election. Up until the 1995 election, the ONDP had a pretty consistent mid-20s vote share:

1967 - 26%
1971 - 27%
1975 - 29%
1977 - 28%
1981 - 21% (that was considered a total fiasco under Cassidy)
1985 - 24%
1987 - 26%
1990 - 37%
1995 - 21%
1999 - 13%
2003 - 15%
2007 - 17%

Now compare to federal results

1968: 21%
1972: 22%
1974: 19%
1979: 21%
1980: 22%
1984: 21%
1988: 20%
1993: 6%
1997: 11%
2000: 8%
2004: 18%
2006: 19%
2008: 18% (this was the best showing ever in terms of seats at the time... strange, eh?)
2011: 26%

So, compared to the national party, the 1995 showing wasn't too bad. Especially since the party was in single digits federally at the time.  Nowadays, the federal party is actually doing better than the provincial party.

Its interesting that up until 2004 - it was almost a given that the NDP always got significantly higher support in Ontario provincial elections than in federal elections (typically the provincial over federal bump was about 6-7%) - now its the reverse. I wonder why?

I think the fact the PCs were mostly Red Tories as well as the fact the Liberals provincially up until the 80s were to the right of their federal counterparts benefited the NDP.  In 1999, I believe the strong desire to oust Mike Harris from those on the left is why the NDP did so poorly.  While they got 21% in 1995, the common sense revolution was only an idea on paper, once put into practice it probably motivated some to vote strategically.  That is why I say if Hudak is seen as a Harris clone it could hurt the NDP.  Mike Harris wasn't universally hated, but pretty much anyone who was slighly left of centre hated him.  Off course those on the right side of the spectrum loved him thus why you got fairly polarized results.

Interesting, that until this election the NDP generally did better in terms of popular vote.  The reason in 2008 they won the most seats ever but not votes is most of their gains were in Northern Ontario which are the smallest ridings population wise and much of this was over the unpopularity of the carbon tax and since Northern Ontario tilts more to the left unlike rural Southern Ontario, the NDP gained.  I think their decline until 2011 was also partly due to changing demographics.  Up until this election they did quite poorly amongst immigrants and visible minorities who are the fastest growing segment of the population.  Also the decline of manufacturing and unions probably hurt them thus why places like Cambridge, Oshawa, Brant, and Essex went Conservative instead of NDP as the blue collar unionized worker population as a percent of the population is not as large in those areas as it was 30 years ago.  As for their gain in 2011, if you look at the polls the NDP was consistently polling under 20% in Ontario prior to the Easter weekend.  There is a certain segment of the population especially in downtown Toronto who hates Harper with a passion and conservatism in general and they will simply vote for whichever party is more likely to defeat them.  The NDP surge in Quebec pushed them ahead of the Liberals nationally and it was a few days after that they got a strong bounce in Ontario.  I suspect many of these voters would have stuck with the Liberals had they stayed in second place.  By the same token the Tory gains in suburban 416 and the 905 belt would have been limited to marginal ridings like Ajax-Pickering, Mississauga South, and Brampton-Springdale, not ones like Willowdale or Mississauga-Brampton South as I suspect a fair number of Blue Liberals bolted to the Tories to stop the NDP.  From listening to an interview with John Manley, it almost seems like he wanted the Tories to win after the NDP surged so I expect that wing of the Liberal Party probably swung over to the Tories and helped them gain more seats than expected.  The point is not everyone is loyal to a certain party, in fact many people vote for whomever they think is most likely to defeat the party they dislike most.  I realize strategic voting isn't as rampant as some say, and on a riding level that is true and is few fully understand the dynamics of their riding, but on a national level I think it happens.  In 2004, the Tories got 13/14 seats in Saskatchewan despite only getting 42% of the popular vote and much of this was due to vote splitting on the centre-left as many NDP voters swung over to the Liberals to stop the Tories which worked in Ontario, but in Saskatchewan had the opposite effect in electing more Tories.  Now true, the Tories have held those ridings, but they have also increased their share of the popular vote by more than 10% too.  Had they not increased their vote from 2004, I suspect much of the urban-rural ridings in Saskatchewan would now be NDP.  Off course much of their gains probably came from former Red Tories of the old PCs who voted Liberal since they were still fearful of the Conservatives and Blue Liberals who would never consider going NDP.

  As mentioned in the above post it is due to the anti-Conservative vote.  They don't care who wins, as long as the party is on the left side of the spectrum.  Yes I know calling the Liberals a left leaning party is a stretch, but at least they are both to some degree for an activist government and have some degree of skepticism of the free market, and believe in government intervention to help the disadvantaged.  Had the NDP surge not occurred in Quebec, I believe the party would have stayed in the teens as most of the gains were simply anti-Conservative voters who would vote for whichever party was most likely to defeat the Conservatives nationally.  I live in Trinity-Spadina and you have lots of lefties who will vote for whichever party that it is.  After all many of them voted for George Smithermann as mayor and he is a Liberal not an NDPer (that would be Joe Pantalone) since they wanted to stop Rob Ford.  Since the biggest swings were in Downtown Toronto that is why I suspect it was the anti-Conservative vote coalescing around the party most likely to defeat them.  Elsewhere in the province where the population is more centrist or on the right, the swing was much more modest.

Mayoral elections are officially non partisan, but that's besides the point.

ALSO, one should note that until the 1980s, the Liberals in Ontario were to the right of the Big Blue machine. Their base was in rural southwestern Ontario, an area that is pretty socially conservative and where the federal Liberals are now a non factor. It was not too long ago that right wing nut job, radio host Lowell Green ran for the provincial Liberals.

  True enough.  It was really in the 80s they swapped roles.  Although for very different reasons, the Democrats in the US were up to the 60s in many ways also to the right of the Republicans who were a lot more moderate than today.  I should note though provincially the Liberals still hold many seats in Southwestern Ontario, but we shall see if that continues or if they go the same route as their federal cousins.  Also when the federal Liberals one here, many of their MPs were rather right wing i.e. Paul Steckle, Pat O'Brien, Rose-Marie Ur, and Roger Gallaway and I never really understood why they weren't Conservatives.  Maybe thats why they won in 2004 since they were essentially Conservatives and then once they left asides from O'Brien's riding, the Tories saw a major jump in support and the Liberals plummeted in all of the ridings including O'Brien's.

I think the collapse of the Liberal right wing helped to destroy the Liberals. Who is left on that front? Many of those infamous right wing Scarborough MPs either retired or were defeated.  With the election of Bob Rae as interim leader, they can say  goodbye to their right wing. I'm disappointed that Rae agreed not to run for leader, agreeing to serve only the interim. Not because I like him - far from it - but because it would further destroy the Liberals, continuing in the footsteps of Dion and Ignatieff. ;) But I suppose tradition dictates they go French this time, so we will see either Trudeau or LeBlanc be leader. Or maybe even Garneau.

Trudeau might help the Liberals in the GTA, but that's about it. And that's their best hope.

Trudeau would kill the Liberal Party in Quebec for another generation, too.

 On the social front you have John McKay while on the economic front you have Scott Brison, both who almost lost their seats.  Other than those two, I cannot really think of any others.  Mind you many on the left of the party in downtown Toronto also got defeated albeit by the NDP such as Kennedy, Minna, and Silva.  By contrast most on the right of the party lost to the Conservatives as they were in the suburbs or rural areas (and I don't just mean this election but rather the past four).  If you gave the leader a massive raise, maybe you could get Manley or McKenna to return, but I think working in the private sector is much more rewarding for those two.

He would also hurt them in the West and with the West's growing population it is a lot harder to write off the West than it was 30 years ago.  He might regain the immigrant vote which would at least re-establish the GTA as a Liberal stronghold and also pick up a few more Montreal area ridings and parts of the Lower Mainland.  I would argue Dominic Leblanc though comes from the right area.  From a rural riding in New Brunswick which was their worst Atlantic province and in fact their vote in that province wasn't that far off the national average as well as it is the most Conservative province east of the Ottawa River and perhaps even outside the Prairies.  He is also young enough that he could go through multiple elections so it wouldn't be about winning, but rather gaining seats each election and maybe after three or four rounds finally winning.  He also seems quite articulate which is in contrast with the last two or even three leaders.  For all the rot in the leaders, one of the problems the Liberals had is none of their last three leaders connected with the average voter.  By contrast I think Chretien was someone who connected quite well and had a very good political antennae thus why he won three majorities.

If the next permanent Liberal leader is Trudeau or anyone connected with Chretien and Martin, then the Liberals can spend another two elections in third party status fending off challenges from both the left and right.

Ralph Goodale would massively help the Liberals in the west and the suburbs of Vancouver and Toronto and would certainly be effective at grabbing soft CPC support (especially if Harper governs with an arrogant and complacent attitude), but he will have to write off Quebec which is too risky.

Unfortunately they cannot pick anyone who isn't already an MP, since no seat in the country is guaranteed Liberal, not even Montreal West Island.

Unless they want someone from Newfies as their leader.

I feel like picking a leader from the Maritimes risks the Liberals looking too much like the latter-day PCs and becoming further marginalized to just that region.

Not necessarily. But these days, it is clear to win a majority a party must win 2 of either QC, ON and the West.

The BC Liberals must be afraid of the BC Conservatives. Why else would they take a page from the NDP playbook and raise the minimum wage, and promise to reduce the HST to 10% if voters keep it? With the possible emergence of the BC Conservatives, they seem to be pushing the NDP further to the left... will it work?

  That might also explain why Christy Clark is bringing out Jay Hill, Chuck Strahl, and Stockwell Day.  Another problem she faces on her right flank is it is well known she is a federal Liberal, whereas Gordon Campbell was pretty quiet about his federal affiliation although he seemed more conservative than Liberal.  Off course not all BC Conservative votes will come from the BC Liberals.  It is about 2/3 from the BC Liberals and 1/3 from the NDP as many populist types who voted Reform in the 90s but NDP provincially would vote BC Conservative, but not BC Liberal.  I think if it looks like the NDP might win, the Conservative vote will decline.  The Globe and Mail had a good discussion on this recently.

The BC Conservatives are a non-issue. What is an issue is the demographic which both that party and the BC Liberals wish to attract; voters who were enraged over the HST. With no electoral action over the tax rise since the referendum (which was tremendously successful), the Liberals will not risk being portrayed as the anti-populist party. A swing in the Interior or in the Fraser Valley towards the NDP would be significant enough to give the left a majority.

The Clark government knows the difficulty of renegotiating the HST. If the tax is here to stay, the Liberals have to keep swing voters from jumping ship with policy that would lessen the burden, such as tax cuts.

The NDP leftward shift is insignificant too. Adrian Dix, a former minister in the Glen Clark government of 1996-2000 is suffering "Red Ed" syndrome. (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Tb80zV4TFI0/TJ73Y3jmtXI/AAAAAAAABWE/xr5g0U4Q1Zw/s1600/Red_Ed_BBC.jpg) But the demographics of the province has shifted so much that he has the chance to impress the majority of voters who have no clue about him.

In the case of the Fraser Valley, it is pretty solidly Conservative so I cannot see the BC Liberals losing here.  They won by pretty large margins.  As for the Interior, you are right about Kamloops, Prince George, and the Kootenays, but the Okanagan Valley and Peace River Country is unlikely to go NDP.  I also disagree that BC has swung to the left.  If you look at the recent federal results, it is quite the opposite.  The Tories got 46% in BC.  Now I realize there are some crossover Tory-NDP votes.  As for the BC Conservatives I don't think they will get a lot of votes, but as you saw in 1996, they don't need to get a lot to split the pro free enterprise vote and thus allow the NDP to win.  Being from BC originally, I would hardly describe it as hardcore NDP, although they do have a strong base and certainly can get over 40% without too much difficulty, although if you look at BC's history, whenever the pro free enterprise vote has united behind one party, that party has always won.  With the exception of the 2001 election, the NDP has always had a strong opposition but they only win when the pro free enterprise vote is divided. 

As for the Red Ed syndrome, Britain is a whole different ball game and never mind the Conservatives have actually generally polled at or above the 36% they got last year.  The Labour Party is only ahead as the Lib Dems have imploded and much of that has swung to the Labour Party.  There seems to be a lot of anger amongst Lib Dem voters at backing the Tories, which is really not something that can be applied to BC.  If anyting Britain is sort of like Canada federally since if you took England only, the Tories would have a majority, but Wales and especially Scotland tend to vote much more left than England much the way Quebec does.

All true - that post was rushed out, meaning I overgeneralized.

My point was that the HST is anathema to a majority of the BC Liberal electorate. This does not include only the Interior, but also the volatile immigrant base. The middle class sees it as a tax grab, while the rich sees it as a needless block on their spending. The NDP has a more solid base than the Liberals, and the party cannot let their guard down one moment. This is the strategy behind their recent wave of populist policy (spread out over many years, of course).

This is also true. I'm fully aware people will vote for the provincial NDP in protest, which is why I disagreed with:



Think you're exaggerating the trend. The Liberal-NDP system was only established in the nineties, and it's a stretch to call the Socreds "free enterprise" and not the modern NDP. And I constantly state that the influx of immigrants has changed BC politics completely.

To clarify, I meant by that how Ed Milliband, being to the left of his brother David, has been painted as far-left by the right. That talking point is being used on Dix too, and certainly there are urban lefties who think the NDP could have had a shot of winning if Mike Farnworth were picked as leader instead.

There's a poll out there, though, showing that 59% of those polled "are either neutral or have yet to form an opinion of Dix". (http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Liberal+Party+dead+heat+poll+suggests/4800304/story.html) Given how lethargic the past two campaigns were, I think the NDP would do well to shock and awe.

So, does the big news yesterday mean a landslide for whoever the incumbent party is in Manitoba?

The PCs were leading in the polls before hand, so this will probably boost the NDP a bit. However, I do remember the Tories promising to bring the Jets back in the last election. Turns out the NDP did it (well, not really, they only helped subsidize the stadium, not the team... but I guess it could be argued they allowed the economics of the city to get better allowing for a team to be financially viable)

Two retirements announced in the past week in seats that become much less safe without the incumbent: Kormos (NDP - Welland) & Pupatello (Lib - Windsor West)

Windsor West will probably be an NDP pick up. Welland will probably go NDP as well... I see it as a marginal NDP seat, not a "Peter Kormos" seat like one may have thought 10 years ago.

NDP holds Welland federally as well... although, it'll probably swing away from the NDP and be close, just as it was in 2011. Hopefully they capture Windsor West - and Tecumseh! :)

Wouldn't be surprised if the NDP picks up the two Windsor ridings and there is even a chance although not certain, that the Tories could pick up Essex.  I do though expect the Liberals to perform better in Southwestern Ontario then they did federally even if they lose most of the seats.  Welland will probably stay NDP, but considering how close the Tories federally came to winning, it would be silly for the party to take it for granted.  After all had their not been the NDP surge nationally, the Tories probably would have picked up Welland federally when you consider the gap between the two parties was much larger in Ontario at the beginning of the election than the end while the Tory numbers didn't change a whole lot in Ontario

The Liberal MPP for Essex, who was retiring anyhow, passed away. His retirement and the like also makes that seat much less safe.

The NDP has a good chance of winning Essex. Taras Natyshak who ran very strongly for them in Essex federally will run provincially - it will probably be a tossup between him and the Tory. With Crozier dead - so is any chance whatsoever for the Liberals to retain that seat.

I think Essex is not within the NDP's grasp, unfortunately, unless they were to win the election. The Liberals could finish 3rd there, however.

The NDP took 35% in Essex federally. It could be very winnable if the Liberals make some effort to hold the seat and its more of a three way split.

I think anything is possible, but considering the Liberals are much stronger provincially in Southwestern Ontario than their federal counterparts, it would tend to think a Tory win is more likely than an NDP one and also I still think the Liberals could hold it provincially.  Provincial and federal results don't always match after all, the 905 belt went solidly Tory in the 90s provincially, but solidly Liberal federally and even if you took the Reform/Alliance vote + PC vote federally, the Liberals still would have won the vast majority of ridings here in 1997 and 2000.  So we will have to see if the Liberals go the way of the federal cousins in Southwestern Ontario or not, but so far they have held up much better than their federal counterparts.

Though it may also depend on an "at whose expense" question re Liberal provincial strength.  And counteracting the "Liberal incumbent advantage" factor is that provincially, unlike federally, the Tories *don't* have incumbent advantage.  (Which may make for interesting speculation as to what might have happened in Essex federally had Jeff Watson *not* run again.)  All in all, depending on who's running, we may be facing the situation where a provincial Natyshak is actually the highest-profile candidate running, and taken seriously for that fact.

Also remember that former MPP/Lakeshore mayor Pat Hayes ran quite viably against Crozier in '03 (to the point where Crozier lost more share than any incumbent Liberal that year).  That wouldn't have happened had Windsor-Essex not already had such a strong NDP tradition.

New Ipsos-Reid poll on Ontario.

PC - 40%
Liberals - 34%
NDP - 20%
Green - 6%

Link (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/06/12/hudak-widens-lead-on-mcguinty-in-ontario-poll/)

Couldn't find it on Ipsos' site - not yet, anyway. mega lol @ Northern Ontario being McGuinty's strongest region, and Hudak being a close second. ok, ipsos.

I just saw that too. I wonder what their definition of "Northern Ontario" is.

Anyways, the "lamestream" media is ignoring Horwath. Today's Sun had a pull out profile of Hudak vs. McGuinty, totally ignoring her.

Not exactly. The Toronto Sun published an article the other week about how the PCs are taking the race for granted, and how that helps - "yikes!" - the NDP (in their words). Was probably stealth advice, though.

Not that it matters though. Who's really paying attention to the provincial race now, anyway? Might as well wait until the end of August until things start to get interesting.

True, no one's paying attention.  The provincial NDP may getting in the news in the GTA, but I havent seen much of them here.

Does anyone else have the gut feeling that Hudak is the right type of leader to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by taking his faux-populism too far?

He certainly could lose, although it will probably be due to something stupid.  I also think the federal election and municipal election may have helped the Liberals as they realize just how well parties on the right can do and will be much better prepared than their federal counterparts were.  Still I would give the edge to the PCs, but far from certain.  I also highly doubt they will win 73 seats like their federal counterparts did and nor do I think the Liberals will fall to only 11 seats.  They may though get fewer seats than Dion got in Ontario.

The provincial Tories must have $$$. Lots of ads during game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.  Ads must have cost a fortune.

Thank God I hate Don Cherry too much to live through CBC hockey coverage so that I didn't have to puke at Hudak in addition to the vulgar retard. God bless American television, saving us from the failmedia of this stupid country.

wut

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/23/socialism-is-not-a-dirty-word-horwath

At least Fox News is a little discreet. Everything about this article screams "conservative hackness", from the title, to the screencap. :)

Ugh... the comments section disgusts me.

Hatman, how would you have voted for the resolution at the NDP convention to remove the mention of socialism in the constitution's preamble? I probably would've leaned towards replacing it with social democracy, but of course I would've considered it more had I been there. :)

I would have, but it wouldn't have passed. I did vote for deferral however (in case you didn't know, I was there :) )

Really!? I'm jealous! I knew you went to the Halifax convention, but I had no idea you were going to Vancouver. Hum, I wish I had the opportunity to go.

You should have! I met a couple of posters from here actually.

I really had to max out the old credit card for the trip, but I had a lot of fun. :) If my Vancouver friends weren't such heavy drinkers, I could have been a bit cheaper, but I had free accommodations, so I cant complain.

The best part was when the actor that played Tommy Douglas in the Prairie Giant movie spoke in character in the 50th anniversary showcase. They even dressed up the stage to make it look like it was the 1st "New Party" convention.

New poll out by Forum Research for Ontario. PCs 41%, Liberals 26% and NDP 22%.  With those numbers the results wouldn't be that far off the last federal election.  Off course I really doubt the Liberals will fall to only 11 seats, but I could see them doing worse than Dion did in 2008 in Ontario, otherwise less than 38 seats.

The Liberal vote in Ontario tend to be very very inefficient at lower levels. Look at how in the federal election, the NDP and the Liberals had almost exactly the same popular vote but the NDP wound up with 22 seats compared to the Liberals 11. I think that if the NDP come within even 5 points of the Ontario Liberals (let alone surpasses them) - the NDP will be the official opposition to the Tories - and the final nail will have been hammered into the Liberal coffin.

Looks like those Hudak ads have helped them... and the NDP to a degree.

If it held up, would 26% be a record low for the provincial Liberals?  Even in the Big Blue Machine years, it seems, at worst they never really went much below 30%...

That would be a ridiculously large swing. Comparing to the last election you have PC +9.4, Lib -16.2, NDP +5.3


Yeah, even in 1971 they did better than that.

Seems that the last time they were below 26% was in 1926. Did parties even run candidates everywhere back then?

The Liberals had 27% of the vote in 1971 and the NDP also had about 27% and the Tories under David had 44% - that gave the PCs 71 seats and the Liberals and NDP 20 and 19 seats respectively. Of course those were the days when the Ontario Liberals were a very rightwing rural party that tended to have a stranglehold on rural seats in southwestern Ontario and almost no support in Toronto (in other words the Ontario Liberals of the 60s and 70s were the same as the Hudak PCs of today).

That's the eternal problem of centrist parties. In every province where the Liberals and NDP have both been viable forces (British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and to an extent Ontario; Nova Scotia hasn't had a relevant NDP for long enough to tell), the Liberals have survived by becoming a party of the right. A centrist party can only remain feasible for as long as it captures a large portion of the vote, because of the way its vote tends to be scattered geographically.

The Orange Crush may strike yet again.  Polls for the federal election didn't put the NDP ahead of the Liberals until less than two weeks before the election.  We still got until October, and they're only 4 percentage points away from each other. 

Horwath is no Layton (indeed, even Rees-Cohn admitted today that her performance has been fairly amateurish till recently), and the OLP's machinery is in much better shape than the LPC's. That said, given how much Dad is hated, I wouldn't be surprised if the Libs did indeed slip into 3rd.

More and more, I wonder if the so-called "Orange Crush" was real in English Canada. It was perhaps more a case of "Red Sickness".

English Canada: A combination of running as NDP-lite, Iggy's poor leadership and structural problems that date to 2003. Think about this: the last time their machinery was operational, it was used in the Great Chretienite Purge leading up to the 2004 election.

Just so long as Rae stays away, because Hudak would wank in public if he could get a picture of Ontario's two most radioactive politicians sharing a platform. The only Liberal MP who might participate will be the Hon. member for Papineau buzzing around the GTA like he did for Smitherman and Ruby Dhalla. Good press for him, but absolutely no benefits for those who issued the invitation.

Ipsos-Reid for Ontario (change from May)

Tories: 42 (+2)
Liberals: 31 (-3)
NDP: 22 (+2)
Greens: 5  (-1)

My ElectoMatic based prediction for Ontario is:

(go to http://esm.ubc.ca/ON11/forecast.php and put in these numbers where these squares meet Lib-Lib 0.613 & PC-PC 0.941)

PC - 52
Lib - 36
NDP - 19

I could actually see the Liberals and NDP going into an official coalition.

I dont think so... the Tories win a majority with those numbers methinks.

If the Ontario PCs won the most seats but fell just short of a majority - it would be interesting to see what would happen. McGuinty as the incumbent Premier would be well within his rights to put forth a throne speech and try to get it passed with NDP support - then again he might also do what Paul Martin did on election night '06 and resign on the spot - in which case we would have a delicious repeat of what happened federally after 2006 where the Liberal official opposition propped up a Tory minority government in exchange for nothing while an emboldened and strengthened NDP got to be the "opposition in all but name".

My ElectoMatic (which was proven the best in the last federal election) was designed to do what I instructed people to do with the UBC forecaster above, so I trust the numbers; the "problem" is that a single point change in the polls can mean a dozen seats change hands.

Except, minority governments will be harder to come by in Ontario due to the lack of the Bloc. The NDP has to do really well, and the Liberals have to hold their own a bit too, which is an unlikely scenario. Either the NDP does well and the Liberals tank or the Liberals hold their own and the NDP only makes marginal gains. In other words, a perfect balance would have to occur for there to be a Tory minority.

Hmm. I think I'll have to create a swing-o-metre for Ontario to make things easier...

I don't think it would take that much of a "freak result". What if the gap narrowed to just a 5 or 6 point Tory lead (very possible) and we ended up with something like PC - 39%, Libs - 34%, NDP - 22% (or for that matter let's say the NDP gets a more 'low end" 20% and the Tories get 40 and the Liberals 35) - if that happened, we would probably be looking at something like the seat split in Ontario federally in 2008 (C - 52, Libs 38, NDP 17). In 1985 we had a 51-49-25 seat split. I think its extremely likely that the ONDP gets in the high-teens seat-wise - and then all it takes for a minority government is for the Tories to be kept to a low to mid single digit lead over the Liberals.

If the Tories have a minority, the NDP propping up the Liberals, or forming a coalition with them, with McGuinty still as the leader of the Liberals would be suicide.

Would it not be even more suicidal for the NDP to support a Tory throne speech and allow Hudak to form a government and then go on a rightwing rampage of slashing and burning?

I suspect that in that scenario - Horwath would do one of two things - either enter into negotiations with both the Liberals and the PCs and see which party would make the most concessions to the NDP OR announce on election night that the NDP will not support a Tory government under any circumstances and try to maneouvre the Liberals into having to be Hudak's "silent partner"

1985 was a rare event indeed. Of course, it could happen again this time, but it work require the perfect storm.

Minority government is actually not such a rare an event in Ontario - in addition to 1985, we also had minority governments in 1975 and 1977 and in 1999 the Tories came within just a handful of seats of losing their majority - that was with the NDP only having 9 seats. What if the NDP has 18 seats? Then the Tories need to beat the Liberals by more than an 18 seat margin - of course if the Tories maintain a double digit lead - they will easily get a majority - but what if the gap narrows to 5%? It doesn't have to be razor thin - just get the Tory vote down from the low 40s to the high 30s and it becomes very likely.

I guess so... but the dynamics have been different since Rae's election of 1990. After that, the NDP has had trouble winning the seats they did in the 1970s and 1980s, which has made minority governments an unlikely scenario. Also, back then we had a centrist PC Party, and a right wing Liberal Party whose support was more limited, giving the NDP more room on the left, and the Liberals less room for seats. The Ontario party dynamics have changed.

But on the NDP's behalf (though it's still early to tell), the dynamics may be different again since this spring's federal election.

And even though it seems unlikely that the Liberal-vs-NDP paradigm will shift so drastically provincially as it did federally--my feeling is that there may be as many as half of Ontario's existing seats that, to use US terminology, can be classified as "tossup" or leaning in a non-incumbent direction.  And the sweeping bulk of those are, of course, Liberal.

The trouble, in the end, is that too much of the Ontario Liberal base is founded upon "not Harris/not Rae" quicksand which has been taken for granted for too long.  Thus, don't be surprised if a notional ElectoMatic 36 Liberal seats turns out to be half that--on whose behalf is another question entirely...

While the NDP could very well win a lot of seats this election, the dynamics haven't changed for the Liberal party. They have the same ideology; so NDP votes will mostly come from Liberal votes ensuring a minority government's likelihood will not go up significantly. For things to change drastically, the NDP has to start taking Tory votes or the Liberals will have to move to the right again...

NDP is not taking Tory votes. Liberals can't move right otherwise their PEU friends desert and half their infrastructure does as well. Plus, Dad's always been quite honest about his ideological direction. Promising to raise taxes (per Duncan) and buy off the PEUs is not going to win Tory votes.

I would agree that the NDP is not taking the votes of the core 33% of people who voted Tory in the 2007 election, BUT with the Tories at 42% - you can be sure that a chunk of that is from people who are simply pissed of with McGuinty and whose kneejerk reaction is to park their votes with the official opposition. If Hudak's weaknesses are exposed in the campaign and if Horwath performs well, the ONDP could attract some of that generic anti-government vote away from the Tories.

Look at what happened in 1995. The Rae government was very unpopular and for a year leading up to the election and even for the first half of the campaign the Ontario Liberals under the dreadful Lyn McLeod had double digit leads. The Tories under Mike Harris actually started the campaign in third place! Then Harris ran a good campaign and McLeod flopped and the anti-government vote suddenly shifted dramatically away from the Liberals to the PCs. So anything is possible.

the latest Ipsos-Reid poll gives us a 10-11% swing from the Liberals to the Tories which, assuming a uniform swing (lol), would give the Tories up to 43 more seats, including Ottawa South (McGuinty's seat).

Not terribly surprising; if you drop double-digits you do tend to lose a lot of seats.

Ottawa South: LOL. While I'd be delighted, I'm not going to believe that till I see it projected on election night.

Here are the differences between the Liberals and Tories in the last election, in order. To calculate the swing needed, just divide the number by 2. So a 10 or 11 point swing means a difference of 20-22% in the last election.  Seats held by the federal conservatives in blue and NDP orange. (just looking at that, it appears no seat is a "safe Liberal" seat, as even the seats where they won the most massive majorities aren't held by them federally)

Nipissing               +1.40
Barrie                  +2.98
Kitchener—Conestoga         +4.78
Eglinton—Lawrence            +5.33
Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale+6.75
Lambton—Kent—Middlesex         +6.93
Stormont—Dundas--South Glengarry   +10.13
Don Valley West            +10.76
London—Fanshawe            +11.18
Oak Ridges—Markham         +12.15
Mississauga South            +12.18
Brampton West            +12.52
Willowdale               +12.65
Richmond Hill            +13.10
Prince—Edward—Hastings         +13.54
Northumberland—Quinte West      +14.16
Scarborough—Guildwood         +14.52
Ajax—Pickering            +14.72
Mississauga—Erindale         +14.74
Perth—Wellington            +14.84
Oakville               +14.89
Etobicoke—Lakeshore         +15.32
Huron—Bruce            +15.41
Etobicoke Centre            +15.87
Niagara Falls               +16.41
Guelph                  +16.43
York Centre               +16.45
Pickering—Scarborough East      +16.93
Bramalea—Gore--Malton         +17.64
St. Catharines               +18.34
Ottawa—Orleans             +18.45
Elgin—Middlesex--London         +18.60
Ottawa West—Nepean         +18.84
Brampton—Springdale         +19.96
Brant                  +20.30
Kitchener Centre            +20.39
Ottawa South               +20.47
Scarborough Southwest         +20.62
St. Paul's               +20.89
Peterborough               +22.02
Essex                  +23.01
Chatham-Kent—Essex         +23.29
London North Centre            +23.45
Mississauga—Streetsville         +23.62
Kingston and the Islands         +24.91
Toronto Centre            +27.65
London West               +28.17
Mississauga—Brampton South      +28.35
Scarborough Centre            +28.54
Ottawa—Vanier            +28.66
Don Valley East            +30.52
Markham—Unionville         +32.55
Scarborough—Agincourt         +32.72
Glengarry—Prescott—Russell      +33.35
Etobicoke North            +33.84
Mississauga East—Cooksville      +35.85
Vaughan               +43.18
Scarborough—Rouge River         +50.59

And NDP targets...
Thunder Bay—Atikokan      +0.17
York South—Weston         +1.40
Timiskaming—Cochrane      +2.35 (riding doesn't exist federally)
Hamilton Mountain         +3.71
Ottawa Centre            +4.01
Davenport            +5.33
Algoma—Manitoulin         +5.61
Thunder Bay—Superior North   +8.52
London—Fanshawe         +12.36* (3rd place finish in 2007)
Windsor West            +24.52
Windsor—Tecumseh         +25.83
York West            +26.79
Sudbury            +31.64
Sault Ste. Marie         +33.75

This is true on a uniform swing - but did you notice that in the federal election, Ottawa was one place in Ontario that bucked the province-wide trend and there was virtually no Liberal to Tory swing at all?

Yes. Plus, McGuinty might do better in the region because he is from the area. I know Ottawa South wont go Tory in this election, let's be clear. I'm just saying, he would be toast if there was a uniform swing.

Obvious comment is obvious: if the swing is low in and around Ottawa, then it will be rather high elsewhere. Probably in places where there are more seats and seats where there are more swing voters. Oh.

Could also mean a lot of wasted swing in Northern Ontario. According the Forum Research poll, the Tories were leading there. Now, I'd like to know what their definition of Northern Ontario is. If it's the 705+807 area codes, then those numbers make sense. However, only a Torontonian would consider places like Barrie and Peterborough "Northern Ontario".

However, one has to think that many Northern Ontario Liberals will be voting PC this time, which is great news for the NDP which is already poised to pick up maybe 4 seats. Perhaps Sudbury and the Soo are maybe in play.

DUDE. Seriously. A flat swing model does NOT work in Canada. You need a ratio swing.

Dude. Seriously, no mathematical models can predict elections accurately. You can rant and rave about how great your calculator works, and that's just great. I, on the other hand will be using more insight about specific races to gauge my predictions.

My swingometre is just for interest's sake, and will only help me a little bit during the pre-campaign period. You will note that I only changed 4 ridings from my previous prediction while using it: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/07/ontario-election-2011-prediction-mid.html

I don't think I'm off when I think an ELEVEN POINT LEAD will result in a Conservative majority or even a massive majority. The polls are suggesting similar numbers to the 1995 provincial election where the Tories were able to win Toronto... and well, everywhere else except the North. Now granted, much of this support may be coming from the north where it'll be wasted, but I think we can expect at least a few Toronto seats to turn blue. Enough to win a majority, at least!

If you are going to be putting incorrect projections on your website then I will have to do what I did to 308.

By definition, a projection can't be correct or incorrect until we know election results.

Almost certainly a massive one, actually.

You do that, then. But, I have a habit of predicting Ontario better than any other predictor, so I fore warn you.

You use your silly math, and I'll look at the real data: local factors.

Local factors would have had the NDP with 3 seats in Quebec in the last federal election. Math counts for a hell of a lot.

I went to Banff this weekend and saw an attack ad against Hudak from the Ontario Liberals.

Quebec can be more predictable based on math, yes. But that is the nature of the province.  Ontario is a different beast. Can math predict who is going to win in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell? I'd like to see you do that. What about Welland? Windsor West? London-Fanshawe? Scarborough Southwest? etc. etc.

And you know, different ridings are more likely to see massive swings than others. Do you factor that in as well? For example, we wont see an 11 point swing in Ottawa South, but it is possible in many of the rural ridings.  I'm sure your electromatic screwed up in the Ottawa area, which saw Tory decreases. Did you have any way of forseeing that?

The ElectoMatic is adjustable by region. And I do not have a working Ontario 2011 ElectoMatic at this time; but I point out that Ontario or elsewhere, websites that ignore math do godawful, and websites that use only math without local factors also do poorly. That is why 308 and EPP tied (in a way) for the worst showing. You must combine the two. Things that do not work are:

Flat swings alone. IE adding 11% to every riding.
Talking to a dozen people from the riding alone. IE asking people in the riding who they think will win.

What DOES work? Nothing. If something did we'd not need elections. You can however use something that works best.

All my ElectoMatic does is a bunch of math for me. The math is a simple ratio method. The ratio method works better in places where there are "2.5" or 3 competitive parties. It works like so:

Party A took 20% in the last provincial election. In Riding 1 they took 10%, and in Riding 2 they took 30%.

Lets say they are polling at 30% province-wide. According to a flat method, you'd change riding 1 to 20% and riding 2 to 40%. If, however, you compare this to a real election, you'll see this does not work very well.

A ratio method looks at the change. 30% is 1.5 times, or 150% of 20%. Riding 1 would then be increased by the same amount, and thus, become 15%, while Riding 2 becomes 45%.

Now if you do this for each party, you'll find some ridings with numbers like 14%, 19% 33%, and others with numbers like 31%, 40%, and 52%. You need to re-add these numbers and re-divide them so they total 100. This is all the ElectoMatic does; it does that for me, it is not a magic machine, it just makes the ratio method easier to calculate.

If you are willing to hear me out, I will compare the 2007 Ontario election to the 2003 election (presuming they used the same map?? if not, then 2003 to 1999, or any two elections since the 1970's) using my Ratio method, and your earlier looked at Flat method, and we can see which one is better. I'm even willing to break the map down into areas (GTA, Ottawa, Rural, etc) of your choosing, and comparing Ratio and Flat in both.

EPP normally does quite well, and I have a better track record in predicting Ontario than them.

There's no point debating about qualitative v. quantitative when the quantitative model in question is very raw. At least Threehundredeight tries to apply meaning onto its arbitrary modifiers; Teddy reduces everything to a proportional increase and calls it a day. A serious mathematical model would involve regression analyses, error calculation and an actual distribution. If you're going to make one-off predictions, the difference between a holistic assessment and a weak model is negligible.

After witnessing previous elections (New Brunswick, Federal), I'm not sure if any projector's model can function properly in an election with destabilizing swings. The problem is that future Canadian elections will be filled with them (Ontario, Quebec, BC, Alberta...)

Have you ever seen my website? I never "reduces everything to a proportional increase and calls it a day"

To be blunt, after I'm right and you guys are wrong, you guys will continue to not care and imagine I was somehow wrong.

I was right for the federal election, but I gained a grand total of 5 readers. If you want to be wrong about the election, go ahead and be wrong. I've offered you proof, and both of you changed the subject, so I will no longer be responding to either of you on this matter.

When the BC election comes up, I will link you guys to the LAST provincial election, where an independent blogger confirms that I was the closest. Until then feel free to imagine that I'm wrong about everything.

And the reason why they fycked up earlier this year was because they were gutless wrt Quebec and (I suspect) wearing rose-tinted specs wrt the entire Toronto metropolitan area.

Indeed. I made similar errors.

Teddy, what were your Ontario predictions for the federal election? I'd like to see them. I know I did better than EPP, but if yours are so great, please show them.

EPP generally seems to always overestimate Liberal support and this worked well in both 2004 and 2006 where they did better than the polls predicted, but not so well in 2008 and 2011 where the Tories did better than the polls suggested.  Actually Democratic Space was one of the closest to the correct results.  If anything it seems there has been a last minute bounce for the incumbent party each election, although not sure if it will happen provincially.  Either way other than PEI uniform swings don't really work in Canada like they do in Britain.  Uniform swings can give you the approximate seats each party will win, but not actually predict which ones they will win as strong/weak candidates can always help or hurt a party in certain ridings.  Also local issues tend to play a bigger role in Canadian politics than British politics.  You cannot use a uniform swing either for congressional elections in the US while for presidential, generally there all polls for all 50 states so you can use those which is not very practical on a riding basis.

Even in the UK, the swings are not all that uniform. Last year some ridings had 11 point Labour to Tory swings while ridings right next door had just a 2 point swing and of course all the models go out the window in Scotland where the SNP is a factor and where the Tories made no gains at all. At the national level in the UK there was a mammoth Labour to LibDem swing and yet Labour actually GAINED several seats from the LibDems that they had lost in 2005 - so go figure.

Uniform national swing was never as effective at predicting the outcomes in individual seats as people seem to think it was once, but the then that was never actually the point. The point was that you could look at the swing in the first few seats to come in on election night (and this was when counting took longer; usually lasting much further into the next day than has become normal in recent decades) and then work out whether there would be a Labour or Conservative Prime Minister. Individual seats would always swing in weird ways (there was a marked swing to Labour in parts Lancashire in 1959, for example), but the theory was that all of those individual and regional movements would cancel each other out. It was developed as much for television as anything else, and in a country with a notably stubborn electorate. It obviously makes no sense in a country like Canada, not even for its original purpose. It doesn't even make sense to include parties other than Labour and the Tories in it when using it in Britain.

I've put together the results of the 2007 provincial election:

()

As always, bigger version in the gallery.

http://calgarygrit.blogspot.com/2011/07/today-in-slightly-more-interesting.html
Brad Wall
Bigger than Jesus.

Genco is running as a PC against Sorbara in Vaughan per the Star . 308 marks that as safe Liberal. A question to Ontarians: is it Sorbara's personal popularity that keeps his seat safe? Especially given Fantino's federal landslide in May.

Also, 308 projects a Dipper victory in Manitoba, 33-22-3 despite losing the popular vote 44-40.

308's prediction record, however, is crappy even by the low standards of election predictions.

The last poll i saw was a dead even tie 44-44 but with the NDP at 50% in Winnipeg... that means generally the NDP should be the government... the Liberals will be lucky to hold on to River Heights and redistribution has killed Inkster. Plus the NDP was seen (from what i can see?) as having managed the recent flooding quite well overall.

Something interesting to snack on, some new democrats are saying the NDP SHOULD lose, in order to stave off a sask result... not keen with that idea but i see their points

That's why I'm running my own.  I'm upset that someone gave him the Manitoba transposition numbers (for free), and won't share. But, I'm going to try and make estimates for my next Manitoba analysis.


As I discussed in my analysis of Ontario, no seat is really safe for the Liberals considering the ridings that they did the best in provincially are all held by opposing parties in the House of Commons. http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/07/ontario-election-2011-prediction-mid.html

(Vaughan went Tory, Rouge River NDP and Cooksville Tory.)

For the record, I still have the Liberals winning Vaughan, but that can change. I'm going to be releasing my seat by seat popular vote predictions in my next analysis which will actually look at local factors which is being ignored by 308.

Well, the 308 guy has become something of a snob who thinks that elections are predicted only by universal swings and those myths and ignores basically things which actually count.

Yup. It was funny how people were making fun of him at the convention. I guess he has the last laugh though, as he writes for the Huffington Post and Globe and Mail from time to time,

308 is trying to apply a BBC-style "swingometer" to Canadian elections and its like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Canada has too many varying regional and sub-regional trends and individual riding anomalies for that to work the way it does in the UK (or for that matter in projecting states in a a US presidential election)

To be fair, no pollster predicted the NDP surge before it happened. Back to my original question: how vulnerable is Sorbara?

My gut opinion is that's he not that vulnerable.  I do not expect him to lose, but wouldn't be that surprised if he did. How's that? ;)

Actually, Vaughan might be a potential target:

Liberal results:

2006 fed: 60%
2007 prov: 62%
2008 fed: 49% (-11%!) whereas the Liberals were down just 6% province wide between 2006 and 2008.

If The Liberals are down 11% province wide let's say, and add in an additional 5% such as what happened in 2008, and you're looking at 47% for the Liberals. Still a victory, but it could be more than just 5%.

What do you guys think? I'm trying to apply localized riding results to predict what will happen. Vaughan is a bit tricky, as it is trending heavily to the federal Conservatives, but I don't know if that will translate provincially. I guess we could look at regional 905 level polls.

2011 fed: 29%. That's certainly an ominous sign for Sorbara.

Remember they traded a locally popular Liberal for a locally popular Conservative.

Provincially you have a locally popular Liberal running against some guy.

You could shave 5-10% off the riding due to demographics (IE jewish voters and etc) but that needs to come off the calculated result. IE if you think it's 55L-40P then it's actually 50L-45P etc

I don't have any deep insight, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the Tory candidate during the by-election (who subsequently held the seat in the GE and is the current MP) was a high-profile, strong candidate. It may be a case of when the riding jumps Tory, it may move in a big way, but until then, it may resist a swing.

Also, not as relevant. I *would* be surprised if Sorbrara got less than 30% letalone less than 40.

Also, the 2008 result was 15% higher than the provincial average. That might be a statistic to look at as well. If the Liberals get 31% provincially (last poll), than that means Sobrara will get 46%.

I think no matter how you boil it down, must calculations put the Liberals in the mid 40s in Vaughan. Which is interestingly enough, much lower than the 52% 308 gave them.

And also consider that the 2011 federal Grit number was non-incumbent--had the byelection not happened and Maurizio Bevilacqua run again, it might have been considerably higher (even if, perhaps, not enough for him to win).

As for Sorbara--will he run again?  After all, he stepped aside from the finance ministry for "personal reasons" which almost seemed a prelude to retirement.  (And of course, if he's gone, the odds for a Liberal hold go down as well.)

Sorbara is running again, it was in the paper today, should be nominated on the 18th (aug).

Howard Hampton retiring.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1032630--former-ndp-leader-howard-hampton-quits

Hmm...

New poll of 2,000 Ontario voters by Forum in today's Star:

PC - 38% (down 3)
Liberals 28% (up 2)
NDP 24% (up 2)
greens 7% (down 1)

Change is from the previous survey in June. If we compare to the 2007 election the Liberals are down 16 points, Tories are up 6 points and NDP is up 7 points, greens are steady and since the numbers only add up to 97% I have to assume that "other" is up a bit as well.

If the Liberal-NDP numbers tighten up just a bit more, the NDP might be looking at opposition status.

Horwath isn't Layton and the OLP's machinery is in much better condition than the LPC's, but I wouldn't rule out a Dipper opposition either.

Also from today's Star: driving seniors into PC arms and youth into NDP arms. I love when politicians so willingly commit electoral suicide.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1032260--ontario-liberals-announce-highest-rent-increase-rate-in-years

If the NDP is within 5% of the Liberals they will likely get as many or more seats. The Liberal vote in Ontario is very inefficient at low levels because it's so evenly spread across the province. Look at the recent federal election, the Liberals and NDP were virtually tied at 25% each but that translated into 22 NDP seats and just 11 for the Liberals!

Or even a Nova Scotia-1998esque 3-way?

Damn, why did they do a poll while I was on vacation?

Oh well, interesting numbers. Now that could mean a Tory minority. Also of note, Hampton's retirement brings Kenora into play for any party. Just like Welland is now in play (I had it going Tory, but those numbers mean it will probably stay NDP). Kenora could go any which way.

My riding by riding projections: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/08/click-to-enlarge.html

Comments mandatory (either here or there) ;)

There's nothing that's pouncing out at me as being particularly controversial.

I think I rate the NDP's chances in London - Fanshawe as being marginally better, not so much a tossup. The reason I say this is because I think strategic voting may support the Liberals in seats won by the Tories federally by a slim margin - seats like London North Centre or the Kitchener seats, however in seats which have demonstrated the potential to go NDP, I think voters will be less likely to vote strategically for the Liberals.

I probably am a little more optimistic for the Tories in Don Valley West, mainly from looking at those poll-by-poll maps, where a fairly significant portion of electorate voted for the Tories. Of course, it's a different election for a different level of government, with different leaders and different sets of baggage attached to different party machines, so I could be way off base (and being much closer to the action, you probably have a better idea about all of that).

I still think you're under-rating the NDP chances in Bramalea - Gore - Malton (I know that you tend to err on the side of pessimism with the NDP generally and in most elections, so I am not trying to nit-pick on this). My thought is that while things are again different leaders with different strengths, I am sure the work that the candidate did during the federal election may yet pay dividends. He has had his name out there for, well, must be at least since the start of the year, he has built up his networks within the community, and furthermore, with the federal Liberals finishing third, strategic voting may actually benefit the NDP.

I know I've mentioned strategic voting a couple of times now, and I know that it isn't as big an influence as many seem to assume, so I hope I'm not over-stressing that point, but in a very close result, it could potentially make a difference.

I'll have a closer look at your maps and tables in a little bit, those were just the seats that I've been thinking about recently, so they were the ones I looked at first.

On the table at the bottom I think you switched "including toss ups" and "excluding toss ups".

I initially thought that, but I think it means including or excluding toss-ups as a separate category.

I'll try to make the table more clear, but I didn't have it switched.

Ok, so...

In London-Fanshawe, I think a lot of the federal NDP support there is personal vote for Irene Mathysen that she built by running in a lot of elections before getting elected.  The NDP candidate has some name recognition, as she is married to a city councillor. BUT, that might not be enough to win off of. I can tell you it might not take a lot to win the race though in a 3 way race.

Don Valley West is Toronto's most "conservative" riding, but if the Liberals get a good turnout in the Thorncliffe area, they should be able to keep it. Remember on those maps, the Liberal area is more dense, as it is more apartment buildings in the south end of the riding, while the Tory areas are in the wealthy areas that are less dense. Hence, you see more blue on the map.

In Bramalea-Gore-Malton, it's really hard to say what will happen there. Obviously, a lot of Singh's vote was personal vote, and he will keep that. He will even increase his votes from people who now think he has a shot of winning. However, without Jack steering the ship, there will be a net loss in votes- albeit not much.

I factored in strategic voting some ridings. It's important to think about what ridings will be perceived as close races by the voters- not races that actually will be. Just look at some of the non NDP seats in Quebec for what I mean.

According to a Polara poll, the Liberals are leading 48-30 in Eglinton-Lawrence: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1035889--colle-holding-his-own-against-star-tory-candidate-poll-shows?bn=1

My projection had the seat as a tie, and 308 has the Tories with a massive lead there.

This will be interesting if true, but is quite hard to believe. I stand by the fact that this race will be much closer than that.

Who or what are 'Polara'? Constituency polls, of course, do not have a good record anywhere. As we all learned (again!) a couple of months back.

Sorry, it's "Pollara". I've heard of them, but don't know much. According to Wikipedia, they are the Liberal's official polling firm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollara

The margin of error was high, so we could be looking at a closer race.

But yeah, some local riding polls are spot on, some aren't. There'll be much change over the course of the campaign. But I doubt the Liberals are doing better there than they did in the last election.

Such considerations only really matter if the poll is accurate. If it's dross, it's dross...

Win or lose, I *can* see Colle going up in the 416-Liberal pecking order relative to '07; back then, he was tarred by ethics murmurs (which seem to be behind him now) and probably also took his safety for granted, with active 416 anti-Tory Liberal efforts concentrated more upon beating back John Tory in Don Valley West, and maybe to a lesser extent David Shiner in Willowdale.

Perhaps Colle vs Rossi is the new Wynne vs Tory.

Well, hopefully some of our Torontonians can make some comments during the campaign about how things are going there.

Three thoughts on that poll:

1. Pollara is the Liberal Party pollster. That doesn't mean their numbers have to be wrong - but it should be taken into consideration.

2. The results may also be a negative reaction to the Tories running Rocco Rossi. Rossi is an ex-Liberal who ran for mayor last year and was a total FLOP and turned into an object of ridicule by the end of the campaign. It may be that while the Tories acted like it was some "coup" to land Rossi - in reality he is actually a candidate with very high negatives.

3. FWIW the poll also had the NDP at 15% which is not a bad increase from 10% in the 2007 election and that riding is just about their worst riding in the province - so it at least shows that NDP support can go up 5% - and yet NOT have that cost the Liberals the seat.

Yes, that is a good % for the NDP. I have us at 10% there.

My next projection will involve altering Eglinton--Lawrence a bit.

And remember that's a generic NDP number, i.e. unrelated to any current candidate (they used the previous election's NDP/Green candidate names as prompts)

This poll is basically useless, but it's not outrageous that the Liberals will hold better here than elsewhere. The religious schools issue is no longer a focus, and Hudak's campaign themes (of which the main one thus far seems to be YOUR HYDRO BILL IS TOO HIGH CAUSE OF MCGUINTY'S GREEN ENERGY SCAMS) aren't exactly geared towards North Toronto professionals.

Is it more on less nailed on that Hudak will be Ontario's next premier?

New Ontario poll: (Ipsos Reid)

PC: 38 (-4)
Lib: 36 (+5)
NDP: 23 (+1)
Grns: 3 (-2)

All I can say is wow.

Have to see if other polls follow or if this is just a rogue poll.  It does seem though Hudak has slipped a bit as this is now the second poll putting the PCs under 40%.  The Liberals also have started campaigning so that may help.

I would say yes, but, on August 10th, 2007, I would have said than Tory was almos sure to win.
So, we can't say yet.

I think the odds still highly favour the PCs winning the most seats, but it is still way too early to say whether they will get a majority or minority.  John Tory definitely lost a lot of support over his religious school idea although at best his lead was only a few points.  Also I could see the Liberals winning a minority still and if lucky maybe squeaking off a majority but they need Tim Hudak to mess up badly.

Updated my projections: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/08/ontario-election-2011-prediction-august.html

The Liberals are now sitting on a minority government projection, winning a lot of close races in the 905 belt.

New Saskatchewan poll:

Saskatchewan Party: 58%
New Democratic Party: 31%
Green Party: 5%
Liberal Party: 4%

For comparison, 2007:

Saskatories 51%, NDP 37%, Liberals 9%, Greenies 2%

It was the first poll released since November, and yet there has been no significant change, except for the total collapse of the provincial Liberals who were pretty low to begin with.

Considering that Wall is quite popular and Lingenfelter has totally bombed as NDP leader in Sask., I'm actually pleasantly surprised things aren't even worse for the NDP there.

FTR, the SK Liberals are now running as some libertarian classical liberal-type outfit. I suppose only those folks were interested in wasting their time running that thing.

Heh, entryism.

My Saskatchewan projection is up: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/08/saskatchewan-2011-election-prediction.html

SP: 43 (+5)
NDP: 15 (-5)

ETA: Interesting that I came to the same conclusion as the guy from 308.  I wonder what his individual riding numbers will be.

No ones talking about the Yukon election this october... ok perhaps because there are less than 50,000 people there BUT still i find the only territory to use parties quiet interesting... because "parties" seem to be interchangeable... one retiring member was elected as a Yukon Party MLA, then became independent... next election became a NDPer, then indepedent again. The former premier Fentie was a NDP'r then a YP. The liberals have nominated a former NDP cabinet minister.... it goes on :P Plus here you CAN meet everyone in your riding, since there so small margins and races can be won/lost by a handful of votes.

first poll of the summer under a new YP leader:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/08/10/yukon-elex-datapath-poll.html

YP - 40% up from 22% in July 2010
NDP - 35% up from 26%
Lib - 15% down (badly) from 39%

I remember the last Yukon election. Every incumbent got re-elected even though like half of them had switched parties.

I don't think polling can be that accurate there. It's nice to see the NDP up, but after finishing 4th in the federal election, I can't get too excited just yet.

Hmm. The Green Party is running. Interesting, with such small districts they could perhaps win a seat or two. I mean, they won a few polls in the federal election, didn't they?

If i remember from the last set of maps, the Greens did well in Whitehorse (11 of the 19 seats are in the city) but i don't think they scored that well... they have only one candidate nominated. Elizabeth Hanson seems to be doing a great job, one of the #1 issues is housing, which the NDP is just killing the YP on. I also think the NDP might get some sympathy votes (as bad as this sounds) esp. in Mount Lorne-Southern Lakes, a new Riding but one where the recent NDP MLA died in a car crash... add that to the last NDP leader who died of cancer awhile back...

The NDP was 4th in 2008 too from what i remember, although i think he polled better this election, by about 5 points... but so did the Greens by about 5 points too. Still not great for a seat held by a former NDP leader.

Yeah, well, she was a terrible leader so it's appropriate.

The Greens won 4 polls in the Yukon:

()

(MaxQue's map)

2 of them are in Whitehorse Centre, which is the seat of the NDP leader.

Thanks! ok, so the Liberals pretty much were dominant in Whitehorse proper... Also that NDP and Green poll south of Whitehorse are in the Mount Lorne-Southern Lakes riding i mentioned.
Its still early, but with those Numbers i can easily see the NDP replace the Libs as opposition... or even win outright, the NDP seem to be building a good list of candidates based on their site

Ok, some Newfoundland chatter now...

http://cra.ca/support-for-nl-progressive-conservatives-decreases/
last poll in June 2011:
PC - 57%
Lib - 22%
NDP - 20%

Now the only prediction i've seen was 308... which puts the parties at:
Seats
PC - 38
NDP - 6
Lib - 5

BUT, Liberal leader Yvonne Jones is out, she has been suffering from cancer for awhile (seems to be a huge problem with leaders these days), she probably would have resigned earlier than now but things didn't happen that way. For all intents the Liberals are a mess, this leadership race could be a blessing (more media coverage thats mildly positive) or hurt them come election time (inexperience, and thrown in the fire) the NDP team seems to be coming together really well by the looks of it... about 21 candidates in place including some well known local names (remember Keith Coombs who won, the lost in a recount the mayoralty of Paradise as a 19yr old, hes been nominated).

Hey now, I have one too!: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/p/prediction-maps.html

Although, I haven't done an analysis yet (but he hasn't either!)

My numbers are:
Tories: 36
Liberals: 3
NDP: 1
Toss up: 8

I think his numbers in NL and PEI are very wonky. The NDP wont win any seats in PEI, and I can't see us doing better than 2 in NL.

I did a sort of poll [recruiting for an online focus group] with the residents of the riding of St. Barbe for work, and I can tell you there are a lot of undecideds there. There is more openness to the NDP than I would have expected, so that's good. I don't think it will translate into seats, unless the party runs some good candidates.


Ah yes, I remember that. Good to have him on board!

His name is Kurtis Coombs, by the way. Google led me to a Conservative who is named Keith Coombs.  Although apparently, Coombs lost the Tory nomination in the Topsail by-election last year.

My bad... KURTIS, i've always been bad with names :P

the NDP has is up on their site? If he was working for the tory's, thats a pretty big coup... and the NDP can only grow off the Tories really.
http://www.nl.ndp.ca/nr081111CoombsMPN

under the election section, looks like a good mash of candidates... esp (but no surprise in St John's), they probably have targeted SJ Centre and ST East (the candidates look strong, and spill over from Quidi Vidi)
The globe has an articule today... its all Dunderhils (sp) to lose, and she's no Williams. A drop from 73% to 57% is pretty massive, but 57% is still huge

I just looked at the comments on the CBC article about his nomination. Such horrible visceral! The kid must really be hated. This might not be the coup you think it is. 

Yikes... well we all know how partisan some comments can be :P

Tory to NDP is a big jump ideologically to me, but hey it cause media coverage eh :)

Also. on the CBC was a list of 7 running for the Liberal leadership, anyone know any of them?

Not in Newfoundland.

Can you fill me in as to why?
... Sounds like the same is true for the Yukon, but i think thats a different story.

Because the Newfie PC's aren't really a right-wing party.

Where are the Tories traditionally strong in Nfld? Avalon peninsula. Where are the two NDP seats in the province? Avalon peninsula. I think that sums it up best. When the federal Tories collapsed in the province, where did their voters go? NDP or, if they are truly right wing (which they're not, it's mostly tradition), they didn't vote at all.

The area is mostly Catholic, and they'd don't vote Liberal in Nfld.

I would second that - Newfoundland is a bit of a flip from the usual Canadian pattern St. John's is mostly Catholic and catholics in NL traditionally voted Progressive Conservative, while the rural outports tended to be Protestant and Liberal. but the brand of Tory in Newfoundland was always very, very red and had no connection at all to the western reactionaries who dominate the federal Tory party. They were like the last vestiges of liberal Republicans who were still winning in places like Vermont right up until ten years ago.

There is so much tribal enmity between Tories and Liberals and between Catholics and Protestants in NL that a lot of people from Tory families will say "if i ever voted Liberal old Grandpa McLeod would roll over in his grave" etc... but the NDP has no history in Newfoundland so there is no tribal taboo against voting for them. Danny Williams the ridiculously popular PC Premier of NL who just retired is a close personal friend and former law partner of NDP MP Jack Harris and when he had a falling out with Harper and the federal Tories in 2008 and he all but publicly endorsed the NDP in St. John's.

In some ways NL is like Quebec. In Quebec there is so much tribal hatred between federalists and sovereigntists that its hard for voters to switch between the Liberals and the BQ - but then the NDP comes along with no baggage and ex-Liberal and ex-BQ voters alike are able to find a new home.     

It should be noted that NL isn't particularly left wing either, so I think that's where the similarities between the rock and New England end.

What is also interesting is that Fort McMurray isn't particularly Liberal, which is surprising considering how many Newfies live there. Perhaps they don't vote, or vote at home? Most of the Newfies in Fort Mac are likely from the rural Protestant areas.

I guess it depends on how you define "leftwing". In many ways NL actually is quite leftwing. They have quite a high level of union membership. They got rid of their religiously based school system. They tend to be very much in favour of government spending, programs and subsidies (ie: employment insurance, massive subsidies for cod fishermen etc...), they tend to like a lot of gov't support for the arts and culture and NL was one of the first couple of provinces to legalize same sex marriage etc...can you name a province in English Canada that is more leftwing than Newfoundland??

As for Fort McMurray - i think I read that that riding had the lowest turnout in all of Canada with barely 40% of eligible voters casting a ballot. Given that its such a supersafe Tory seat etc...I suspect that the vast majority of expatriate Newfies working in the tar sands don't bother voting at all.

BC might be more left wing than NL, or perhaps Nova Scotia. BC has a lot of right wing areas too, so it's tough to compare (it's a lot like California in that respect).

Newfoundland is definitely culturally conservative though. They may be economically left wing (and why not, considering the unemployment there), and socially left wing in some respects, but the culture there is still conservative, as it is in most of Atlantic Canada.

NL: Safe PC. No, Dunderdale won't get a shutout like Ghiz might and McKenna did, but a near-sweep.

SK: Safe SP.

MB: Tossup, possible NDP victory.

ON: Likely PC.

The basic issue with Newfoundland parties, and the reason for the odd regional distribution, is that they are descended from the pro- and anti-Canada forces in the 1948 referendum. The areas around St. John's supported independence (as a Commonwealth dominion), since they were more prosperous and economically diversified and thought they could survive as a self-sufficient country, while the rural outports supported confederation with Canada since they were poor and dependent on a single declining industry (the fishery) and wanted Canadian federal money. (Wikipedia results map, no percentages) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_referendums,_1948#Results_map).

After the Confederation side won, the pro-Confederation side became the Liberals, in part because their leader Joey Smallwood wanted to ally himself with St. Laurent's federal government, but it also made a certain amount of ideological sense, since the pro-Canadian fishermen supported a strong safety net but had little tradition of union or co-operative politics. The independence side then became the PC's sort of by default, since they were the other side. Support for actual independence hasn't been a significant force since then, but there is a strong tradition of devolutionist PC politicians. (And "became" here is meant literally: the Newfoundland Confederate Association and the Responsible Government League just changed their names to the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Progressive Conservative Party of Labrador respectively in 1948-9). This is the reason that Newfoundland traditionally has had the reverse of the usual urban-rural pattern.

Now, however, St. John's is developing a more typical contemporary style of politics and so the NDP is gaining there while the rural areas are more traditional.

St. John's is developing voting patterns just like Halifax (remember Halifax was Robert Stanfield's old seat and was Tory for many years - now its a total NDP stronghold). I think by the next election you will see Saint John and Moncton, NB trending NDP as well.

It already began.
Saint John, NB
        CPC LPC NDP
2008  40   38  16 
2011  50   16  31

Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe
        CPC LPC NDP
2008  36   39  16 
2011  36   31  29

I saw that trend to - but next time the NDP will seriously target Saint John and Moncton and probably win them and maybe Charlottetown too. One mystery in Atlantic Canada is why the federal NDP doesn't do better in Sydney and Glace Bay. A generation ago that was the ONLY place in Atlantic Canada they ever won - now its a wasteland. Any idea why?

If you mean federally, then wasn't it actually elsewhere on Cape Breton? I think the only time the Sydney riding was ever won was 1997. Provincially the NDP hold two seats in that area and both are usually won by big margins. Personality politics matters a lot there, of course.

Not much industry left there, I guess.

So long as the people - some of them anyway - are still there then that's never really an explanation. But I think the fact that the Tories ran an outstanding candidate in Sydney-Victoria (CB North MLA Cecil Clarke) might be the start of one.

Yeah, I don't get Cape Breton.  Maybe they're socially conservative there. Kinda like Canada's West Virginia.

How did John Crosbie come to exist? He doesn't seem to be the sort of person who would get anywhere in Newfoundland.

He was running as the Progressive-Conservative candidate in St. John's, before merger.
St. John's was heavily Red Tory, I think, they don't seem to like Harper at all.

Seriously? Newfies love their populist grandstanders, no matter their political stripe. The more pro-Newfoundlander a candidate is, the better. It's almost a form of nationalism, if you call it that.

Clarie Gillis's seat was essentially Sydney and Glace Bay, in spite of the "south" in the name.

In the post-WWII period, the provincial party was dominated by fractious disputes between the Cape Breton coal unions and the mainland party who had to appeal to a quite different electorate; I'm pretty hazy on the details of this period or what it was all actually about, but the end result was basically that the mainlanders won and industrial Cape Breton left the party en masse for a long time.

Ah, yeah. Forgot about him. I was thinking of seat they held in the late 1970s, though it must have had part of that area as well.


Was that the split that led to Paul MacEwen forming the CB Labour Party (and then later joining the Liberals) or an earlier one? MacEwen's seat is NDP again, of course.

John Crosbie's riding also included much of the souther part of Avalon which the Tories still do well in.  Also the Tories did win the two St. John's seats in 2004 and 2006 under Harper, but I agree that was more out of tradition than any real support for the federal Tories.  As for Moncton and Saint John, Moncton seems possible, but Saint John might be more difficult since the Tories got almost 50% and I don't think there are a whole lot of Tory-NDP switchers in New Brunswick.  The most likely way for them to win it is hope the Liberals recover somewhat and all their gains come at the expense of the Tories and pick up a few marginal votes thus a three way split.

For the first time ever, Newfoundland is one of the rich provinces. They switched a few years back, but this has had a major impact. Just as Cape Breton once did well for the NDP until they all went poor, the economic changes in Newfoundland will have repercussions on politics.

Nanos with sh*tty NDP numbers again

(Ontario)

PC: 42%
Lib: 38%
NDP: 16% (!)
Grn: 3%

That's a drop of 7% from other pollsters for the NDP.

Meanwhile in NL, the provincial Liberal party selected a new leader after Yvonne Jones stepped down due to cancer. They selected former MHA Kevin Aylward who will be running in St. George's-Stephenville East.

It was a Nanos poll, i remember hearing chatter before about them? t

About the NL grits, well blimmy! that was quick, but they did need to resolve that quick to be ready for Oct.

Also, i'm shocked that the religion is still a deciding factor in parties?

If it can be in Germany, then why not Newfoundland? Especially as we're really only talking of vague tribal identification and nothing more serious than that.

I have to say that I'm finding polling in Ontario to be very, very erratic (as it was throughout the lead up to and during the federal election). Just in the past two weeks we have seen the Liberals as low as 28% and as high as 38%. We have seen the NDP as low as 16% and as high as 24%. The Tories seem to be moving around within a much narrower range from a low of 38% to a high of 42%.

I'm not sure what to make of it all.

My next projection is going to be depressing. Starting in September, I will have to do poll averages to make things less all over the place.

Should probably wait until mid-September to really take Ontario polling seriously.

Dissolution should be around Labour Day. Hopefully this is just a dead cat's bounce.

As we get close to election day you should see less variability between pollsters.  Lets remember up until the final week, Nanos showed the NDP much lower than other pollsters, but by the final week, the numbers matched others.  When people are less firm in their intentions, methodology matters, but as people become firmer in their intentions things average out.  And for our NDP friends feeling depressed, I should note that Nanos had the NDP as low as 8% in Ontario at one point during the federal election, so things can change.  Likewise in 2008, they had the Tories at only 26% one week before the election while their final results put them at 39% in Ontario.

To Ontarians here: any evidence on the ground of a Liberal surge, since we can't trust the polls yet?

And another thing I noticed, if I read correctly: Nanos hasn't placed the ONDP over 20% in *years*.

If someone doesn't talk Rae out of his batsh**t insane idea that he could help by stumping for Dad, the NDP numbers will go up. They hate Rae much more than the PCs do as a vendu.

I would positively drool of Rae stumped for Dalton.

Another Ontario projection: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/08/ontario-election-2011-prediction-august_16.html

I have come to conclusion that blogger sucks. It kept removing my conclusion section, so it's not as long as it originally was. It seems it can't handle 2 tables. Maybe I'll have to do something up in paint next time.

Wordpress is better.

1.
Basically I plead the bolded excerpt :P - but while that's an example of the kind of thing I have in mind, the issues go back at least a generation earlier.

2. Regarding the recent discussion, I think that for all that Canadian voters can be asymmetrical in their federal/provincial voting patterns, there is still, at least in Ontario where the party systems are basically parallel, a group of moderate/low-information voters who are at least somewhat influenced in their polling responses by which election is in the media focus. I doubt that all that much is really happening other than this crowd switching their attention from Harper/Ignatieff/Layton to McGuinty/Hudak/Horwath.

3. In unrelated news, Wildrose Alliance has had some sort of mass office staff resignation, which doesn't seem like great news for them, and about which there appears to exist a rule that every media story use the cliché phrase "growing pains".

Well...Saint John is an interesting case.  Remember that Elsie Wayne won in 1993 more out of larger-than-life personal popularity and schism in the Liberal camp (the 1988 Grit candidate ran as an independent); her incumbency probably also artificially suppressed the NDP during the federal Alexa years.  Otherwise, relative to other so-called Tory strongholds in New Brunswick, Saint John actually leans "red"; IOW it's it's not a "Confederation of Regions" Toryism.  That the Tories fared better this year in Saint John than Moncton has plenty to do with incumbency, not to mention the lack of Moncton/Dieppe's Franco-Acadian demo--but imagine if it were an open seat and Elizabeth Weir was running this year, it'd probably have been Jack Harris II.  (Keeping in mind, too, that Jack Harris's seat saw IIRC the fourth strongest PC result in 1993.)

Saint John and Moncton both had for a while big-name local Tories, but both would default Liberal. Fredericton on the other hand defaults Conservative.

Looks like Nanos was off, again.
new Angus-Reid poll:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1047068--provincial-election-to-be-a-tight-3-way-race-poll-suggests?bn=1#.Tl4joc56u3E.facebook

Tories - 38
Liberals - 31
NDP - 24
Green - 6

the election hasn't even started but i haven't seen the Dippers above 24%, could this be the Plateau for the NDP?

Phew. For a moment there, I thought that was a federal poll. :)

Sorry didn't mean to scare you there :P

Also the NDP has its first add up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnLNpz3dw_I&feature=player_embedded

anyone else see the exact same format as the federal from the campaign launch? its good to see were sticking with the good clean positive campaign.. plus the site FINALLY has candidates listed... i'm a huge fan of the pictures as i'm a visual learner :P
http://ontariondp.com/en/candidates

Finally. They're not all there though, but it's nice to see a list of some sort.

I wonder what kind of clown they'll find to put up in Orleans.

Still no one. Seems to be the only riding in the city where the NDP is completely dead. No active riding association, no active campaigns, nothing. ever. It's too bad, I know a lot of public servants live in the riding.

I would blame suburbia, but Nepean-Carleton has a competent candidate in Ric Dagenais, and Carleton-MM even had a contested nomination.

Regional breakdowns: http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011.08.31_Ontario_Vote.pdf

NDP ahead in the North, close in Hamilton-Niagara.

City of Toronto (416) is also shaping as a three way race - when you have Liberals at 36% and NDP and Tories at 28% each - it smells to me like a three way split in the seat count because of the way the Liberal vote is spread evenly across the city.

Or a Liberal catastrophe as they finish second everywhere.

Mind you, have to be wary of regional breakdowns (or breakdowns of any kind). People are too trusting of poll internals.

...Its actually 28% for the Tories and the NDP, but i think your point still stands :)
with these numbers, and the NDP candidates i see... Davenport and York South-Weston are sure to fall to the NDP. I don't think we can count out Scar Rouge River or South West since they are held federally, they are competative and i'd give the NDP a fighting chance. This puts Tor Centre in the mix too but that i feel is more of a long shot

Scarborough SW is a possibility, probably not in SRR.

I would have put it in the reverse. I feel that Neethan (SRR candidate) has much more exposure, and is much more well known in the community then Bruce Budd is in SSW. The only thing working against him is that there is a liberal incumbent.
In both cases be sure to see Rathika and Dan on the campaign trails with them.

Regarding Toronto, i will also be very interested to see what happens in York West. That is actually the poorest riding in the city and was once a NDP stronghold provincially. The NDP is running the executive assistant to a city councillor in the area and the Liberal incumbent is very - shall we say - dated.

Having an NDP MPP in York West would probably make me cream myself. Assistant to Perruzza = endorsed. But I just can't see it happening. If these people re-elected Sgro of all people, why would they they not re-elect Sergio because he's old?

Ontario's election is in five weeks, are we going to have a separate thread for it eventually?

... also, its pretty unfortunate but the poor rarely vote in large numbers. But it will be during the school year and YorkU tends (as we saw in May) to vote NDP, so that will help.
I would love to see York West fall but it would take a huge event to push it to the NDP... but definelty a moderate target. If ONDP can utilze Perruzza's resources and really target their decided voters, HST issues with the working poor... possibly some spill over enthusiasm from York South-Weston.
Toronto Centre has that same issue, Regent/Moss park dosen't vote in the numbers like Rosedale does.
NDP foot soldiers are going to have a big task ahead for them.

Absolutely not.

I think Sgro is a stronger incumbent than Sergio and also the NDP had no campaign federally in York West. It may make difference to have an active campaign there this time.

Yeah, they nominated some unknown Haitian student who had no campaign whatsoever in May at the last minute after their original candidate endorsed the Liberal as did some previous federal candidate. But they can still get up to 14% or so, which considering how they nominate clowns and have no base whatsoever is scarily impressive.

The Liberal candidate in my riding got to 18% in my home riding in 2008 even if most of base defected to the Conservatives. And the candidate was beyond awful, he spend the campaign fleeing the journalists asking questions about his criminal record.

Yeah, I remember that guy. Wasn't he a racist as well or something? Every party has some small base no matter the riding it seems, even if there's no ground work or an awful candidate. Though to be fair most of the Liberal vote until this year in Abitibi-Nunavik was tribal loyalty to the Liberals as the sole non-Bloc alternative from the natives in Nunavik. I suppose they didn't get the news that the specific Liberal candidate was an idiot and they hadn't gotten around to voting NDP.

===post edited by friendly neighbourhood dictator (who is on power trip). other posts in thread deaded. take it outside, etc===

Imagine if they actually ran a decent candidate?

They might do up to 20% or so, but it's a very affluent suburb. This isn't at all natural NDP territory, and they'd struggle to do well let alone threatening the Liberals or Conservatives.

The election season has just started up now... MAN, YK & ON are already itching to get started and the CBC now has dedicated pages to each (even NWT which is a unique system that dosen't use political parties, and is more consensus based)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/

I have to say the YukonNDP website, has improved dramatically (i've been following nominations in all provinces and was checking in regularly), their site is the BEST of all three parties... plus there was a make-me-smile moment in a articule in Yukon News..

"But, while Mitchell’s (LIB leader) speech moved a crowd of more than 50 Liberal stalwarts to a half-hearted standing ovation, Hanson’s(NDP Leader) address was followed by whoops, cheers and chanting from a crowd nearly twice as big.
The Dippers’ party also featured dancing, thanks to music by Kevin Barr, their candidate for Southern Lakes and Mount Lorne. And they had better food, with hummus, tzatziki and spicy chicken thighs served up by Kebabery owner Louis Gagnon, who’s seeking the party’s nomination in Whitehorse West.
Whether being able to throw a better party translates into a more successful election campaign remains to be seen."

I've been curious about the Yukon for a bit. The Greens could pull off a seat, but, maybe not. The Liberals do indeed seem to be in big trouble. Polling is hard in a place with 30K people, but the last poll showed the Liberals in 3rd. When a date is set, please let us know!

Another NFLD Poll:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2011/09/06/nl-cra-poll-906.html

                     May
Tories: 54% (57%)
NDP: 24% (20%)
Liberal: 22% (22%)

Good news for the NDP, and those from NFLD can maybe add more detail... 50+% still means a majority, and if this (NDP) number is focused on the Avalon-St. John's could this mean more seats? Another potenial for history if the NDP unseats the Libs at opposition.

Ooh. I'll have to do a Nfld projection, finally. Might take a couple days, but I will be doing this before my next Ontario prediction.

Sneak preview of my NL projection:

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador will also be going to the polls this fall. Their election date is set for October 11. And now that there has finally been another poll released in the province, I can do my first official projection for Canada's youngest province.

Corporate Research Associates released a poll Tuesday indicating that very little has changed since previous poll from last May. The poll, which was conducted from August 15-31 indicated the following,

Prog. Cons.: 54%
NDP: 24%
Liberal: 22%

Despite still having the support of a majority of voters, the Tories are actually polling their worst since probably before Danny Williams was leader. The NDP likewise is in all likelihood at their highest polling numbers ever.

Background
Popular Tory Premier Danny Williams resigned at the height of his game last December. Williams was first elected in the 2003 election with a large majority of the vote (59%). His popularity was so high, that he won the 2007 election with the highest popular vote percentage in Canadian history, with 70% of th vote! It's a wonder how his party didn't win every seat in the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly. Somehow the Liberals won 3 seats and the NDP won 1. The Tories won 44. Despite Williams leading the provincial Tories, he hated the federal Tories. His “Anybody But Conservative” campaign in the 2008 federal election helped shut out the Harper conservatives on the rock. The Tories did come back in 2011 by winning Labrador, but were still shut out on the island.

Williams was replaced by Newfoundland's first female Premier, Kathy Dunderdale. Despite slipping in the polls, her party is still well in the lead. We were bound for having an all-female leader election this Fall, but it was not to be. Liberal leader Yvonne Jones had to step down last month due to cancer, and the Liberals quickly elected former MHA (Member of the House of Assembly) Kevin Aylward to lead them into the election. The NDP, which currently holds 2 seats in the Canadian House of Commons in the province is led by former nun Lorraine Michael. Her seat is the only one held by the party in the House of Assembly.

Races to watch

Labrador

It appears that every riding in Labrador will be interesting to watch come election night. Cartwright—L'Anse au Clair is probably the only sure bet, as it has always voted Liberal. The only question is how will Yvonne Jones fair there after she stepped down as Liberal leader due to cancer. Labrador West  has been a riding that has flipped between all three parties in recent elections. Tory  MHA Jim Baker is stepping aside, creating a showdown between the Tories and the NDP here. This riding is the NDP's best shot at a second seat in the province, having only lost it by 400 votes in 2007. This part of Labrador also went NDP in the federal election. Lake Melville will be an interesting race because Tory MHA John Hickey is stepping down. This seat is historically Liberal, but Hickey benefited in the 2003 election on a vote split with the Labrador Party helping him win his first race. Finally, up in the Torngat Mountains, Tory MHA Patty Pottle will be in a fight with the Liberals. She won her 2007 race by just 76 votes.

St. John's & the Avalon Peninsula

The Avalon Peninsula is the more Tory friendly part of the province. Interestingly, this is also the area that has gone NDP federally as of late, due to disaffected federal Tories making their switch to the NDP. Perhaps an unlikely choice, but when you've never voted Liberal in generations, why start now?

This part of the province was the best area for Danny Williams, as his Tories racked up massive majorities in most seats. The question is whether or not the NDP can make some inroads here, like they did provincially.

The NDP's lone seat in the province is Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. The seat has been held by the party since 1990 when former provincial NDP leader (and current MP) Jack Harris won it. The race has been close in recent elections, and current MHA and leader Lorraine Michaels may be in a tough race against the Auditor General of the province, John Noseworthy, who is running for the Tories.

The other St. John's seats were won by overwhelming margins for the Tories in 2007, none lower than 70% of the vote. Only one incumbent is retiring, Sheila Osborne in St. John's West. She got 73% of the vote last time, and it's unlikely the Tories will lose it now.

The Tories won more massive majorities in the St. John's suburbs. Only one seat is open, as Dave Devine is retiring in Mount Pearl South. Considering he won with 84% of the vote in 2007, this one should stay Tory!

The only Liberal seat on the Avalon peninsula is Port de Grave. This seat has been Liberal for all by 7 years since the province joined confederation, and has been Liberal since 1985. MHA Roland Butler will be retiring however, making this seat an interesting one to watch, as he had only won by less than 300 votes in the 2007 election. All other races on the peninsula should be easy Tory wins.

Rural Newfoundland

Outside of the Avalon Peninsula has been traditionally more Liberal in the province. Having said that, the Liberals hold just 2 seats in all of this area, and won only one in the last election. However, if they are to make gains, it will most likely be here.

Some seats the Liberals could pick off  include Bellevue (where Tory Calvin Peach won by 800 votes in 2007), The Isles of Notre Dame (where Tory Derrick Dalley won by just 7 votes), Bay of Islands (where Tory Terry Loder defeated the Liberal MHA Eddie Joyce by 400 votes. They will be in a rematch), and Humber Valley (which will be another rematch of last election where Tory Darryl Kelly defeated the sitting MHA, Dwight Ball by 300 votes). Also, recent by-elections in the area have also shown that the Liberals should be targeting other seats, such as St. Barbe. Former Liberal leader Jim Bennett is running again there in a seat he lost by 900 votes in 2007. The Liberals came within 400 votes of winning a 2008 by-election in Baie Verte-Springdale, and 700 votes from winning Terra Nova  in 2009. Also, we musn't forget the riding Liberal leader Kevin Aylward is running in, St. George's—Stephenville East. He will have an uphill battle, as the Liberals were 50% behind in the 2007 election.  The Liberals had picked up just one seat in a by-election during the last legislative session. Marhsall Dean won the seat for the Grits in 2009. Benefiting from a large 19% swing, he beat the Tory candidate by just 126 votes. The only other Liberal seat in the area is Burgeo-LaPoile. This Liberal stronghold should continue to go Liberal, despite the retiring of its incumbent, Kelvin Parsons. His son, Andrew will be the party's candidate in the riding that has been held by the Tories for just 7 years since 1949.

Meanwhile, the NDP will be setting its sights at Burin-Placentia West. Their candidate is Julie Mitchell, who ran and lost by 1,400 votes in 2007 to Tory Clyde Jackman. With the NDP doing much better in the polls, she is sure to have a shot at the riding. This appears to be the party's third best hope in the province.

The Tories will just have two retiring incumbents in the area. Bonavista North and Bonavista South. The Liberals may have a shot at the north riding, where Harry Harding is retiring. This seat has voted Liberal for most of its history, but the Liberals lost by 1,500 votes in 2007. In the south riding, Rodger Fitzgerald is retiring. He was acclaimed in 2007, meaning it will be hard to guage how well the Liberals will do. It has been a Tory riding since 1993 however, and Fitzgerald won by 3,300 votes in his last contested election of 2003.

That will probably be in 2012, but perhaps in 2011. A by-election will by held in Bonaventure, because Nathalie Normandeau, Vice-PM of Quebec and minister of Natural Ressources resigned for personal reasons.

According to medias, that is because her recent relationships were heavily covered by medias. She dated François Bonnardel, an ADQ MNA in 2009. She also dated Yvan Delorme, an former chief of Montreal Police, which has links with a corrupt business called BCIA. That scandal caused the resignation of the Family minister, Tony Tomassi, last year. She is 43, if she wants to have kids, she doesn't have mush time left. And because she is 43, we shouldn't be surprised if she come back in a few years. She had the reputation of being an excellent parlementarian and she was in the favorites to succeed Charest.

Will she come back once he will leave?

That by-election is important because the majority of the government is very tight.

Current standings are:
Liberals - 65
PQ - 46
ADQ - 4
QS - 1
Independants - 9 (2 formers Adéquistes, 1 expelled Liberal, 1 expelled Péquiste and 5 former Péquistes)

So, Bonaventure proper. It has a strong Liberal lean and there 15% of Anglophones, but opposition can win it. Past results aren't very useful, as Normandeau was hugely popular there. The riding was represented from 1956 to 1993, by Gérard D. Lévesque, a Liberal,the longest-serving MNA in history, which was often interim leader of the party during leadership races and was very often in Liberal Cabinets. They elected a PQ MNA in the by-election after his death, which was reelected in 1994, but lost in 1998 to Normandeau.

So, given her absence from the election and the impopularity of Liberals, that election might be interesting. And perhaps Legault's Party will run in it for the first time?

The Legault Party isn't running in anything this year, and Bonaventure stays Liberal. I honestly don't see the BFD about Legault, except that the media is making a very unremarkable ex-Peq minister a BFD.

I neither see why people are loving Legault. He was only a more competent PQ minister than Marois was (which isn't saying much, as she was dreadful).

I really wonder about Newfoundland, since it's a place that can be prone to breakneck swings.  Like, if the NDP sustains a certain momentum with a few select "star candidates", even a 70%+ PC seat in the Avalon doesn't necessarily have "incumbent hold" etched in stone...

We missed a poll from PEI as well,

Lib: 59
PC: 31
NDP: 7
Grn: 3

Newfoundland projection

http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/09/newfoundland-and-labrador-projection.html

I admit, I was being a tad "Liberal" ;) with my predictions there.

PEI will come up next, whenever I get the chance to do it.

I suspect PEI will be boring... And yes, i think the results wont be so "Liberal" in NFLD :P

http://www.leaderpost.com/health/Sask+Party+personal+attack+trumps+policy/5368410/story.html

in Saskatchewan, looks like it might be a more interesting fight... Personality (empty policy)SASK party vs Policy (empty personality?) NDP... i'm hoping it is more of a fight.

Newfoundland, PEI and Saskatchewan will be a total snooze. Manitoba is turning into one as well. Ontario is turning into a real race. We need a BC election as well! That would be dirty. And Yukon can be very interesting as well. Or boring. Unpredictable.

Manitoba a snooze? Last poll had a tie!

Snooze i'm guess equals competative, policy based campaigns? Manitoba will be exciting as its expected to be a tight race... but i agree its already looking like the NDP is doing quite well and the Tories just can't seem to make anything work. Its still really early though.

Ontario is a fight, and all three parties are coming out of the gate ready! the Liberals seem to be playing the dirtiest with the NDP (see Horwath at Crowes office, reporter were accosted by a Grit staffer desperate to show them a rediculous video of the NDP van).

We also forget (since there are no parties) the NWT has elections... what are peoples thoughts on the concensus gov't vs the party government (the Yukon uses the southern model and Nunavut uses concensuc)

Consensus fails because you cant pick your Premier. If they had a direct vote for that office, then it would work.

Im not sure how to cover that election in maps. I guess I could do a turnout map or something, or show where incumbents lost.

Anyways, a SK poll has been released, and it's even worse for the NDP:

SP: 63
NDP: 26
Lib: 6
Grn: 3

GAH! well that's a terrible number... Still no election yet, and my optimism is still in place that the NDP wont do that bad... until the leaders debate that is :P (see link previously about a policy driven campaign)
http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Poll+indicates+Sask+Party+lead+fall+vote+nears/5373651/story.html ... The NDP still leads in one region!! OK its the North and they have like what 2 ridings? :)

based on the story, Lingenfelter is one of the reasons with a 55% dissatisfaction. I'd have gone with Meili (or even Higgins), Lingy was probably their worst choice for leader, but hey that time is long gone. My only hope is that the NDP can lick their wounds and Lingy resigns (I'm still utterly disappointed that Meili wont run this election, has he been that disheartened by the leadership loss?)

Well remember Quebec in May?, people might love Brad and just vote SaskParty not giving a hoot about who the local candidate is.

There's no way he stays as leader if the inevitable defeat is anywhere near that bad.

Though given how urban-vs-rural polarized the electorate is compared to 1982, he could *still* win more seats now compared to then...

Not impossible, though if the Sask Party really does end up leading the pv by over 30pts then a lot of places that have no business being lost will go.

Does anyone know anything about the record of the company that did the poll, btw?

Looks like that wasn't a joke after all.

God I hope so. Hudak is the only dangerous politician out there.

As a Tory, I have three beefs with Hudak's strategy. 1) Far too soft on the deficit 2) EE distracting from what should be a laser-beam focus on Disaster Dad 3) Running a Deweyesque campaign during the summer.

He confirmed that.
Legault also said they may run if the election is in 2012. He said he could perhaps run himself in Bonaventure.
In other news from that part of Quebec, Nancy Charest, former Liberal MNA and federal Liberal candidate in 2008 and 2011 and which seems to have a personality cult there is supporting Legault. She could run for Legault in Matane next time.

Nomination day in Ontario was yesterday and today's is PEI. Im looking forward to the final list.  Wikipedia only lists 2 NDP candidates in all of PEI, so I'm interested to see how many there will be.

James Rodd  SAID they were going to run a full slate... lets see if that happens. I honestly feel the momentum, and focus by the party in the maritimes will be in winning ground in NFLD. Last time i looked they had filled 31 of the 48 ridings.

When I ran, we ran a full slate.

That is, we did everything we could to do so. But not enough people wanted to run, and we did not.

NDP only nominated 14 out 27
Greens 22 and the new Island Party nominated 12. I dont know anything about them.

The NDP ran 15 candidates in 2007 and 24 when Teddy ran for them in 2003. Last time they ran a full slate was in 2000.

http://www.electionspei.ca/provincial/candidates/index.php - here are all the candidates, can anyone comment on the any of the NDP candidates having a shot? Some are saying, based on the federal results, that the NDP could (could) be competative in three Charlottetown ridings?

Jane Dunphy is very competent. Edith Perry is very dedicated. James Rodd has good leadership qualities. Kat Murphy has her heart in the right place. Jacquie Robichaud is fair. Paulette Halupa is on the left of the party.

I knew all of them personally when I sat on the PEI NDP Executive. Sadly, none of them has any chance unless the polls radically change.

The NDP did the best federally in Charlottetown-Victoria Park, but with the Green leader running there it probably won't be their best seat in the provincial election.

PEI projection: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/09/prince-edward-island-projection-sept-20.html

New poll out of Newfoundland:

MQO Research poll: PC: 53% NDP: 29% LIB: 18%. Leaders: KD: 64% LM: 22% KA: 14% Margin: +/-4.9% Sample: 413 Date: 09/16-09/18

To put things in perspective - in the last election the NDP took 6% of the vote and didn't even have a full slate of candidates. If those votes are at all concentrated in St. John's (as I suspect they are) - the NDP could easily go from 1 seats to 8 or 9!

Lets not forget, that the NDP, especially with those numbers could win back Labrador West and maybe take Burin-Placentia West (they were very very close last time). Worse for the liberals is that they might be shut out completely this time which would be a disaster for a province with famous Liberals premiers like Smallwood and Tobin.

I also wonder whether if the Liberals get wiped out provincially in NL, it would put a lot of pressure on some of the 4 remaining federal Liberal MPs in NL to switch to the NDP or the Tories.

The NDP's support is concentrated in St.John's. On 30% they could take every riding in the city and not a single one outside of it.

Tory strength is too high in the St. John's area for the NDP to actually win any seats, I think. Although they will probably win that seat in Burin now- but that's on the strength of the candidate, as the NDP didn't do well there federally.

We have no way of knowing that. The NDP took 29% in NL federally but in St. John's they took over 50% of the vote while they were in the low teens in the rest of the province. In the absence of any regional breakdown its hard to say - but its not unreasonable that the NDP could be at 40% in SJ and in the high teens elswhere. At 40% or more you are looking at a scenario where SJ splits PC and NDP in terms of seats.

But at this stage its all speculation. Its hard to use the 2007 NL election results as much of a yard stick since in 2007 it was before Williams ABC campaign and it was before the two federal St. John's seats went from being supersafe Tory seats to going NDP by a landslide.

The NDP won those two seats on the strength of their candidacies.  Other than Lorraine Michael, who are the star candidates?  With those numbers though, any decent campaign in the St John's area will result in seats. I wish I knew which one there were. Without that information, we can only assume a uniform swing, and that means no higher than 40% in any seat, and therefore no seats.

Actually there are several strong high profile candidates running for the NDP in St. John's.

Geoff Gallant in Cape St. Francis is the deputy mayor of Torbay and has a very impressive resume and is talked about as a possible future leader of the party.
Gerry Rogers (who is a woman) in St. John's Centre is an award winning documentary film maker who is very well known locally
George Murphy in St. John's East is a high profile head of a group fighting for fair gas prices.
Dale Kirby in St. JOhn's North is the NL NDP President and is a Professor at MUN and seems to be one of the main NDP spokespeople during the campaign.
...and if you go on the NL NDP website read about Keith Dunne in St. John's South and Chris Pickard in St. John's West you'll see that they both are lifelong activists in their ridings and that Pickard is a sports commentator on TV and radio.

Neither Jack Harris nor Ryan Cleary were seen as such "giants" until they got elected to Parliament. Harris had barely been able to win provincially and never expanded the NL NDP beyond his one riding and Cleary was seen by some to be a bit of a joke and a loose cannon who had a past as a Newfoundland separatist.

The thing is that now all of a sudden you have two NDP MPs in SJ each of whom has an office and employs staff and you have something like 60% of people in SJ who are now used to putting their "x" beside an NDP candidate on a ballot. The media is aso treating the NDP as a major player in NL in a way that it never did before. So I think the NL NDP i going to surprise a lot of people on Oct. 11

Well, I still wonder how their campaigns are going.

I just made another projection for NL: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/09/newfoundland-and-labrador-2011-election.html

The NDP is getting closer in St. John's, and may pick up some of those seats you suggested. But I am really ??? when it comes to what to predict. If we could only get some regional numbers.

You may end up with an almost random distribution of seats.

Meanwhile, in Manitoba, something resembling a poll: http://www.cjob.com/News/Local/Story.aspx?ID=1544432

Looks pretty decent for the NDP. We in the pundit community are wondering what's up with Manitoba. Too focused on the Jets I guess.

The government's rebound there seems to be fairly impressive, given how deep the hole was just a few months ago.

St. John's has historically been a Tory stronghold, but more your old PC Red Tory types rather than neo-conservatives thus with the provincial PCs being more like the PCs were federally pre-merger rather than the present Conservatives, I would suspect St. John's will probably stay mostly PC.  I think it only went NDP federally as people have disliked the Liberals since the Joey Smallwood era so when they turned on the Tories federally, the NDP was really the only alternative left.

Manitoba poll has come out today showing a massive NDP lead. :)

Expect a projection to come out from me later in the week.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/breakingnews/manitoba-tories-hold-slight-lead-in-new-environics-opinion-poll-130576928.html

?

There are 2 polls.
This is the one I was referring to: http://www.cjob.com/News/Local/Story.aspx?ID=1545343

I've been meaning to ask, so forgive me as an outsider; Why is the NDP government in Manitoba struggling? Is it just because they've been in power for so long, or has something in particular happened in the last year to cause their dip? Purely from an outsider's perspective, they seemed to have governed well.

They aren't unpopular, the race is close, and as I said, they are way ahead in the other poll. It does come down to fact that the party has been in power forever, it seems.  However, the economy is doing well in the province, and things are looking up. The Winnipeg Jets coming back were a big sign of this.

Yeah, the fact that they've bounced back so well (they were down by double digits earlier this year) seems to hint that previous poor polling numbers were mostly down to fatigue.

Also, this is the first election where the NDP is being led by Greg Selinger who is no Gary Doer... BUT appears that Manitobans are warming up to him, hes seen as very compentent and trusted with the purse. 301 actually predicted they would win 39 seats! I think that might be optimistic but if things turn out the way that first poll predicts i don't see why the NDP wont pick up Winnipeg seats... Tyndall Park (fight with the Liberals) and River East (was incredibly close last time). But i think the NDP missed an opportunity to refresh itself by running more newer faces (ok, this still peeves me off that they nominated Jim Malloway in Elmwood but i digress).
I believe the bounce back up started after the flood, as Selinger was seen to have managed that disaster very well. And then the Jets came back and well that just more or less sealed it.

The NDP is running a full slate in NL. I think that's the first time ever for that. The Liberals are also running a full slate.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/NL/1279609329/ID=13182117

The Liberals themselves admit they are focused on a rural-focused strategy. They also had a HELL of a time trying to find candidates to fill all the St. John's ridings, with one, debating quitting on twitter, during the debate.

I am going to build an "ElectoMatic" for Newfoundland based on the assumption that the Liberals are going to lose an entire half of their vote in St. John's to the NDP.

Translation: they're just trying to survive.

According to my numbers, the NDP will win 5:
Signal Hill (solid)
St. John's Centre
St. John's East
Burin-Placentia (solid)
Labrador West (solid)

and the Liberals, 4:
Cartwright (solid)
Burgeo (solid)
The Isles of Notre Dame (solid)
Port de Grave (solid)

The NDP is an additional threat in 4:
Conception Bay
St. John's North
St. John's South
and Virginia Waters, the Premier's own riding

The Liberals are an additional threat in 4:
Bellevue
Bay Islands
Humber Valley
Torngat Mountains

The Liberals, however, are a "closer threat" than the NDP in these ridings, and the NDP may not be able to win all the ones I've outlined if they are not as strong as some polls suggest they are.

PC 31-39-41
NDP 3-5-9
Lib 4-4-8

Worst-Projected-Best


Conclusion:
sh*t. The Liberals are so weak elsewhere, but so strong in so few ridings, they could beat the NDP in seat count even if the NDP managed double the popular vote of the Liberals.

Two Liberal incumbents are retiring though...

By Conception Bay, do you mean Conception Bay East - Bell Island, Conception Bay South, or both? I assume not both, since that would be five seats, rather than four.

Uh, I forgot. The one the NDP did better in, compared to the PC's, last time.

Conception Bay East - Bell Island:
Tory: 3,991 (71.79%)
Liberal: 999 (17.97%)
NDP: 569 (10.24%)

Conception Bay South:
Tory: 4,670 (79.38%)
Liberal: 953 (16.20%)
NDP: 260 (4.42%)

Yes, so East.

Liberals lost a candidate DURING the debate! ouch

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nlvotes2011/story/2011/09/28/nl-liberals-lose-candidate-328.html

I heard they had not filled their SJ's slate? the CBC had an articule but that was a couple days ago

I doubt they will win the Premiers seat, its happened but generally its not a common thing. Even if the party loses government premiers hold their seats (i know of Peterson only who lost his in 1990 in Ontario)

Actually the NDP vote is terrible. I really had to work the numbers to make the NDP win seats. We might see one of those dreaded FPTP elections where one party (the NDP) racks up a huge number of "close seconds"

Bourassa lost his seat in '76.  He *also* lost his seat in 1985, despite winning the general election (as did Don Getty in Alberta a few years later)

Well, for 1985, that is his fault. When he wanted to enter Assembly during his return, he ran in a by-election where a PQ MNA resigned, in the southern suburbs on Montreal. He won.

Obviously, he lost in the general election. That area is strongly Péquiste.

I believe Mackenzie King also lost his seat in one election he won if I am not mistaken.  I believe that is the only time a PM has lost his/her seat and won the election.

I assume you are referring to NL. In the absence of any regional breakdowns of party support in NL - we have absolutely no way of knowing how efficient or inefficient the NDP vote is in NL. Its is possible (though unlikely) that they get 25-30% in every single riding and get just 1 or 2 seats out of 48 and lose all the others by 15 to 20 point margins to the PCs. But in all likelihood te NL NDP vote will have its concentrations - probably in St. John's where the party won both federal seats. If the NDP vote is actually at 45% in St. John's and 15-20% elsewhere - the NDP could sweep the city and end up with a dozen seats. But in the absence of any actual regional polling data - all we can do is guess.

Looks like the NDP will win in Manitoba. ahead 46-43 innthe final poll with a huge lead in Winnipeg

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/provincial-election/ndp-clinging-to-lead-poll-says-130836243.html

Impressive fightback. And will be even if it doesn't work out in the end.

Ok, here's my Manitoba prediction: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/09/manitoba-election-2011-prediction.html

Tory majority still possible, but not likely.

You have my endorsement. I've done my own projection earlier this morning and you are showing the results I got - except I think the Grits might lose their seat.

At 7% in the city, both Liberals seats are almost for sure to be split between the Tories(River Heights) and NDP (Tyndall Park). Manitoba will soon look like Saskatchewan, a two party province.

Word is the Liberals area still ahead in River Heights, so I'm comfortable with that projection.

If i were a MANliberal... i'd only be working on River Heights. Its better to keep one then lose two.

Other elections... A new NFLD poll!

MQO Poll:
PC: 54 (+1)
NDP: 33 (+4 nice)
LIB: 13 (-5 ouch)

LEADER - KD: 62 LM 27 KA: 11.
Who won debate? KD 36 LM 22. KA 6 Sample 464 +/-4.6%

Don't have a link since i saw it tweeted on CBC

NDP becoming the anti-Tory party... hopefully they can build on that for future elections and try to win the Premiership. Or translate that into federal support outside of St. John's.

... or both :)

The decline of the Newfie Liberals is a remarkable (and in some ways shocking) thing. Because what's happened over the past decade goes beyond merely being on the wrong side of landslides and because of how important the party has been in the history of the place.

It keeps getting better. Except, the Tories are up 1!

This is getting closer to the math I used to make my NL projection.

Liberals
Cartwright (only solid seat)
Burgeo (possible loss as well)

less likely:
Port de Grave
The Isles of Notre Dame
Bellevue
Bay Islands
Humber Valley
Torngat Mountains



NDP :
Signal Hill (most solid)
Labrador West (so solid I'd eat my shirt if they lose)
St. John's Centre
St. John's East
Burin-Placentia
St. John's North
St. John's South

less likely:
St. John's West
Lake Melville
Humber Valley
Port de Grave
Lewisporte
Placentia
Bellevue
Conception Bay East
and Virginia Waters, the Premier's own riding

So that's 16 ridings, MAX, that could go NDP, and 8 Liberal (with 3 overlap).
That means that I see the PC party winning in the other 27 ridings, and no way in hell they will lose those 27 ridings; with a maximum limit for the party of 45.

So that "could" mean the NDP would win every city of SJs seat (except Virginia Waters, is that in the city?) making it the centre of the opposition strength; and Labrador could elect only opposition members (NDP in LW, Liberals in Cartwright, Lake Melville and Torngat Mnts)
Thats an interesting dynamic

Yes, Virginia Waters is in St. John's.

I hope you're right Teddy. I suspect my next projection will start having some too close to call races in St. John's.

There is a precedent for a party going from being in government and even a natural governing party of a province - to being dead in very short order.

Look at the Union Nationale in Quebec. They were in power almost continuously 1936 to 1960 under Duplessis - then they lost in 1960, then they had a dead cat bounce and regained power under Daniel Johnson in 1966, then they lost big in 1970 to Robert Bourassa and the Liberals but were still official opposition, then they were wiped off the map in 1973 and reduced to just 5% of the vote - so there you have it - in April 1970 the UN was the government of Quebec - by October 1973 they had zero seats and 4% of the vote!

True; obviously you've mentioned the most remarkable example, but there's also the Saskatchewan PCs, the SoCreds, the old conservative Liberals in Manitoba and Saskatchewan... to say nothing of the near-death experiences of once-governing NDP's in a couple of provinces. Given the massive historical importance of the Newfie Liberals, this would be up there with the UN, even if the fall won't have been quite as dramatic. If it happens.

The Liberal Party of NL is not dead. When the rural outports want change, it's not likely they'll choose the NDP, they'll pick the Liberals.  Newfoundland could very well be a 3 party system in the coming years. But, if the Tories and NDP duke it out in St. John's, that leaves the Liberals in the rest of the province and could yet win again.

I'll respond to this when I have time, but in short, I can prove using history that you are wrong :P

Why can't the NDP compete in rural NL?

Oh they can, but it's more of a traditional area, much like PEI or most of Cape Breton or New Brunswick. These areas were will be harder to penetrate, but over a generation may be able to win. But, no one will live there in a generation... so.. ;)

If they succeded to be competitive in Quebec, no reason why they can't penetrate there.

But it will need much work.

Is there any indication what's going to happen in the Yukon? Looks like a majority of seats are in Whitehorse now. Is the NDP going to take over as the opposition there?

Maybe, I haven't been following it that much. I do recall there was a poll a few weeks ago with the NDP in 2nd.

Substitute "St. Nicholas" for "St. John's", and that sentence sounds like Christmas;-)

And it happens more often in Canada than it does anywhere else.

Not directly related, but Alison Redford won and is the new Premier-designate of Alberta.

Leading to an exodus of members to Wild Rose... Last week or the week before, Wild Rose received 300 membership applications in a single week.

Someone made maps of the leadership election on Wikipedia.

I gather she was the more moderate candidate?

Sorta like: the next Nancy Betkowski.

I read an article last week about how all three candidates were from the moderate wing of the party. I think if she was from any province where the Liberal Party was competitive, she would not have joined the PC Party, although she's run for (and lost) federal endorsement, so I guess she thinks she could fit within Harper's caucus.

EDIT: Here's the article I read last week (http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/09/18/kevin-libin-progressives-3-conservatives-0/)

Of the three she was probably the most moderate, although Doug Horner was pretty moderate and even was Gary Mar.  I believe all three were supporters of the PCs, not the Reform/Alliance federally during the 90s.  Mind you many of the Reform/Alliance supporters federally probably are supporters of the Wild Rose Alliance.

Another interesting tidbit is if Manitoba re-elects the NDP and Ontario re-elects the Liberals, we may not have any governments changing this fall (PEI, Newfoundland, and Saskatchewan are likely to be easy wins for the incumbnets).  I wonder if uncertainty causes people to stick with what they know rather than vote for change.

Typically it's the opposite. Strong economies in Newfoundland, Manitoba and SK will result in reelected gov'ts. Ontarios economy means more uncertainty in voting.

Final PEI prediction: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/10/prince-edward-island-2011-election.html

All of these elections on the same date (three days from now)?

No!

PEI and NWT are today, Manitoba is tomorrow.

Oh, lol.

For reference, here is the election result for PEI 2007:

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It's in the gallery.

Great work on the Alberta leadership maps, Earl!

Those aren't mine!

The NFLD Liberals are very bitter about the polls... they are claiming they were bought and paid for by the tories?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nlvotes2011/story/2011/10/03/nl-liberals-slam-poll-103.html

This is quite childish by the liberals... you never hear the NDP in PEI saying things like that? Perhaps your party (liberals) just aren't clicking with the people out there? not believing there is a problem might be part of it

Oh, sorry, I'd looked at them and thought they were pretty good and were yours. I should have realised you'd have also uploaded onto your site.

PEI results are now trickling in.  The Liberals ahead, but the Tories doing better than most polls suggested, although its early going, so I wouldn't read too much into the number now.

NDP doing horrible, at only 2-3%.  Though I wonder if the fact each riding has only 4,000 people hurts them as I suspect personal popularity of candidates has a bigger impact here than in other provinces.

CBC has now projected a Liberal majority, yawn :)

Can the Greens outpoll the NDP in PEI?

They probably will; they did last time.

Tories doing quite well, ahead in 6 ridings so far.

Will have to see the final results, but there seems to be a pattern be it in Toronto mayoral election, last federal, and NB provincial that the polls underestimate Tory support.  I wonder if it will continue or just a coincidence.  My theory is polls are weighted based on a representative sample of the population while certain segments are more likely to show up than others and the groups more likely to show up are also more likely to vote Tory.

PC now leading in 7 ridings so far... looking forward to the maps. :) The Prince Edward Island NDP must be the least successful NDP party in the country right now.

For the record, the Tories are up in;

Georgetown-St Peter's
Montague-Kilmuir
Belfast-Murray River
Stratford-Kinlock
Morell-Mermaid
Tracadie-Hillsborough Park
Tignish-Palmer Road

It seems like using federal results, you would get the same numbers 3 Liberals to 1 Tory, but Cardigan going Tory and Egmont going Liberal otherwise the Tory's strength is at opposite ends (East provincially and West federally).

Montague - Kilmuir is only 45 votes - 44 votes for PC though, hardly anything to make conclusions with. (edit: Liberals retook the lead)

PC doing better than expected in the popular vote, but it's not like there were a lot of recent polls to go by anyway. 308 guy screws up on this one.

Surprise!

The problem with 308 is he uses uniform swings or federally uniform regional swings which while they work in some places they don't work here.  Too bad Democraticspace.com didn't cover this as their projection is usually one of the most accurate as is Barry Kay at Wilfred Laurier University.

I had the Tories at 3 seats. I didn't feel comfortable giving them anymore.

This is why I don't project PEI elections :P

 Lets wait for the final results, but if they are underestimated maybe the same will happen tomorrow and Thursday.  Not necessarily, but just saying.

The Tories are down to 6 seats and their popular vote is falling slightly.  I am guessing the Charlottetown polls are a bit slower to come in so the numbers will fall a bit more.

Well, let's look at the polls. The most recent one had the Liberals at 53% (they're at 52%), which is what the got in 2007. The Tories won three seats in 2007.  

PEI's voting patters =/= rural/urban split.

  True in the case of the NDP as what little support they have is mostly in Charlottetown, but both the Liberals and Tories seem to do marginally better in the rural parts.

It's more of a geographical divide. kings County is PC, prince & queens is liberal.

simplistic but sort of true.

Generally, east of C-Town and west of S-Side vote PC, while west of C-Town, and east of S-Side votes Liberal, with the two towns deciding things, but of course there can be 3 or so ridings on either side of that divide that switch - the problem is when you have 27 ridings province wide, 3 or so is a huge chunk.

in recent elections, prince county has been very Liberal. Ever since 1996. Of course, things are different federally.
The PCs only lead in one seat there, Tignish-Palmer Road. That also happens to be the old riding of Gail Shea.

Souris-Elmira flipped, Tories down to 5 seats.

This would seem to be a good argument in favor of proportional representation.

I'm talking about elections not since 1996 but 1896 :P Historically the Tories have swept western prince.

  Depends on the minimum threshold.  If it was 4 or 5% as in most places that use PR the Greens and NDP would still get shut out.  Off course the results would probably be different if PR was used.  Its unlikely you would get identical results with different systems.

Ah. politics has changed a lot though since then, even for traditional PEI.

TV seems to be disagreeing with me... maybe I should do a little research before talking about my arse :P I'll get back to you.

The maps are on Wikipedia, and i think you made them, so ... lol.

Anyways, the Tories could still theoretically win just 3 seats, as the other 2 they lead in are still close. Just not the same 3 I predicted.

The last string of competitive votes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1986
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1982
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1979
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1978
Note the maps
[brag] oh wait, lets see who made the maps before we rely on them
oh oh wait, it's me![/brag]

Looks like I basically got it backwards. The Tories had their strength in the centre of the island, not the Liberals, and the Liberals won on the fringes, not the Tories. The reason the Tories are doing so well since the 90's in Kings County is thanks to Binns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1966
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1962
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Island_general_election,_1943

Yea, I got reversed somehow. Centre=PC

One more poll to go in Souris-Elmira, which is going back and forth.

All polls in Souris-Elmira now reporting.

Also Belfast-Murray River... won with an 8 vote margin (unofficial results).

belfast-murray river was one of the seats I said would go Tory, but the liberals hang on to it. but, the Tories have picked up tignish-palmer rd.

Looks like the final results will be 22-5.

Did the wikipedia page on this go down? I was editing in results but now I cant get on.

I know I put up the 2007 map last night, but I'm putting it again here for the sake of comparison.

IMPORTANT EDIT: I got ridings 5 and 7 around the wrong way. Edited to fix that.

Both maps use the same colour scale:

2011
()

2007
()

I know I've said this before, but there's nowt wrong in repeating such things; your outline maps are wonderful.

Anyways, bizarre patterns.

I expected the Liberals to do much worse in Prince County. While they did lose a seat, their other seats were strong wings.

The 2011 map has the wrong riding

And the splendidly named "Bush Dumville" was reelected.

Cheers mate, fixed.

A Liberal majority as expected, although it appears the Tories did better than most predicted.  Ironically enough the Tories got almost the same percentage their federal counterparts did last May however the NDP did significantly worse (they got 15%, vs. only 3%).  Tomorrow should be interesting.  If the Tories do better than expected we may have to revise Thursday's predictions, but otherwise it may just in this case not across the board.

Some Swing Maps:

Liberal
()

PC
()

NDP
()

Greens
()

Island Party
Note - since the party did not field candidates last election, this map can double as a party-strength map. Strongest result was in Montague-Kilmuir, at 8.31% - this seat and the neighbouring Belfast-Murray River (Island Party polled 4.01%) were both pickups by the Liberals.
()

Independents
Note - in no seat did an independent stand in both elections. Helps explain the big swings in Morell-Mermaid (the independent last election polled 18.8%)
()

NWT election is in full swing.

A Non-Partisan Independent has been elected. Also, A Non-Partisan Independent has been elected. Also, A Non-Partisan Independent has been elected. There's one riding where A Non-Partisan Independent is running against A Non-Partisan Independent is running against A Non-Partisan Independent. I predict the Non-Partisan Independent will win.

And my final post on the NWT election is this:
http://www.electionsnwtresults.ca/esTerritorialResults.htm

Sorry but this is pathetic. The "live election coverage" is not even reporting on live election coverage. It's just a bunch of natives speaking in their native language one after another in front of radio mics. I'm embarrassed to be in the same country as this. It's not a population thing, don't give me that, Yukon elections are exciting as you'll all see in a week. This? This... This is pathetic.

And finally Party Strength Maps:

Liberal
()

PC
()

NDP
()

Greens
()

I've done some, er, poll by poll maps.

I couldn't decide which one was more vomitworthy so I've included both.

()

The Tories and Liberals tied in two (one got mis-labled somehow as straight tory). No other party won.

Smid, you do one for the Island Party?

Great work on those poll maps! I'd started work ages back on some, but decided getting province-wide riding maps for the other provinces was a higher priority (presently working on Quebec), so I didn't finish them. That's fantastic work, though!

The Island Party's strength map is the same as its swing map (previous page) because it didn't run candidates last election.

  Anybody know how this would have been coloured in the most recent federal election just for comparison.

The 506 has his excellent website (http://www.the506.com/elxnmaps/can2011/)

It doesn't show poll-by-poll for the whole island, I don't think, but you can look at it on a riding-by-riding basis (as in, look at a poll-by-poll map for each of the four ridings).

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?authuser=0&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214668381355121949879.0004ae732876459c6e67d

Oh! Hey! PEI uses the same polling districts for Federal and Provincial elections! Heh! That makes comparisons easy :)

For tomorrow, here's the Manitoba Key Map I prepared, with each riding numbered and referenced. Unfortunately, due to the redistribution, I don't have a previous election results map.

()

There's obviously a bigger version in the gallery (along with a blank one with a colour key ready to use - both are in the "Blank Maps" section, not "Election Results - International").

Wellington, PEI in Prince is intensely Liberal. What's up there? Isn't that the only place with a non-negligible french population?

The Evangeline region is the Acadian region of Quebec. It's also the "Capital" of Acadia, sort of.

Some info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_Village,_Prince_Edward_Island

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gion_%C3%89vang%C3%A9line

http://www.teleco.org/museeacadien/anglais/fondatim_a.htm

Final Manitoba prediction: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/10/manitoba-election-2011-final-prediction.html
PEI results: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/10/prince-edward-island-2011-election_04.html

So? There are a lot of different languages to cover, should each have its own complete coverage?

Lol, there's a place called "Gimli" in Manitoba?

(wikies) Quite right. And with good reason, too.

Thats also mildly offensive, the NWT is not the Yukon, and is nowhere near the south. The majority are artic aboriginal peoples so i don't expect there to be much english outside Yellowknife. The Yukon has always been more "white" and anglo, you can thank the goldrush for that ... I totally agree the consensus system is a bore and by the sounds of things isn't very effective. There is actually a facebook page set up to discuss that very thing i believe.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NWT.elec.17/
With political parties you get a standard message and i think that helps attracts candidates cause there is a central party helping to get candidates in place.
I'm very excited to see how things shape up in the Yukon (to show how serious the NDP is, Olivia Chow was campaigning up there!)

NWT and Nunavut would be so much more fun with parties.

Precinct results are kind of fun as is, I had a look at some constituencies. Personal/Ethnic voting ftw!

There is no reason aboriginal peoples can not have political parties.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Politics/1244504890/ID=2141255983 here we go http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitobavotes2011/

What sort of time - GMT - will the results start to do that trickle-in-thing?

About now, I think.

Elections Manitoba = fail website

NDP ahead in Kildonan.

yawn.

CBC and Elections Manitoba are showing different results.  Tories lead in Emerson.

The usual hilarious patterns from very early results there to see, if only briefly.

The Tories seem to be doing well in the West of Winnipeg, I am awaiting the South of Winnipeg as usually whomever wins this wins the election.

Now the results are coming in bigtime. Looks good news.

Still awaiting the South.  The NDP is dominating the North side as expected.  Hopefully soon we can get a projection.

CBC will probably do a projection for an NDP majority within 10 minutes.

Global usually is first.  I find CBC the most cautious of all networks in calling races.

Swan River will be fierce.

CBC's live feed just cut off... but I reloaded. its cool.

Liberals in third in River Heights. Who thinks they'll hold on?

Funny how you Canadians pronounce names like 'De Groot'.

There's a riding named "Flin Flon"? I'm not sure if that's better or worse than Gimli.

CTV I heard has called it for the NDP.  It will still be interesting to see if the win the popular vote though as the PCs tend to rack up huge numbers in the Rural South so less efficient in their vote.

Quite the backlash against the NDP in Interlake and Swan River, as somewhat expected. I was hoping the NDP could do better in Swan River, but the night's not over yet...

PC doing better than expect in Fort Richmond and River East too.

Why the backlash against the NDP in Interlake/Swan River?

I'm enjoying the map on the Elections Manitoba website. River East the Liberals are back ahead again - I'm sure there will be the potential for large-ish changes depending on which polls report in until a majority of them have been counted, then it should settle down a bit.

Flood.

If the CBC won't call it, I will: NDP majority.

Liberal leader leading now in River Heights.  Up 41.85% to 39.08% over PCs.  NDP far behind at 15.97%

Every network except CBC has called it, so I think we can say it is an NDP majority.  Pretty historic.  History may also be made on Thursday if the Liberals in Ontario get the third back to back majority in over 100 years.

NDP back up in Interlake! 19 votes apart though.

Remember to be a little careful with some individual ridings; it's still comparatively early.

But, yeah, right now it would be surprising if the NDP lost. Remarkable electoral comeback by the look of it.

Anybody think the NDP will win the popular vote or do you think the PCs will win that?

Anyone else bothered by a large NDP majority on a minority of the popular vote?

Its happened elsewhere, although not as large.  Charest won the popular vote in 1998, Campbell in 1996, Lord in 2006, and Hermanson in 1999 albeit those were rather narrow wins.  Also Trudeau beat Joe Clark in 1979 by 4.5% in votes yet won more than 20 seats fewer.

Surprised yes, but not bothered. The wrong places swung to the PCs for them to make any real gains. That's their weakness in Manitoba. It's somewhat what I'm expecting in Ontario too on Thursday - Liberals having a last minute "surge", but not anywhere that it'll make a real difference.

It's happened lots before in lots of places in canada.

Looks like I overestimated the PC strength. Damn, maybe 308 will get it closer than me.

NDP could still wind up with 3-4 seats less than the 36b being projected on CBC, right?

And yeah, this is not an ad for FPTP, but still a good evening for Manitoba.

 Usually its a lot closer though.  If it wasn't only a slim majority for the NDP and slim popular vote for PCs, that would be fine.  Mind you, the system at least forces parties to have support throughout the province not through racking up massive margins in one area.

It doesn't seem very surprising, from my perspective. The PCs seem like they ring up huge majorities in their ridings in the south, but aren't breaking through much anywhere else.

Another thing, if you look at elected vs. just leading, you notice most ridings the PCs are ahead in they have been declared elected whereas the NDP is leading, thus that likely means the PCs are winning be bigger margins in the ridings they are ahead in.

I'm surprised about Dawson Trail - it looked very Tory on paper, the NDP incumbent left the seat... I expected it to almost certainly be Tory but it's not even close.

And given that Winnipeg is hardly Barnsley-on-the-Prairies, it isn't as though that isn't partially their own fault...

Interlake and Swan River have swapped. Swan River looks like it's heading for an NDP hold, Interlake still competitive. Looks like the PCs will hold Brandon West and River East, as well.

I think it has a large Francophone community.  Not sure though why federally this area goes massively Tory as the Tories federally are hardly any better at being champions of linguistic minorities, albeit not openly hostile like the Reform Party was.

The CBC just called it for the NDP.

308's going to get this one right :(

About time the CBC finally called it for the NDP.

Not much of Swan River is in yet. Interlake does look like a nailbiter though...

Looks like it.  I think he even projected a Tory lead in popular vote but 15 seat deficit.

He didn't, actually. Meh. I'll get Ontario right :)

Popular vote will be wrong though. I guess the moral of the story is that it's okay to be a bit risky with the popular vote when it comes to Manitoba elections. :)

It is closing a bit.  Usually urban ridings come in slower so there is an outside chance the NDP will narrowly win the popular vote.  That would be that much better for them.

Swan River has become a 300 vote lead for NDP, so it's getting close. Interlake is back to NDP, by 8 votes... I dunno if they can hold on though. (now 3 votes)

Who is John Zasitko, does anyone know? Independent in Interlake.

The NDP has narrowly pulled ahead in the popular vote, so maybe they will win that too.

Yeah, NDP are picking up in the popular vote bit by bit.

Well, the night's basically over. I believe the chances of Kirkfield Park flipping to PC are the same as River East or Brandon West flipping to NDP... not very great, with so little polls left to report. So just waiting on Interlake and Swan River, really.

Gerrard hints that he will quit as Liberal leader, but stay as MLA

NDP popular vote at 45.6% to the PC's 44.3%. Slightly more sensible than the tally earlier.

Looks like the NDP will win the popular vote, not by much but however you look at this a pretty strong achievement.  Not to undermine the rebound of the NDP, but I do get the impression it seems people like to stay with the party they know during difficult times thus why you see the Liberals polling ahead in Ontario.

I loving Radio-Canada website.

Apparently, the ridings have official French names.

"Seine River" is "Rivière-Seine"
"Interlake" is "Entre-les-Lacs"
"Dawson Trail" is "Chemin-Dawson"

It is quite dumb.

McFadyen is stepping down.

Too bad nobody could hear his speech. Selinger decided to start as to interrupt McFadyen. You can't tell me that was not intentional.

Interesting McFayden stepped down so easily.  While not the ideal outcome for the PCs, it would hardly call it unmitigated disaster.  This seemed more the case of Selinger improving his popularity thus being re-elected, not like here in Ontario where McGuinty has flatlined in popularity and only gone up due to Hudak's drop in popularity.  I wonder if Hudak will do the same, although lets see what the actual results are before speculating.  It does though look like all five provinces this fall will stick with the same party.  I do wonder if this has less to do with moving right or left and more during difficult times, people prefer to stick with what they know rather than try something different.

For what it's worth, I only got 3 ridings wrong (Southdale, Swan River and Dawson Trail) :)

How are the elections resolved in case of a tie?  I mean, w/ 3 polls to go in St. Norbert, PC is ahead by 7 votes :)

High turnout (>75%) in River Heights... I guess the expected tight margin played a role in that.

According to the Compendium produced by Elections Canada (a wonderful document, explaining electoral laws of each province in a simple way), Manitoba holds a by-election. (some provinces are doing a draw and some ask to the returning officer to choose who is elected.)

Link?

I remember some provinces hold by-elections, some take a name out of a hat, some flip a coin, and IIRC, Nova Scotia has the CRO cast the ballot, or, at least, did.

The returning officer or some such person decides. Usually opts for some random measure such as drawing lots or coin toss.

Looks like they are doing some recounting in St. Norbert. Still 3 polls missing, but now it's a 10 vote lead for NDP.

Update: and now it's 2 polls missing and 156 vote lead for NDP. Pity: I wanted a tie :))

NO, NO, NO.

http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=loi/com&document=index&lang=e (http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=loi/com&document=index&lang=e)

Page 61.

A short summary:

By-election: (Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Nunavut)
Decision of returning officier: (Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario)
Drawing of lots: (Nova Scotia, Yukon)

Alberta has apparently no law on ties.

Seems like NDP has picked the last two seats in serious doubt: St. Norbert (157 vote margin) and Kirkfield Park (29 vote margin). Brandon West (146 vote margin) went to PC. Subject to a possible recount, the final result seems to be

NDP 37
PC 19
Lib 1

Wow!

I'm curious how the NDP of Manitoba feels about proportional representation tonight. :P

Smthg strange happening in Kewatinook. All evening long it seemed safe NDP, as it should. But, suddenly, it tightened up. W/ 52/57 polls reporting, NDP advantage is only 485 votes. So, PC might still eke out a 1-seat gain.

Some other FAQcts

Redistribution:

Canada, ON = after every full census
NL, NS, MB, SK = after every 10 years (basically, the same as above)
PEI = after every 3rd election
AB, BC, QC, YK = after every second election
NB = whenever they feel like it


Saskatchewan is the only place where British subjects can vote, and even then, you must have been able to do so in 1971.

Federal polling divisions must have at least 250 electors, but there is no upper limit. Other provinces generally follow that rule, but many more have upper limits and no lower limit.

Time Limits for election in days, Minimum - Maximum
Canada - 36 - N/A
NL - 21 - 30
PE - 26 - 32
NS - 30 - N/A
NB - 28 - 38
ON - 28 - 28
MB - 28 - 39
SK - 38 - 34
AB - 28 - 28
BC - 28 - 28
YK - 31 - N/A

Everywhere gets between 1 and 4 hours to go out and vote

Some interesting facts. In Nova Scotia you don't need to be an "Ordinary Resident" to run. So all you weirdos, sign up there! In NL, PE, NS, ON, and AB, you can run even if you are an MP. If you can an inmate you can inr in NL, PE, NS, NB, ON, BC, and YK.

Parties:

Federal
250 members, and 1 candidate
Commentary: open

NL
1000 members and 12 candidates
VERY restrictive. Prohibits the Labrador Party

PE
.35% of eligible voters (about 350 voters) and 10 candidates
When I was in the PEI NDP we struggled to maintain 350 members.


NS
250 members, with 25 members in at least 10 different ridings
Cape Breton "just happens to have 9 ridings

NB
10 candidates
Odd, but works for me.

QC
100 members
Very open

ON
1000 members, 2 candidates
Seems reasonable

MB
2500 members, 5 candidates
a bit restrictive

SK
2500 members, 100 people in 10 different ridings, 2 candidates
Restrictive

AB
.3% of voters as members (about 8k) candidates in 50%+1 of ridings (44)
Somewhat restrictive

BC
2 candidates
Laughably easy


more to come

If I remember well, we were having an high candidate count requirement, like Canada had before, but it was stuck by courts.

Kewatinook has returned to an huge NDP lead, with two boxes to count.

Reimbursements
CANADA
Party: 50% of your money back if you get 2% of the vote, or, 5% in your ridings.
Candidate: Something confusing based on 10% of the vote

NEWFOUNDLAND
Candidate: 15% of the vote = 1/3rd of your money back

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Candidate: 15% of the vote. Between $1500 or $3000 back.

NOVA SCOTIA
Candidate: 10%. 25 cents per elector

NEW BRUNSWICK
Candidate: 15%. 35 cents per elector. Or, something based on mailing an ounce to everyone.

QUEBEC
Party: 1% of the vote, get half your money back, up to 60 cents per person.
Candidate: 15%, half your money back, up to a dollar (per elector)

ONTARIO
Party: 15% (per ridings) 5 cents
Candidate: 15%, 20% back

MANITOBA
Party: 10%, 50%
Candidate: 10%, 50%

SASKATCHEWAN
Party: 15%, 50%
Candidate: 15%, 60%



Allowances
Manitoba
$1.25 X number of votes, up to $25,000. Minimum of $10,000 to anyone with a seat, and, $600 for every party.

Quebec
50 cents per voter times your share of vote.

New Brunswick
If you ran 10 candidates, you get a share of money, equal to your vote. The total money is unlisted.

Nova Scotia
$1.50 for each vote (non-annual?)

Prince Edward Island
Anything up to $2 per voter. Currently set a $0





You can give to parties out-of-province except for Quebec, Manitoba, and Alberta, as well as Saskatchewan, but you have to be Canadian for the latter.

Donations from Corps and Unions are banned in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Quebec.

Some places have limits on donations.
NB = 6K, QC = 3K, ON = 7.5K, MB = 3K, AB = 15K,



Polls
Alberta and Federal polls must state all the deets, as well, no new polls in the last 24 hours. The latter has a similar equal in Ontario and BC.




Alberta and Saskatchewan have election laws for Senators.

Quebec donation laws were changed this year.
They must now send the check to the Election Director, not to the party, if the amount is more than 100$.

New donation limit is 1000$/year.

Seems odd given the conventional wisdom is that incumbents do badly in tough times.

Still waiting one final three polls from Flin Flon to report back, so that ridings may change shades slightly... I'll update the map once the results for that poll is in.

As always, larger versions in the Gallery.

2011 Manitoba Provincial Election Results

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2011 Manitoba Provincial Election - Vote received by the NDP
Initially I had the lowest shade representing >10%, however the Steinbach result meant that I had to adjust it. With the exception of Steinbach, all ridings in the palest shade are >10%.

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2011 Manitoba Provincial Election - Vote received by the PC Party
With the exception of the palest shade, the scale matches the NDP map

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2011 Manitoba Provincial Election - Vote received by the Liberal Party

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2011 Manitoba Provincial Election - Vote received by the Greens

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Why is the NDP so much stronger at the provincial level? This especially seems to be the case in Winnipeg.

Also, any particular reason SW Winnipeg is the only part of the city to vote PC? Or is it just a generic "Wealthy neighborhood" kind of answer?

Provincial and Federal politics are very different. Provincially I support big government, federally, small government. I am not alone in having different views on different levels. One thing is foreign affairs, plays a bigger role in pretty much every non-USA country. (We need to figure out how we want to relate to YOU guys, while you guys don't) Another thing is that federal-provincial relations is always an issue, and lastly, because we have more than 2 parties, different things matter at different times. IE the current two largest federal parties =/= the two largest provincial parties. Quebec is an excellent example where the two largest provincial parties are the third and fourth parties Federally.

The sort answer is Federal Liberals vote NDP in Manitoba. Some even campaigned for them.

Did we miss this Yukon poll? Not a match up, per se, but still insightful.

http://www.datapathsystems.net/

Go to press releases, and click on September 2011. More people satisfied with Yukon Party representatives than NDP representatives. But NDP has more trust on most issues. But Yukon Party has more trust on the economy and government management. So... who really knows?

To be fair there is only 1 NDP member (Hanson), and she has only been around for a year. But over on Rabble someone got a robo call from the Yukon Party ... saying vote YP to stop the NDP... that shows us they are scared and concerned about the NDP.
Last i saw the biggest issues this election are Housing and the environment (Peel watershed protection)... the economy is doing really well so its not a huge concern but its being used as a wedge, scare tactic against the NDP.
Northern politics is all local, it only takes dozens of votes to win or lose so the ground game, the local campaign is going to be key.

You call that French? "Chemin-Deaufils" would be French. ;D

The PCs raked up some HUGE rural Utah-like margins in southern Manitoba. Does anybody know if they had done similarly well in the same regions in 2007?

Yeah, but not quite that high. Lots of German Mennonites in districts like Steinbach and Morden-Winkler that love the Tories.

I blame Lewis.

Anyways, here's some maps of the NWT as they had their election on Monday as well: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/10/northwest-territories-2011-election.html

How well would the NDP have done in places like Steinbach and Morden-Winkler back in the 1970s?

Surprisingly/happily there are maps on Wikipedia so...

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Not entirely clear though.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Fell across this fabulous website: http://manitobaelection.ca/historic-maps

Excellent website! Should probably be added to the links thread (as should Earl's website, I think).

Interestingly low in the conservative south, I thought higher turnouts there accounted for their higher share of the vote, but I guess it's just as bad there as it is in the north.

I guess one advantage of FPTP is it evens out the non voters.

What's very telling is that, for the most part, it's higher in seats where there was (at least the perception of) a competitive race.

That was the biggest thing I got out of it - I noted yesterday about River Heights having >75% turnout (as it turns out, heh heh, it's the highest turnout in the province). Brandon West vs Brandon East also appears to support this hypothesis.


Marginally (but only marginally) higher in the south - the real difference is that the Northern ridings can have fewer voters, so the combination of fewer voters and low turnout has a bit of an impact (not a heck of a lot, though - Flin Flon has the fewest voters, about 4,000 fewer than average). There is also lower turnout in those very safe NDP electorates in the inner-North of Winnipeg. I think the UK has a similar issue, where some of the very safe Labour seats have lower turnout than similarly safe Conservative seats? Al can probably correct me there. Over here, informal vote tends to be higher in some of the safe Labor seats, although some of that is accidental (there is a correlation between non-English speaking first language and informal voting, there is also a correlation between low levels of education and informal voting, but I haven't seen any study to say whether that informal voting is accidental or deliberate but perhaps people with lower levels of education are more likely to feel disengaged from the system and more likely to deliberately cast an informal "a pox on all your houses" vote, oh, also a correlation between a higher number of candidates and informal votes, but that's clearly accidental informal votes).

The reason I'm rambling on about informals here is because under our compulsory vote system, while there is a small degree of difference in turnout between electorates, it's tiny compared to the turnout figures here, and the people who may refuse to vote in a non-compulsory system are likely to be people who feel disengaged, or where they feel their vote is insignificant, and I think that this compares well to people who deliberately cast an informal ballot in a compulsory vote system. There have been some studies relating to accidental vs deliberate informal votes (eg at the 2006 Victorian State Election, about half were accidental and half deliberate, however at the 2010 Victorian State Election, the number of accidental informal ballots fell dramatically, while the number of deliberate informal ballots rose slightly, and so as a percentage, rose very dramatically, prompting the VEC to conclude that its voter education program had been successful). Obviously some of the remote ridings may have issues relating to difficulty in voting, but by and large, I think the comparison is acceptable.

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Could not sleep. So thought... why not do something productive. Work not a great idea at such an hour, however. Therefore...

Find the creator.
Invite him here.

Anyways, I take it that everyone noticed that Maloway underperformed in Elmwood?

Everyone underperforms compared to Blaikie.

Too bad than he didn't lose.
That guy is a shame for the NDP and should have been dumped.

Antony Green has a post about this week's Canadian elections (http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/10/big-week-of-canadian-provincial-elections.html#more)

Of particular interest is the link he posted in his response to the first comment.

NDP up 7% in BC. But we've all seen this before. NDP does good in BC in between elections, but come election day...

NDP - 45%
BC Libs - 38%
BC Cons - 12%
Green - 6%

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Democrats+pull+decisive+lead+poll+finds/5514730/story.html

What's interesting is BC Conservatives at 12%.

New poll for Newfoundland and Labrador, but it's weird. The numbers are way too low. Undecideds at 30%?

PC - 38%
NDP - 23%
Lib - 9%

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1266958.html

That's
54% PC
33% NDP
13% Lib

Same as last time

Signal Hill
St. John's Centre
Placentia
Labrador West

These are the only 4 ridings that consistently come up NDP

Burin?

You know St. john's Centre is comptitive when the Tories bring out the Mayor to campagin for you... sound scared to me :P

CBC news covered SJ North and South, saying there both NDP targets, they performed poorly in 2007 but this year, can we basically throw out the stats from 07 and start over since the NDP is roughly 3x higher with two MPs

Olivia Chow is just all over the place too... she will be campaigning for the NDP is St John's. She was in the Yukon last week doing the same (and pushing her National public transit issue)

I got a phone blast from Olivia yesterday. I admire her going out there and doing this, I just hope the voters don't think it's off putting.

Yes, you are right. 5 seats.

2007 Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Election Results
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Just as information in advance of next week's election. Bigger version in the gallery, also an outline map in the blank map gallery, and a key map in there also:

Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Ridings
()

Final predictions:

http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.com/2011/10/newfoundland-and-labrador-2011-election.html

Yukon Poll: They also go today, this could (very well could) elect the NDP... most likley a minority where the Liberals will hold the balance.

http://www.datapathsystems.net/

It is a dead heat:

NDP             35% (about the same as last poll)
Yukon Party     35% (down)
Liberals             26% (up)
Greens            2%
First Nations       2%

Based on sample size, the margin of error is +/- 5.1%.

Good, the NDP leader is the lone NDPer in the Assembly (they were two, but the other one sadly died in a car crash this summer.)

Well, I hope the NDP can come out as the Opposition in NL. What times do polls close? And NL must have the most boring party logos ever.

As for Yukon, with things this close, and it being Yukon, there may be some strange results... NDP will do great in Whitehourse, Yukon Party outside of it, but with Liberals only 9% behind, they might be spoilers in some cases. Could tip things.

The Yukon will be pretty interesting. I didn't do a write-up, but I am looking forward to doing one after the election is over.

Looks like the polls close 8 east coast/island time. With the tories almost guaranteed to win, that should help sway some to vote for the NDP especially where they can win, when things are closer generally people (as we saw in ontario to some degree) people stick with what they know, or the "safer" choice.

Yukon, in the poll interestingly enough almost a quarter of liberals wanted Hanson as premier (92% of NDP voters backed Hanson... who are the 8! lol) With 11 of the 19 seats in Whitehorse, and the NDP prefered in the city, its going to be interesting that the Liberals might swing this. Liberal voters were more likely to vote the candidate rather then the Party, which might help their two members in the city.
This might be stupid to predict but:
YP - 8
NDP - 7
LIB - 4
 

Crap, i forgot to mention... Saskatchewan is a go!
might be the most boring of the bunch, but i still have some hope the NDP can atleast salvage a respectable showing as the opposition. Its going to be very interesting to see how the party performs when they look to be so low in the polls.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/skvotes2011/

Polls close at 6:30? Damn, I'm probably gonna be out then. :( I hope I don't miss it all. As for Saskatchewan, that's gonna be a snooze. The NDP need to dump Lingenfelter first of all, and hope that they have a strong leader when Wall retires. Which can be in a long time.