Jean Charest and its government are reaching new high of impopularity in Quebec. With 70% of Quebecois saying they are unsatisfied with the current government. In term of support, the Liberals are now at a low level of 25%. The PQ, with 41% of the votes intentions, would easily win a majority (actually in this case, there is absolutely no need for any model whatsoever).

Quebec Solidaire is still fourth but would now get as much as 12% of the votes! I said it before, I'll believe it when I'll see this party that high during an actual election. Nevertheless, at that level of support, QS would get 3 seats and be a real contender in a lot of ridings in Montreal.

If the trend goes on, Quebec could be the first province to elect a female as Premier. Of course, we are still far away from a general election and we all know how the Liberals always manage to bounce back or how the PQ can get rid of its leaders. BC could soon have a female Premier since Christy Clark seems to have the lead in the leadership race for the BC Liberals. She wouldn't have been elected, but she already said she would likely trigger a new election if she's selected as the new leader. So we'll have to wait and see to discover which province will be first.

You can get the details of the projections by clicking on the picture, in the right column.

As opposed to the federal level, polls are way less common at the provincial one. Therefore, for our projections, we used the latest poll from Légermarketing. Here are the details.

The PQ would win a majority of seats if an election was held tomorrow. However, it would be a narrow majority, like the one the PLQ currently enjoys. To see that the PQ, in a period where the PLQ and especially its leader Jean Charest are so unpopular in public opinion, is projected below 70 seats is quite surprising. One could ask what it would take for the PQ and Pauline Marois to take off and reach a level of 40% in votes intentions.

The ADQ would lose a couple of votes since the last election, but thanks to the large drop of the PLQ, would still make some gains in term of seats. Nevertheless, if this party wants to play a major role in Quebec politics, it needs to go back close to 20%. By doing so, they could almost surely force a minority government and hold the balance of power.

Finally, QS would not only keep its current seat but gain a new one (in Gouin) for its co-leader. I'm still skeptical of all those polls putting QS around the 8-10% mark, but if they do get as many votes during the next election, I' sure they would indeed secure at least two seats. (Btw, yes the PVQ is projected below 0% in some ridings. I'll correct that next week. It isn't a big deal, it just means this party is really, really low in those ridings)

With the MPs about to spend the holidays and a couple of weeks away from the House, here are our first projections published on this website. Details can be found here. The polls used are the latest ones from Harris-Decima, Nanos, Angus-Reid and Ekos.

If a federal election was held tomorrow, the results would look closely to the previous election. The Conservatives would lose a couple of seats, largely due to a slight drop in Ontario and in the West. The Liberals would still be far from power, while the NDP would remain mostly stable (although in its case, the 39 seats include 7 wins out of 9 close races (where the leader has less than a 5% margin, therefore we should consider those 39 seats as the upper bound for this party). The Greens' only hope is in Ontario, in the riding of Guelph with a hot race between them, the CPC and LPC.

Rumors are well going on about a possible spring election (after the next budget) but I wouldn't be so sure. As of now, no party has a clear incentive to go into an early campaing. Ignatieff and the Liberals seem to be doing better than a couple of months ago, but they would need a really strong campaing in order to kick Harper out of power. For the Conservatives, even by winning all their close races, they would still fall short of the majority (147 seats), again. The only party ready to go is naturally the Bloc, but this isn't enough to trigger an election. Of course, everything can happen during the next couple of months, but if the last couple of years of minorty governments taught us something, it's that defeating the government is not easy when it requires all three opposition parties to agree!