Latest federal projections (and a note about the NDP) [Updated with HD poll)

More good news for the Tories (or more job for them to dismiss the polls in the medias). After the Ekos poll showing a big lead for the Conservatives, we now have some kind of confirmation with the latest Ipsos poll showing a very similar lead. Those projections use those two polls. Here are some comments.

[update for the Harris-Decima poll]: 10 points lead for the Conservatives, but the NDP lower in this poll. If I use this poll along with the other two, it gives me: CPC 145, LPC 75, NDP 32, 0 Green (but two races now, including one in BC where HD puts this party really high) and 52 Bloc. The same story remains true though, with the CPC now in reach of a potential majority. Btw, funny to see that Ipsos has the NDP at 30% in BC, while HD has this party at only 19%. I know this is the margin of error, but it shows the importance of averaging polls, especially at the province-level.

While not in the "majority territory", the Tories are getting incredibly close. In particular, if you sum the safe wins (more than 5% margin) and the potentials (within 5% of the leader or leading by less than 5%), you have this party ata max of 162! Of course, for a majority, they would need to win approx. 70% of the close races. This would be a really, really high conversion rate. But let's not miss the big picture here: the polls are really positive for the CPC and really bad for the Liberals. And this is BEFORE being in an actual election. I think it might be important. Let's look at what happenned at the beginning of the last election. The source is the SFU study group on elections.

Prior to the elction, believe or not, Stéphane Dion was actually neck-to-neck with Harper. But then the election started, people started paying attention and the Liberals dropped. And they never recovered. Now let's look at what happened last year when Michael Iggnatieff saif he wanted elections as soons as posible. It happened in the fall:

Again, a surge of the Tories and a drop of the Liberals. Why am I showing you that? Simply because I wouldn't be incredibly surprised to see the same thing happening again. So imagine the potential lead for the Tories if they already are 15 points ahead now? Of course, the opposite is also possible: people will start paying attention to Iggy and will like him. But if the former event happens, remember this post lol

Ok more comments. The Liberals are low everywhere in those two polls. Ipsos is hard on them even in the Atlantic! If I were to use only this poll, the Liberals would hit a low of 67 seats! With those numbers, I really wonder if this party will vote against the budget or not.

Ok let's talk a little bit about the NDP. My competitor (308) always projects this party to be really, really low. On the other hand, DemocraticSpace (not active at the moment though) or myself consistently project this party at around 30 seats or more. Why this difference? Well many things. First of all, even by using simple models such as a uniform-swing model (which, if you read my methodology, is less efficient than my model but still gives a good idea of the overall results), you also get the NDP at more than 30 seats. All that to say that the NDP at 17% today is not the same as the NDP at 17% in 2004. Things have changed, the NDP votes is more concentrated. This is something that 308, without a proper model at the riding-level, cannot take into account.
Secondly, yes the NDP is lower in the votes intentions, but who benefits from this? Not the Liberals, and this is the key here. The party stealing most of the votes is the Green party. And because, as I showed here, the NDP became much more efficient in his votes, this party can afford to lose some votes to the Green. It isn't costing them actual seats, yet. It would be another story if those votes were going to the Liberals. Especially in BC and Ontario. At the end, I believe 308 underestimate the NDP and I overestime it. So just do an average of both.

The Greens are still projected at one seat, in Ontario. But we all know they are overestimated in the polls. So we'll have to wait and see. Finally, not a lot to say about the Bloc. They are still below 40%, but because the federalist parties are almost evenly split, they manage to gain a lot of seats.

The riding-by-riding projections are available here. Don't forget to let me know about the changes for the Atlantic provinces.