We finally got a new Nanos poll and the numbers are good (again) for the Conservatives. Overall, if added to the average with the other recent polls, the results remain similar: CPC around 146 seats, with a potential majority if a lot of close races won. The Liberals and NDP would basically not change much as opposed to the current House of Common.
But what if I only use the Nanos poll? The results are displayed as the picture of this post. The CPC would be very, very close to a majority. But the NDP would end up with 36 seats. How is that possible? after all, with the same poll, 308 would predict only 28 seats NDP seats. Well, again, two models, two methodologies. But in this case, I have to wonder: how on earth could the NDP lose seats with this new poll? After all, if we compare this poll to the 2008 results, we see:
- The NDP is up nationally.
- More importantly, in Ontario: the Tories are down (slightly), the Liberals are down and the NDP is up to 23.4%! Yet, according to 308, that would translate into only one gain for the NDP?? This seems pretty low to me.
- The Liberals are down almost everywhere. In particular they are down in Atlantic Canada, a region where they won a lot of seats. They are down in Ontario, and we know that you win elections by being high where the people are. Then they are up in the Prairies and BC, but still way too far from the Tories to expect to make bug gains. So there too, I have a hard time believing the Liberals would actually gain 7-8 seats if this poll was true.
So even when accounting for the drop of this party in the Prairies and in BC, I really fail to understand how the NDP could be projected so low (the NDP is down in the Atlantic as well, but all their seats won there were with a big enough margin). But of course, the problem for both our models is that we never saw the NDP as high as 23.4% in Ontario, so we don't really know what would happen. Still, I have a hard time explaining a 5-points gain in the great Ontario and only one more seat won. Especially when we know that with our current electoral system, the "winning-zone" is when a aprty approaches the 25% mark.
What do you think? Would the NDP gain more than 1 seat in this province with 23.5% of the vote? By the way, here is the pdf for every riding. Let me know if you find mistakes (again, especially for Ontario, we are in extrapolations territory and the model is thus more likely to make mistakes).
