latest latest -- PQ trending down to minority territory, but nothing decided:
http://www.threehundredeight.com/
... despite the Liberals' advantage in the popular vote, the PQ's enduring edge among francophones gives the party the edge in seats, with 62 to 57 for the Liberals. But that now puts the PQ in minority territory, though their likely seat range (56 to 70) straddles the line exactly. The Liberal range, at 50 to 66 seats, also puts them over the majority mark of 63 seats, though they are less likely to win a majority government than the PQ.
If those numbers look unusual, consider the results of the 1998 election. The Liberals won the popular vote by 0.7 points, but lost the election by 28 seats. Here, the margin is five seats with a two point advantage. And 1998 is increasingly looking like a good reference: Mario Dumont's ADQ took 12% of the vote in that election, a number that the CAQ could easily find itself with on Apr. 7 (there was no party like Québec Solidaire in 1998, however. Its closest forerunner took just 0.6% of the vote).
How much of an advantage do the Liberals need province wide in order to win a majority government? This depends greatly on the distribution of vote within Quebec and the amount of support the CAQ captures. But consider that in 2008, when the Liberals won a slim majority government of 66 seats, they beat out the PQ by 6.9 points with the ADQ at 16%. Roughly speaking, then, the Liberals can probably expect to win a majority government of their own when their lead grows to more than three or four points.
