Alberta 2012

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What's the most conservative provincial riding in Alberta (by federal Conservative vote)? Cardston-Taber-Warner, the only seat the AA won in 2004? How high would the federal Conservative vote be there?

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When will results start coming in?

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Are there any betting markets for the election?

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And votes coming in, PCs have very very early lead.

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I'd wait for a few more polls to come in before jumping to any conclusions.

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How do early polls usually skew? If they're like NZ, where they tend to be small, rural booths, that's a bad sign for the WRA.

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No seats are declared, but it still seems hard to see how on aggregate the WRP win. What's the probability of a PC victory now?

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PC elected in 1 seat.

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WRP did badly in seats for losing by "only" ten points. How many FPP elections won by similar margins have resulted in such lopsided numbers? Conversely, the Liberals and NDP did pretty well for parties that won less than 10% of the vote. Just look at Calgary and Edmonton - the WRP beat the Liberals in both cities (by a significant margin in the former), but still won less seats.

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How strange: one day, the far-right does far better in France than polls had predicted.  The very next day, they do much worse than polls predicted in Alberta. 

The FN's type of "far-right" is much different from the WRP's type.

[Nichlemn]

Actually Ontario would be large enough to have an impact if a swing state as it is roughly the same size as Illinois, bigger than Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, while only smaller than California, Florida, New York, and Texas.  For example in 2000 and 2004, Bush likely wouldn't have won had Ontario been a state.  In the case of Alberta in 2000 it could have tipped things in favour of Al Gore if it went for him, but that election was a razor thin win so pretty much any state could have tipped the results in Gore's favour. 

As for Canada moving to the right, I would argue no more so than the US and Europe are.  Both of those areas are more conservative than they were 30 years ago.  I would argue there are two primary reasons for this.  The main one is you have an aging population and generally older people are more conservative than younger ones.

The other is shifting demographics in terms of area.  Generally the poorer areas which tend to lean more left are losing people while the more affluent regions which tend to lean more to the right are growing.  In the case of Canada, that would be Quebec and Atlantic Canada losing, while the West gaining, for the US, the rust belt states losing and sun belt states gaining, in Britain population loss in the Industrial North while gaining in the South of England and in the case of Germany, loss in East Germany and the Northern areas while growing in Southern Germany. 

Even shift in city population is having an impact too.  Here in Toronto, the downtown which has always been more left leaning isn't really growing while the 905 suburbs which are more conservative is where all the growth is.  Off course the hard right areas in both countries are losing people in many cases as rural areas are generally declining in population.  I believe in 2004, Bush won 97 of the 100 fastest growing counties, whereas here in Canada, the fastest growing areas are either Conservative or at least competitive for them (905 suburbs, Central Ontario, Calgary, Edmonton, bedroom communities surrounding Calgary and Edmonton, Okanagan Valley, Fraser Valley, Surrey, Richmond, North Nanaimo-Comox area).  By contrast the areas with almost no growth or losing population are generally not conservative friendly areas (Rural Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island, Acadian Coast of New Brunswick, Northern Quebec, Northern Ontario, the Territories).

What if Canada was part of the United States?

Kerry wins if Canada is a whole is a state, but just barely. Ontario alone wouldn't do it, since Bush had a 35 EV margin over Kerry and Ontario would only have about 20EVs.