According to this, fwiw, the Cons say they would need 74 seats in Ontario to get a majority, and that they're not anywhere near that.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/982356--exclusive-ma...
I put those Ipsos numbers through the UBC Election Forecaster:
Con 72, NDP 29, Lib 5
From the most Conservative-friendly pollster around. I'd go with what their own campaign is saying (assuming it's true).
Hard to believe the Liberals are that low. At least in Ontario.
Also, look at the trendline. There's no reason to believe the numbers have stopped moving. And I'd rather be on the NDP's side of that movement than the Conservatives.
I doubt anyone is going to win a majority.
Still I'd be happy to hold these numebrs and I would prefer opposition to government for a bit rather than govern with over 50% of MPs unknowns If we could do this in two steps it might be more secure.
I tend to agree but... how would you feel about a full NDP-Liberal coalition (if the Grits go for it), given that there might be a little more experience in the Liberal front bench?
Certainly-- although it is hard to say if there would be enough Liberals left at these numbers. I think the BQ will have the balance of power again -- even with as few as 15 seats -- if that happens it might be better to wait. It could be close to a deadlock
Only thing that would concern me with these Liberal numbers is if enough blue Liberals start jumping to the Cons to stop the NDP.
From the most Conservative-friendly pollster around. I'd go with what their own campaign is saying (assuming it's true).
Their last poll in the 2008 election was a 5% lead for the Conservatives (34>29)
IMO, short of majority government, the optimum outcome for the NDP would be a finish within 20 seats of a minority Conservative government and the utter decimation of the Liberals. These numbers look to do that.
From the most Conservative-friendly pollster around. I'd go with what their own campaign is saying (assuming it's true).
Their last poll in the 2008 election was a 5% lead for the Conservatives (34>29)
And their last poll last week had them at 43%, and approaching 200 seats.
Poll in Berhier-Maskinoge
Bloc leads NDP by 7% even though only 10% can name the NDP candidate (Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who just got back from Las Vegas)
http://www.ciblerecherche.com/fichiers/File/Sondage-Cible-recherche_TVA_Election_fed_complet.pdf
From the most Conservative-friendly pollster around. I'd go with what their own campaign is saying (assuming it's true).
Their last poll in the 2008 election was a 5% lead for the Conservatives (34>29)
And their last poll last week had them at 43%, and approaching 200 seats.
Which all shows what a reliable polling organization they are.
Majority for whom? Right now a bunch of journalists on Power and Politics are talking about how the Tories could eke out a majority with just Ontario (as Chretien did).
I know, I wanted to put my fist through the television.
I'm getting so sick of Evan LOUDMOUTH Soloman, Greg Weston and Kathleen Petty, and their constant hard-on for the Conservatives.
"Oh my, the Conservatives could still win a majority with all of the vote splitting between the NDP and the Liberals! WHOA-OH, GET A LOAD OF ME, I'M EVAN SOLOMAN, THE LOUDEST AND MOST ANNOYING PERSON ON TELEVISION, WHOA-OH!"
Seriously, the three of them seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that the Conservatives are losing support to the NDP, especially in Ontario (they seem to be catching on that this is the case in British Columbia).
It was only Rob Russo who reminded the panel that the NDP has the momentum and could possibly end up winning a minority.
Evan Soloman needs to be replaced immediately. Power & Politics is such trash: barking dog and firing gun sound effects, Evan's LOUDNESS, man-child persona/behaviour, constant interrupting guests, trying to project this image of a loud goofy lovable semi-buffoon is atrocious. He's taken Don Newman's once respectable program and turned it into something like CNN's Crossfire: loads of partisan hacks, arguing and interruption matches, talking over one another, and the viewer loses as he or she gains very little and isn't properly informed.
/Rant.
I explained the problems with the forecasters in an earlier thread --I should do it again here.
The forecaster measures previous support and keeps the same shape moving it up or down which works for small changes but not for big movements. In this case it can underestimate both the NDP and Liberals at the same time. Here is why:
A party that is low and has no history in many regions tends to have a flat profile -- say 10-15% in riding after riding. When the suddenly come up the forecaster assumes the same -- so putting them around 28% or behind in most seats. The reality is as they increase their support is more bumpy so they actually will go over in more seats than the forecaster predicts. The reason is the low numbers don't give a good idea of which seats have more potential than others and just keeps that middling average.
A party that has had a bigger support just previously but shrinks suddenly also gets more bumpy-- this is due to the stronger incumbents having personal draw hanging on to their seats (we saw this in 1993 with the NDP which even as it shrank was able to hold a dozen seats with the strongest of incumbents in spite of falling to single digits. The Liberals are likely to have some of their high profile people survive while others get washed away but the averaging down of their numbers would show more losing.
Then you can add the motivations of strategic voting. Many Liberal supporters end even NDPers may try to prop up a few Liberals where they think they could be saved whereas others will give up-- this means the Liberal support in a place like Davenport might fall with them losing that to the NDP but a closer seat like one in Mississauga could survive due to voters trying to stop the Cons.
I hope this explains things a bit. What it means is actually more seats are in play than you might think and more results could be surprising. I would expect that some of the seats the Liberals most expect to keep will be lost because the Cons may not be a factor and the support will wash away to the NDP while in others they might have a few surprise holds.
Now as things keep changing these realities also shift. The Liberals if they fall to 18% nationally-- are likely to get somewhere between 20 and 35 seats. These are numbers that are familiar to New Dems so we know what kind of seats they can deliver except the Liberals are perhaps less efficient but that is difficult to measure.
In case these haven't been posted yet, full Ipsos-Reid regional breakdowns...
BC: Con 42, NDP 29, Lib 26, Greenies 3
Alberta: Con 74, NDP 10, Liberals 10, Greenies 5
Saskatchewan/Manitoba: Con 55, NDP 32, Liberals 10, Greenies 3
Ontario: Con 40, NDP 34, Lib 21, Greenies 6
Quebec: NDP 42, BQ 26, Con 15, Lib 13, Greenies 3%
Atlantic: NDP 42, Con 32, Lib 23, Greenies 1%
Regions in italics have very small sample sizes.
(source: http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=5224)
Majority for whom? Right now a bunch of journalists on Power and Politics are talking about how the Tories could eke out a majority with just Ontario (as Chretien did).
I know, I wanted to put my fist through the television.
I'm getting so sick of Evan LOUDMOUTH Soloman, Greg Weston and Kathleen Petty, and their constant hard-on for the Conservatives.
"Oh my, the Conservatives could still win a majority with all of the vote splitting between the NDP and the Liberals! WHOA-OH, GET A LOAD OF ME, I'M EVAN SOLOMAN, THE LOUDEST AND MOST ANNOYING PERSON ON TELEVISION, WHOA-OH!"
Seriously, the three of them seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that the Conservatives are losing support to the NDP, especially in Ontario (they seem to be catching on that this is the case in British Columbia).
It was only Rob Russo who reminded the panel that the NDP has the momentum and could possibly end up winning a minority.
Evan Soloman needs to be replaced immediately. Power & Politics is such trash: barking dog and firing gun sound effects, Evan's LOUDNESS, man-child persona/behaviour, constant interrupting guests, trying to project this image of a loud goofy lovable semi-buffoon is atrocious. He's taken Don Newman's once respectable program and turned it into something like CNN's Crossfire: loads of partisan hacks, arguing and interruption matches, talking over one another, and the viewer loses as he or she gains very little and isn't properly informed.
/Rant.
People believe the Cons could get a majority still and they are not wrong.
This is why the Liberal vote is in freefall. theya re trying to stop it by ending the vote splitting and getting behind the NDP.
This has been happening for many elections -- why get so upset now that it is the NDP who are getting the benefit?
Let us be honest here for a moment. The Liberals have not done THAT badly in this campaign. They have gone below the NDP -- but now they are getting squeezed out in a two-way fight between the NDP and the Cons.
As a fan of democracy I don't like the dynamic and I hate strategic voting. I want PR and my guess is the Liberals will want it badly a week from now. If the Cons can't get a majority we might have PR by the next election!
Yeah, I agree that the Liberals will probably get onside with PR pretty quickly after this.
This is the first major election that I've followed closely in which the outcome in a majority of seats is not absolutely certain. It's amazing to watch, even from the other side of the Atlantic.
It was actually true in 1993 - though we didn't realize it until after the fact.
His reputation as a hard right neoconservative is a bit undeserved; if anything, he's just a generic centre-right establishment figure, somewhere between a Red Tory and a Paul Martin Liberal, much closer to Jeffrey Simpson than to Mark Steyn. An NDP endorsement from him would blow my mind, obviously, but especially given the current Tory configuration, a Liberal endorsement isn't really outside of his comfort zone.
Andrew's father was Governor of the Bank of Canada under Diefenbaker. He resigned at the end of a dispute over economic policy - after an attempt to declare his potition vacant had been passed in the Commons and defeated in the Senate. In this respect, I don't think there's much love lost with Conservatives Progressive or otherwise.
Via his cousin Deborah, of course, he has other connections to the Liberals.
People believe the Cons could get a majority still and they are not wrong.
This is why the Liberal vote is in freefall. theya re trying to stop it by ending the vote splitting and getting behind the NDP.
This has been happening for many elections -- why get so upset now that it is the NDP who are getting the benefit?
PR for this country would solve so many of our problems, the biggest one being the threat of a Conservative redneck majority with barely 40% of the vote.
I'm upset at Evan Soloman, the colossal and constant jackass that he is. He's incredibly intolerable and annoying. He ruined a great show. I don't know why they didn't replace Don Newman with Susan Bonner, who regularly filled in for Newman on the old Politics program when he was away. She was very objective, intelligent, interesting and had a sound presence. But we get Soloman instead.
Greg Weston and Kathleen Petty: they're such old, semi-useless hacks who are really out of touch, especially when it comes to electoral reform and PR. Anyways, I hope they end up eating their words on Election day.
Harper would need more than Ontario and Alberta to win a majority. Conservative insiders have admitted that a majority is out of reach.
I've been lurking here for a while (learning a lot--thanks for the expertise!). Thought I would throw this out--Cambridge NDP campaign mgr. Max Lombardi sees us catching Con. incumbent Gary Goodyear, NDP's Susan Galvao seems to be making up a lot of ground.....
"While the Liberal campaign falters hopelessly, the Susan Galvao NDP campaign in Cambridge continues to gather phenomenal momentum as the only option to end the 7-year reign of Gary Goodyear. Many reliable polls suggest that Susan Galvao and Gary Goodyear are neck-and-neck heading into the final hours before election day." (Max)
All the buzz has been for the 3 Kitchener/Waterloo ridings, so just maybe another surprise is hiding in the weeds. It's not over 'til it's over....
Goodyear is seen by many as a pompous ass, and why is an Evangelistic Christian our Science Minister? Much of the riding is Portuguese, whether or not they are Galvao voters remains to be seen.
Thank god for Babble, there is "intelligent life on the 'net."
That is good to hear Hespler1, My home town needs to turn Orange again! We are working hard in Kitchener Waterloo for Bill Brown.
Electionprediction.org's QC section has more lightning strikes (TCTCs) than a Frankenstein movie. If even Liberal supporters like this can see an earthquake is coming, then hold on tight Monday evening.
Closed for length.
