We are more than two weeks into this federal campaign, one week away from the debates, and we must admit it: it's a boring election. From a polling perspective at least (what I do on this site) but I believe we could make the argument that this is the case when looking at the campaigns and policies as well. And I'm not the only one saying this:

The Globe and Mail's @RobertFife says the campaign has been marked by a lack of vision. #ctvqp #cdnpoli #elxn43 pic.twitter.com/P8mBagVFgl

— CTV'S QUESTION PERIOD (@ctvqp) September 29, 2019

But this blog is about polling, so let's stick to that. And before any smartass tells me that elections aren't there to be exciting and I'm missing the point of democracy, etc. Yes, you are right.

Nevertheless, here are the most recent projections. I haven't updated with the Mainstreet and Nanos numbers of Sunday, but they pretty much cancelled out (Nanos was good for the Tories while Mainstreet was good for the Liberals). Honestly though, I almost waste my time every day entering the new numbers as barely anything has changed. See the analysis after the infographics.

map 28th
Infogram

Proj 28.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

A boring election

Let's look at the voting intentions of the main two parties, the Conservatives and Liberals. The graph below includes every poll published. For the daily trackers of Nanos and Mainstreet, I only included one data point every 3 days.

Don't be fooled, there is almost no variation. It looks more volatile than it is because I cut off the axis at 25% (and I used a polynomial trend). The CPC has, in particular, been remarkably constant. The standard deviation is only 1.3%. Just to put this in perspective, a party at 35% has margins of error of 2.2% for a sample size of 1748 (the average sample size this election), that corresponds to a standard deviation of 1.1%. In other words: the volatility observed is perfectly in line with the CPC being actually constant and the variations are just caused by sampling (realistically, it's also probably caused by variations in sampling methods, but let's forget about it).

Just to be super clear: it is quite likely that the Conservatives were at 34-35% 2 weeks ago and haven't moved. People like me (and others) obsess about looking at polls every day, but the truth is: most likely nothing has happened so far.

For the Liberals, the standard deviation is 1.7%. That's higher than what random sampling would predict, so the LPC did seem to have moved. I have already shown in a previous post that the blackface incident probably caused the Liberals to drop by 2-3 points, an impact that was likely short lived.

Let's look now at the NDP and Green, the two parties fighting for 3rd place (in the popular vote at least).

First observation: for an election that was supposed to be about climate change, there sure is a lack of a green wave. Sure the party of Elizabeth May would likely get its best result ever if the election were tomorrow, but this party is still around 10%. More importantly, it appears that Jagmeet Singh has managed to give his party some momentum. While pre-election polls had the Green passing the NDP, the gap between the two has now grown in favour of the Neo-democrats.

It should be noted however that pollsters do not agree on the NDP. IVR polls (automatic phone calls) have the NDP about 4 points lower than online polls. This explains the bigger volatility observed. Given that the NDP is around 11-13% in average, the standard deviation should be 0.8%. In reality it has been 2.2%, by far the most volatile series between all the parties. This is potentially problematic as there could be a pretty major difference between the NDP below 10% or at 13-14%. That could well be the few seats the Liberals need to win in order to get another majority. We'll see if polls start converging later on.

What about Quebec? After all, it seems this is the one province where things are moving. Has the Bloc, in particular, really been rising since the start of this election (Graph is in French, sorry)?

We can indeed see this rise. It's not a wave but it's there. This is especially important because the Bloc starts winning many seats (the "payoff zone") above 22%. The Bloc at 25% would likely prevent Trudeau from winning much more than 40 seats in Quebec, something that would make his objective of a second majority really at risk (since he's pretty much guaranteed, at this point at least, to lose many seats elsewhere).

The Liberals are remarkably constant while the Tories seem to be declining. That might not matter much for them however as their seats are fairly safe and the possible gains are limited anyway (I've said it before but almost-insurance-broker Andrew Scheer will win or lose in Ontario, not in Quebec. Even though he absolutely needs the help from the Bloc to prevent the Liberals from winning 50+ seats).

So, boring election so far. What's next? Next week is full of debates (that even Trudeau is attending, yay!), so things might change. If that doesn't cut it, this election will become a game of turnout. Whoever will be able to motivate its voters the most will win. The 2015 election was pretty much tied three ways until the Liberals started taking the lead in early October. Will it be the same this year? Do people really only start paying attention with about 2 weeks to go? We'll see.

There still are quite a lot of undecided (the exact number varies based on the polling method, with IVR having much lower rates), especially in Quebec. So I'd be surprised if we really didn't see any movement until October 21st.

Quick update to the projections. Almost nothing changes as the polling average hasn't really moved either. Mainstreet has had the Liberals dropping by almost 2 points in two days but other pollsters, such as Abacus or Research Co see the party of Trudeau actually ahead.

My feeling is that nothing will move until the debates at the earliest. And even there, I wouldn't be surprised if this election was almost entirely decided by the turnout.

Anyway, here are the usual things you want to see. In order: an infographic with the polling average and the projections, by province. Then the map (and heat maps for the main parties). Finally the riding by riding projections. Below I do a quick analysis of the GTA and how pollsters don't seem to agree.

The map. Ignore the first two numbers when you hover over a riding. The next numbers are the percentages for the CPC, LPC, NDP, Green and Bloc, in order.

Finally the riding by riding projections:

   Proj 28.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

The GTA and polls that disagree

The GTA is by far the most important region of the country, as far as this election is concerned. While Quebec could decide whether Trudeau gets a majority or not, depending on the Bloc, the GTA is where Andrew Scheer needs to make gains if he wants to become Prime Minister.

Let's look at the current map:

As you can see, Toronto and the close suburbs are like the village in Asterix and Obelix resisting to the Romans. It's blue all around. But the red seats do add up to a very significant number.

Compared this to 2015 (map from Wikipedia):

We can clearly see that while the core of Toronto (what is usually referred to as the 416) hasn't changed much, the suburbs have. The problem for the CPC is that not enough red seats have switched to blue. Why? Well because the polls in Ontario show that this is pretty much the only province where the Conservatives are not up significantly compared to 4 years ago. As a matter of fact, the current polling average (34.3%) shows the Tories down! Fortunately for them the Liberals are down even more (from 45% to 38%). Still, this is nowhere close to being enough to win most of the GTA.

Unless, of course, the provincial polls are underestimating the level of support for Scheer in the the GTA specifically. For instance we could imagine the CPC down in Toronto proper but up in the suburbs. Or down a little bit in rural ridings (won't matter for them) and up in the GTA. Doug Ford won big in the GTA last year after all, so it's not like this region can't vote Conservative.

We don't get many sub-provincial polls, mostly because the sample sizes would be too small. There was one from Campaign Research showing the Tories ahead in regions of the GTA (except Toronto proper). But this pollster has had diverging numbers from the average this election. The same poll had the CPC ahead by 4 points province wide, something very different from most pollsters (many polls actually have the Liberals ahead by 7-10 points in Ontario).

Then we have Nanos, very reputable firm. They did a 905-specific poll (the 905 is the area code of the GTA... mostly... not everyone is defining those regions the same way unfortunately). The results? Conservatives and Liberals tied in the GTA at 40%! To put this in perspective, my projections currently have the Liberals at 41% and the Conservatives at 38%. So the Nanos poll is in line with what my model would predict based on provincial polls.

Finally, Mainstreet published a GTA poll yesterday. In it, the Liberals are at 45% versus 31% only for the Tories (the numbers are for the GTA minus Toronto itself). But Mainstreet has had the Liberals with a bigger lead in Ontario overall in pretty much all of their polls.

Which leads us to the riding polls from Mainstreet as well. We've got quite a lot in the GTA and with the exception of Whitby where my projections have the CPC slightly ahead while Mainstreet has the opposite (it's really close in both cases), every single one has had the same projected winner as my projections. But what about the actual numbers? In Oshawa, the poll had the NDP much, much lower than expected and the Liberals higher. But in Durham for instance, projections and polls were almost identical. Same story in Aurora-Oak Ridge. Waterloo's poll had the Liberals almost at 50%, so more than my projections and maybe a sign of the rise of the Liberals in really urban ridings. All in all however, none of the riding polls were super surprising and indicative of a very different situation.

If I only use those riding polls (in Ontario, not only in the GTA), I would get that the Liberals are higher than expected based on provincial polls and the NDP lower. However, Mainstreet's polls also have the LPC with a bigger lead and the NDP lower than other polls in average. So it appears to be a Mainstreet effect rather than a riding polls vs provincial ones.

To conclude this look at the GTA, let's see what a couple of percentage points could do. For instance, if I boost the Tories by 2 points and lower the LPC by 2, the seat count changes from 44-65-12 to 50-59-12. So a 4-points swing was enough to switch 6 ridings. In other words: a simple polling error in this region and that's the difference between the Conservatives winning the most seats or not.

For Andrew Scheer, he knows he needs those GTA seats. His entire campaign is pretty dedicated to them. But right now it doesn't seem to work. Maybe because of the unpopularity of Doug Ford in the province. In the GTA, he's doing better than Harper in 2015, but not remotely close to 2011 (see below). To be fair, he likely doesn't have to in order to finish first.

Le Québec joue un rôle central dans n'importe quelle élection fédérale mais c'est d'autant plus le cas cette année car cette province pourrait fournir à Trudeau une 2e majorité.

Avec la chute du NPD au Québec (Si Mulcair avait sauvé les meubles en 2015 avec environ 25% du vote, Singh est à 10% en moyenne et parfois largement en-dessous dans certains sondages), cela fournit une occasion parfaite pour le chef Libéral de faire des gains qui compenseront les pertes attendues ailleurs (surtout dans l'ouest). Si les Conservateurs ne sont pas une menaces trop importantes (vote trop concentré), la remonté du Bloc est bien plus préoccupante pour le chef Libéral.

Ci-dessous vous avez les plus récentes moyennes et projections. Ensuite je fais un tour des régions du Québec avec une carte.

Comme vous pouvez le voir (si vous suivez ce site), les sondages des derniers jours ont été meilleurs pour le PLC et ce parti est ainsi repassé en tête, tout en restant minoritaire cependant. Il reste par contre incroyable de penser que le PLC est si proche d'une majorité avec seulement 33% des voix!

Carte des projections:




Et finalement les projections détaillées:

   Proj 26.09.2019 Too Close to Call by bryanbreguet on Scribd

1. Le grand Montréal

Voici la carte pour la grande région de Mtl (et un peu davantage à l'est). On voit que le PLC domine sur l'ile à part quelques comtés à l'est. La rive-nord est Bloc au-delà de Laval (et le gain dans Laurentides-Labelle, pas sur la carte ici, alors que Thérèse-de-Blainville et Rivières-des-milles-iles sont de possibles gains) alors que la rive-sud reste PLC. Cependant, le Bloc y fait des gains. Dans Beloeil-Chambly en raison de son nouveau chef mais également dans les comtés à sa droite (Drummond et Sainte-Hyacinthe, récupérés du NPD; Aussi Longueil-Saint-Hubert et Salabarry). Le Bloc a une carte à jouer dans Montarville et Longueuil-Charles-Lemoyne ainsi que Saint-Jean. Une petite hausse et le Bloc récolterait facilement 3 comtés de plus (et 2 sur la rive-nord).

Sur l'île, on voit le retour du Bloc qui se bataille les quelques comtés restés NPD en 2015 avec les Libéraux. Vous pouvez comparer les résultats de 2015 ci-dessous.

Regardez aussi en 2008 (soit avant la montée du NPD, je vais ignorer l'élection unique de 2011) ce à quoi ressemblait cette région (note: la carte électorale était différente):

Le Bloc dominait partout. Il faut dire que le parti de Gilles Duceppe était à 38% dans la province et le PLC à seulement 24%, soit à peu près l'inverse de maintenant. Sur l'île, l'idee de voir le Bloc gagnant dans Ahuntsic est maintenant digne de la science-fiction.


2. Reste du Quebec

La région de Québec elle-même ne changerait probablement pas de couleur par rapport à 2015 même si le PCC a une petite chance cependant dans les deux comtés PLC, Louis-Hébert et Québec. Le dernier sondage Léger mettait le PCC largement en tête dans cette région. Le reste, qui était Conservateur en 2015, le restera probablement cette année.

Pour le reste du Québec, on voit le PCC gagnant en Beauce et autours de Québec, ainsi que le Lac-Saint-Jean (perdu durant une partielle) ou Jonquière. La Gaspésie reste Libérale (avec possiblement le 2e siège NPD, rien de garanti). Le PLC domince dans le reste (Abitibi, Outaouais, Sherbrook).

En 2015:

Le NPD avait conservé plusieurs sièges mais il ne fait aucun doute qu'il va les perdre cette année.

En 2008:

Là aussi on voit la domination du Bloc à cette époque-là. Si les deux comtés en Abitibi pourraient retourner au Bloc cette année, le PLC conservera l'Outaoais par exemple.

Ainsi on voit que dans la chasse aux comtés NPD, le Bloc gagne actuellement sur la Rive-Sud mais perd ailleurs. Je l'ai déjà dit, mais si le Bloc pouvait gagner quelques points de plus et passer au-dessus des 25% tout en ayant le PLC sous les 35%, cela ouvrirait la porte à pas mal plus de gains. Au point où il ne serait pas impossible que le Bloc redevienne le premier parti de la province. On n'en est encore pas là, mais le Bloc est dans une bien meilleure position qu'en 2011.

After taking the lead yesterday for the first time this election, the Conservatives fall back to second today after the new polls from Mainstreet and Nanos showed a Liberal rebound (fairly significant one of 2 points in Nanos). The new Ipsos poll, however, prevented the Liberals from making bigger gains in the forecast.

We are of course talking of a few seats switching and it doesn't change the big picture. The current situation is still of an extremely close race between Liberals and Conservatives. If the election were tomorrow, I honestly wouldn't be able to make a call.

Before talking about the blackface incident, here are the most up to date projections, including a map. The graphics are all "live", which means the numbers are updated automatically. Just mentioning it in case you are reading this days later.

Projections, polls and seats
Infogram

The first tab of the map shows the winner in a riding. The percentagesdisplayed (if you hover over) are the projections for, in order, the CPC, LPC, NDP, Green and Bloc. The other tabs are heat maps (i.e: where a party has its support).

The riding by riding projections:

   Proj 24.09.2019 Too Close to Call by bryanbreguet on Scribd

Blackface incident

So, what was the impact of blackface? Some pollsters asked the question directly, such as Abacus or Ekos. results were mostly as expected, which is to say nobody liked to see those pictures but it also wasn't as big of a deal as what the media like to pretend. More importantly, it's not clear if this would actually influence the vote. In particular, I strongly, we can clearly see the partisanship of respondent. For instance, 76% of Liberal respondents in Ekos said it wasn't a serious incident versus only 23% among Conservatives. This is quite frankly hilarious. Let's have the same picture with Andrew Scheer in it and let's ask the same question.

Anyway, beyond those questions that won't really tell us much, the real test is in the voting intentions. So let's compare the national numbers before and after blackface.

Before:

CPC: 35.6%

LPC: 34.8%

NDP: 12.5%

Green: 9.6%

Bloc (Qc only): 20.1%

After (almost identical to my average for the projections)

CPC: 35.2%

LPC: 32.7%

NDP: 12.9%

Green: 10%

Bloc (Qc only): 22.4%

So there is an impact of around 2% down for the Liberals of Trudeau. We can find a very similar number if we only use the daily trackers (Nanos and Mainstreet) that do their polls over 3 days rolling (so adding one day of observations every day and removing the data from 4 days ago).

Nanos, if we compare the full poll before to the one after, had the Liberals down from 35.52% to 32.85%, a drop of 2.67 points. Mainstreet had the LPC going from 36.8% to 33.9%, a drop of 2.9 points.

We therefore get very similar figures no matter the method. So, all in all, yes the blackface incident seemed to definitely have had a impact. At 2-3 points, this is quite major actually, especially during a close election. And the impact seemed to have been mostly in English Canada, not in Quebec. Which would make sense as blackface and the reactions to it are really a US-centric thing, which extended to English Canada. As a Swiss guy who lived in Quebec for years, I honestly had never heard of it until recently.

Will it last? Well the daily trackers both have the Liberals up today (Nanos mroe than Mainstreet though), so we'll see.

We got a ton of new polls today (the usual Mainstreet and Nanos but also Abacus, Dart, Angus-Reid and even Ekos blessed by publishing some numbers for once).

Here are the new projections after the update. Yes, such an outcome would be highly unsustainable. LPC+NDP is short of a majority, so is CPC+Bloc.

Projections, polls and seats
Infogram

   Proj 23.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

J'expérimente avec un nouvel outil pour faire des cartes et je me suis dit que j'allais essayer avec le Québec est le soutien au Bloc.

Comme vous pouvez le voir ci-dessous, et tel que j'en parlais hier, le Bloc semble être de retour. Surtout, dans le 450, il s'approche des niveaux qui lui permettraient de remporter une majorité des sièges.

Note: je crois que la carte fonctionne mieux avec un écran tactile pour zoomer. Avec une souris, il vous faut cliquer plusieurs fois.

Quelques remarques:

- Le soutien au Bloc n'est pas concentré dans 1 ou 2 régions. C'est idéal si le parti réussit à grimper au-dessus des 25% et arriver dans la zone payante. À l'inverse, un vote éparpillé n'est en général pas efficace si le parti reste sous les 20%.

- Dans le 450, le Bloc est encore derrière, surtout sur la Rive-Sud. Cependant, si le Bloc devait grimper de 4 points et le PLC chuter d'autant, alors le parti de Trudeau perdrait 13 sièges, dont 9 dans le 450!

- Vous pouvez faire ce genre de simulations en utilisant le simulateur.

Je n'ai rien à ajouter pour l'instant, je mettrai à jour les projections dans la journée et j'aurai davantage de cartes. 

Après avoir terminé 4e en 2011 et 2015, le Bloc Québécois, maintenant dirigé par Yves-François Blanchet, se retrouve projeté 2e au Québec. Quelques bons sondages au-dessus des 20% (chez Forum, Mainstreet et surtout plus de 25% chez Nanos) font en sorte que le parti nationaliste est maintenant projeté avec 14 sièges, à égalité avec les Conservateurs.

Voici les projections:

Copy: Projections, polls and seats
Infogram

Si l'on regarde la liste des 16 comtés NPD de 2015 dont je parlais ici, on remarque que le Bloc en gagne actuellement 4. Il y en a 4 autres où le Bloc est projeté juste derrière le PLC. Il ne suffirait d'un rien pour que le Bloc se retrouve ainsi à 18 sièges. De là, une petite hausse concentrée dans le 450 par exemple et on parlerait de 20 sièges et plus. Tout un 'comeback' pour un parti qui était donné mort et enterré en 2011!

Voici les projections par comtés:

   Proj 22.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

Quick projections updates based on the latest Nanos and the Ontario-only giant poll from Campaign Research. Both have data post 18th, so after the blackface incident. Nanos even has 2 of its 3 days of rolling data after the reveal. And the LPC is dropping fast based on what we see so far. The incident, coupled with the week-long trend of the CPC gaining over the LPC, now puts the party of Andrew Scheer almost 5 points ahead, while it was trailing by 3 a week ago!

Anyway, here are the updated projections. The LPC is still ahead since my average is based on multiple polls, but the trend is clearly there.

Projections, polls and seats
Infogram

Riding by riding projections:

   Proj 21.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

If you want more updates, follow me on Twitter. I'll post new projections later today, I want to wait for the new Nanos numbers.

Every poll published in Canada is supposed to come with margins of error. You know, the plus or minus 3%, 19 times out of 20 thingy. Over the last decade, the rise of online polls has created a new debate among many since those polls don't use a random sample - they instead have panels of hundred of thousands of people who accepted to be on this list - and therefore don't have the classic margins of error.

That's a debate for another day however. What I want to do in this post is take a look at the actual, empirical accuracy of polls. Because, you see, the 3% 19 times of 20 is purely theoretical (and as mentioned, doesn't even apply to online polls). It only represents the random variation occurring because of the random sampling. It doesn't account for other factors such as turnout, biased sampling, people changing their mind, selection bias, etc.

Think of it this way: if really the only uncertainty was due to the random sampling, then polling aggregators like me would have almost perfect accuracy. Indeed, while one individual poll with 1000 observation has margins of error of roughly 3%, a polling average, composed of 5-7 polls, has a theoretical margin of error much, much smaller than that (less than 1% for sure). Yet, empirically speaking, I (or any other aggregators really) have not been that close.

Here are the metrics we'll use. The first one is the average absolute error. This one is the simplest. If a party was polled, in average, at 30% but ultimately got 32% of the vote, the absolute error is 2%. Absolute means you take the absolute value, so it doesn't matter if the polls were under- or overestimating the party. You do this for every party during an election, take the average and voilà.

The second metric is the MSE, or Mean Square Error. This is the average of the deviations squared. This is a very commonly used measure of the precision of an estimator in statistics.

Finally, using the MSE, we can estimate actual, empirical margins of error by simply multiplying the MSE by 1.96. This measure has a nice interpretation and can be directly compared to the theoretical one provided by the polls.

I have looked at the following elections over the last 12 years: the 2008, 2011 and 2015 federal elections, the 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2018 Quebec elections, the 2012, 2015 and 2019 Alberta elections, BC in 2013 and 2017 as well as Ontario in 2014 and 2018. In each case, I took an average of the polls published during the last week, limiting each polling firm to one poll only. No weight or nothing, just a simple average. Some might argue that I should give a bigger weight to polls closer to election day. Fair enough but empirically it really doesn't make a big difference, as we showed in a research paper with David Coletto. I also only used the numbers for the major parties included in the polls. So the number varies depending on the election (5 at the federal level for instance).

So here are the results:

In average polls have been roughly 2 points off. That's not bad you'll say but remember that this is the polling AVERAGE. As mentioned above, this average should be much closer to the actual result if the only uncertainty was really due to random sampling. Being 2 points off for an individual poll? That's great. For the average composed of usually 5-10 polls? Not impressive. And this alone shows that theoretical margins of error published in the media are pretty useless. This is why, personally, I don't care about the phone vs online debate - at the end of the day, what matters is the empirical accuracy. But feel free to have a strong opinion on this and go on Reddit or Twitter to express your deep knowledge of stats.

Maybe the most shocking stat is the corresponding, effective, empirical margin of error: 4.9%! And if you think I made a mistake or that Canadian polls are uniquely bad, you'd be wrong. This same margin of error in the US is close to 7%! In other words, we pretty much never ever have an election where we can be absolutely certain as to who will win based on the polls. Take the current federal election, it means the range at 95% confidence level for the top two parties are 30% to 40% roughly. Yes that might seem absurd but this what the accuracy has been in the last 10 years.

Side note: France presidential elections seem more accurate than our elections, in average, with an effective margin of error below 4%. And that includes the 2002 election where pollsters have the wrong top 2.

Don't believe me? You'll likely mention a list of elections where the polls were super close. Fair enough but let's me retort with many cases of giant mistakes. Alberta 2012, polls had the Wildrose ahead by 7 points, they lost by 10 to the PC! In BC 2013, the BC Liberals got 44% of the vote while the polls predicted around 36%.

More recently the CAQ in Quebec won over the Liberals with a margin of almost 13 points. What were the polls saying? CAQ ahead by roughly 4!

Even elections where polls got the correct winner can have weak accuracy. The recent Alberta election had polls putting the UCP at 48%, 10 points ahead of the NDP. The actual results? UCP got close to 55% while the NDP was only at 33%. Even elections where people think the polls did well aren't that great. The 2018 Ontario election had the PC at 39%, a little bit less than 4 points ahead of the NDP. At the end, Doug Ford won with 40.5% versus 33.6%. Not as bad as the other examples but still far from perfect accuracy. and a good example of how having an average absolute error of 2 points can lead to outcomes very different from the polls and projections.

Here below you have those stats for every election I used:

We can clearly see the big misses of Alberta 2012 and BC 2013, as well as Quebec 2018 or Alberta 2019 (again, the last two are less remembered because the polls at least had the correct winner).

The good news for us? Federal elections have been more accurate than the average so far. The bad news? The polls over the last year or so have been very bad. Ontario 2018 is the best of the bunch and the polls still missed the margin of victory by 4 points!

So keep that in mind when you're looking at polls, even polling averages like on my site. Also, keep an open mind if you see a poll that 'clearly' looks like an outlier. You never know, this one poll might actually be right.

Oh, finally, when I looked at the performance of online versus phone polls, I found no significant difference between the two.

If you want me updates and numbers, follow me on Twitter here. If you want to make your own projections, use the simulator here.

We got a few new polls yesterday from Nanos and Mainstreet (expected since they have daily trackers), but Innovative and Angus-Reid too. I'll update the projections during the day.

We should mention how Nanos and Mainstreet see very different trends. While Nanos has seen the CPC increasing steadily over the last week, Mainstreet instead is showing the Liberals gaining ground. Nanos uses live callers while Mainstreet uses the now commonly used automatic phone calls technology, also known as IVR. Hard to say why one method would produce some opposite results though. So I guess we'll have to wait and see.

What is clearer and observed pretty much in every poll is the fact the Conservatives are up everywhere but in Ontario (and Alberta technically, but it doesn't matter and the sample sizes are very small for that province). See the table below showing the swing for the CPC compared to 2015:

So how can we explain this? The likely culprit is of course Doug Ford. His unpopularity in Ontario might have tarnished the 'Conservative' brand. The Liberals have been trying to associate Scheer to Ford for months now. The polling numbers for the Tories were better earlier this year (without being extraordinary), before Ford started being hated so much.

Ontario has always been a province showing resistance to the Tories. Harper spent years campaigning there before finally becoming the main party (in 2008) and getting enough seats for a majority (in 2011 thanks to finally winning big in the GTA). So we know Ontario is never the easiest province for the CPC. But to literally see this party down compared to 2015 is straight up weird. The Mainstreet riding polls in this province are placing the CPC higher than the national polls, but the same applies to the LPC, so it cancels out really.

Just for illustration, my current projections (non published) have the Liberals winning 164 seats Canada wide, with 70 coming from Ontario (versus 140 and 42 respectively for the Tories). If the CPC was 4 points above its 2015 results (leaving the LPC where it is, so we are assuming the CPC would take votes somewhere else), the projections would become 156 for the Conservatives and 58 seats in Ontario. It'd be majority territory if the votes were to come from the LPC.

I already wrote in the past week how Scheer's path to victory was narrowed. He needs some help from the Bloc in Quebec to prevent the Liberals from winning 50+ seats there. But he also absolutely needs to win Ontario. And right now it's not working. Of course, all the numbers used for this analysis were before the brown/blackface incident.

With new polls from Ipsos, Mainstreet and Nanos yesterday, the projections have moved a little bit. Thanks to strong numbers in Quebec and Ontario, the Liberals of Justin Trudeau are right at the door of another majority.

Before going further, here are the projections:

Untitled infographic
Infogram

The riding by riding projections:

   Proj Canada 18.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

I understand that it might seem weird given some of the recent trends regarding the nationwide numbers. Nanos for instance has shown the Tories moving from almost a 3 points deficit to a 1 point lead in 3 days. Mainstreet has also seen the CPC rising.

But Ipsos, that had the CPC ahead, now has them tied with the Grits. More importantly however, the numbers in Quebec and Ontario are just too good for the Liberals. and they might actually be undesestimated there!

As I was discussing the other day (in French), the collapse of the NDP in Quebec is opening wide open a door to many gains for the Liberals. Trudeau and his candidates don't even need to gain votes or anything, they'll likely recover a majority of the 16 NDP seats from 2015. The Conservatives are doing fairly well in Quebec (slightly above 20%) and would likely keep their seats and make some gains. But their support is simply way too concentrated to really prevent the Liberals from winning 50+ seats. Could it change? Sure, I mean everything is possible. But Scheer's French is definitely inferior to Harper's. I don't really see any reason why the Conservatives would suddenly go above 25% in that province.

The Bloc could. Almost dead in 2011, this party is now on the rise. At 20-22% in the polls, it's still too low to really compete with the LPC in most of the province. However, we can easily imagine the Bloc gaining back some of the NDP votes. Should the nationalist party climb back to 25% and above, this could cost the Liberals multiple seats (in the east of Montreal island, the suburbs and elsewhere). The Bloc's message is very well aligned with the CAQ's one and this party remains extremely popular in Quebec.

I should mention that Mainstreet is providing riding polls and so far, in Quebec, they show the NDP even lower than the national polls. It's possible the party of Jagmeet Singh is below 5%! The Liberals, on the other hand, are higher in those polls by a few points. I haven't made any adjustment yet but it'll come soon. So if you're somehow hoping for the national polls to be wrong and overestimate the Liberals, well the riding polls are bad news for you.

Then there is Ontario. This is the province Andrew Scheer needs to win. Without major breakthrough in Quebec, he can't afford to be behind in Ontario. Sure he's in very good positions in the Prairies, Alberta and especially BC to make significant gains, but he'll fall short of the magic number of 169 without Ontario. As a matter of fact, he would fall of even creating any suspense and finish behind the Liberals.

Polls have been fairly clear over the last two weeks: Trudeau and the Liberals are ahead in Canada's most populous province. Yes they might be down compared to 2015 (and it's actually not sure), but they are still ahead. And by enough to maybe win a majority. The seats they'd lose would be compensated by the gains in Quebec.

There as well the riding polls are showing that the Liberals might actually be even higher than what the national polls are indicating. And the NDP is below any expectations. I'm talking of the NDP collapsing below 10% in Ontario. Yes that seems absurd but those are the current numbers.

The one thing surprising to me is that all those numbers don't match well with a very detailed Innovative survey. In this one, we can clearly see that the Liberals are actually down among some major groups of voters, including what they refer to as the "core left". So you wouldn't really imagine the Liberals being able to compensate some losses by having some NDP voters joining them. More importantly, you have the "Canadian dream strugglers" where the Tories are now ahead. Those are exactly the people targeted by the Conservative campaign. So it's a little bit surprising to see the Liberals doing so well in Ontario where non-horse race numbers would point to a less favourable scenario (that includes the numbers regarding a desire for change).

In any case, I think it's fairly obvious the campaign is just starting. The Liberals will need to play defense for one long month. In Quebec the Bloc will attack them non-stop on bill 21. A Leger poll published recently clearly indicated that a vast majority of Quebecois support this bill. Although, it should be said, there might be just enough of a sizable minority for the Liberals to win enough votes.

In Ontario, I'd expect the CPC's message to resonate well in the GTA. Google Trends is showing that people are starting to learn more about Andrew Scheer. And while I don't think his campaign was spectacular during the first week, he also seems to be delivering his message to the people he wants.

 

So it's official (and surprising), the leader of the People's Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, has been invited to the official leaders' debate. A surprising decision given that the debate commission had initially told Bernier he didn't make the cut. I'm of the opinion that this was the right thing to do as the PPC is running candidates pretty much everywhere and, while it might not elect more than 1 MP (or zero actually), the polls put this party around 2-5%, a score that isn't negligible. It seems to me that should indeed be enough to be invited.

Andrew Scheer's reaction was, to say the least, not positive. See below.

Statement from Andrew Scheer’s Press Secretary on the Bernier debate decision: pic.twitter.com/YvPeFBT3DG

— Katie Simpson (@CBCKatie) September 16, 2019

Given that Bernier came super close to winning the leadership of the CPC (he would have if it weren't for the effort of the dairy farmers, let's be honest), and given the general policies of the PPC, the conventional wisdom is that the PPC is mostly hurting the Tories.

I'd tend to mostly agree with this assumption. A poll from Abacus supported this thesis, although it was done right after the creation of the PPC. My own analysis of the data (for instance I looked at the correlation between polls as well as looking at the before/after of polls from the same firms when they decided to include the PPC), confirmed this. Other polls (for instance polls showing how the 2015 votes is distributed currently) also pointed towards the PPC mostly taking votes from the CPC, but not only. I think it's really hard to give an exact estimate. I'd say anything between 40 to 60%. I'd say we can confidently say a majority (or plurality) of the PPC votes are coming from the CPC, but not all.

In my model, I assumed that the PPC was taking 40% of its votes from the CPC, 15% from the Liberals, 15% from the NDP and 30% from new voters. Some might be surprised that I'd even assumed some NDP voters defecting to the PPC but all the numbers analysis I ran showed that there was indeed a link. Remember, chances are that if you are reading this blog, you are a political nerd who knows the full left-right spectrum. For you, it's not logical to jump from NDP to the PPC. But many voters aren't that logical.

Before looking at the current impact of the PPC on the CPC's chances of winning, I need to mention a somewhat counter-intuitive effect of my model. For the sake of illustration, let's round the Conservatives' results at 32% in 2015. If the PPC is polling at 4% and we assume 50% of those votes are coming from the Tories, then they should be at 30% (32% minus half of 4%) if nothing else had changed. So when the polls are currently placing the party of Andrew Scheer at 35%, it means they are up by 3%+2%, not 3%. In other words, they made up for the 2% lost to the PPC by gaining 2% elsewhere. Depending on where this 2% is coming from, it could actually make the Conservative's vote more efficient (imagine for instance the CPC losing the 2% to the PPC in rural ridings but gaining it back in the suburbs). Key word: could.

So what it means is that keeping the CPC constant at 35%, the higher you input the PPC in the model, the bigger the positive swing for the CPC becomes! Again I understand it might seem counter-intuitive but I actually think it's very logical if you think about. Of course the key element here is whether the CPC is indeed really at 35%, but that's another question.

So, is the CPC currently hurt by the PPC? My latest projections have the CPC at 35.2% nationwide and 140 seats, compared to 34.1% and 165 seats for the Liberals (the Liberal vote is just more efficient, thanks to Quebec. Read this piece in French from yesterday if you want to know why the Liberals could make big gains there). Specifically, here what it looks like:

The PPC is at 3.2% and zero seat (Bernier is in a close race in his riding of Beauce). So let's assume that 40% of the PPC votes would vote for Scheer if the PPC didn't exist. 15% would go to the LPC, 15% to the NDP and 30% would simply not vote. Let's assume it's the same in every province (well except in Quebec where we will assume 40%, 10%, 10% and 20% to the Bloc).

Doing so would give the following projections:

So yes the Tories would indeed be higher (they gained 40% of 3.2% but also a little bit more since 30% of the PPC wouldn't vote, thus making the other votes be worth slightly more). But realistically, it's only changing a few seats.

With that said, a few seats could well be the difference between a majority or minority, or a Conservative or Liberal government. So it's too early to categorically state that the PPC isn't affecting this election. But it does seem to be fairly minor right now. Of course, this exercise is full of assumptions. Moreover, with Bernier at the debates, it's possible he'll actually take more votes away from the Tories.

If we instead assume that 60% of the PPC votes is from the CPC and 40% wouldn't vote (so no exchange between PPC, LPC and NDP or Bloc), we get the following:

So depending on the assumptions, it seems the existence of the PPC is costing the CPC between 1 and 4 seats. Alternatively, it means the gap with the Liberals is decreased from 25 seats to 17 in the most aggressive scenario here. So it's definitely not negligible in this case.

In conclusion, I think it's fair to say the PPC could indeed hurt the Conservatives the most. But it's also not currently making the difference between Scheer becoming Prime Minister or not.

Quick update to the projections. I added the new daily trackers from Mainstreet and Nanos. Plus a few tweaks here and there (like the riding of Victoria). Nothing major. They are behind paywalls but I can add them to my averages. The Tories are now at 35% but... they still trail in Ontario and actually lose seats in Ontario and actually lose seats in this update.

Remember, this update is done early morning (like 1am Vancouver time). So no, it doesn't include any poll published in the AM on the East coast. Mostly because I'm still sleeping at that point!

I don't include the riding polls yet simply because we don't have enough. However, if I did, the Liberals would be even higher in Quebec while the NDP would be lower. But again, that's based on like 4-5 polls.

Have a nice day!

Remember that you can use the simulator here if you don't trust the polls (but trust me, at least when it's free, to convert percentages to seats).

And the riding by riding projections:

   Proj Canada 16.09.2019 by bryanbreguet on Scribd

Premier billet en français de cette campagne. Comme à mon habitude, si le sujet concerne le Québec, j'écris dans la langue de Molière.

Le Québec joue toujours un rôle important lors d’une élection fédérale, ne serait-ce qu’en raison du nombre important de députés dans la province (78 sur 338). Mais cela est encore plus vrai cette année. Le Québec pourrait en effet être la clé d’une réélection pour Justin Trudeau.

Il y a une certaine ironie à voir une province qui a voté majoritairement pour la CAQ et la laïcité il y a 1 an de cela -et qui soutient majoritairement la loi 21- qui pourrait fort bien être la raison principale pour laquelle Trudeau conserva son poste. Mais la politique est parfois bizarre. Aussi, le mode de scrutin étant ce qu’il est, un parti à 35% peut gagner très gros, surtout si l’opposition est divisée.

Il est encore tôt dans cette campagne pour vraiment aller dans les détails. Les projections actuelles sont disponibles ici. Mais une chose semble acquise : le NPD est en forte chute par rapport à 2015. Tellement en fait que le parti de Jagmeet Singh se retrouve parfois derrière les Verts d’Elizabeth May et à des niveaux d’appuis d’avant 2008. En gros le NPD au Québec n’existe quasiment plus.

Les Néo-democrates avaient déjà subit de fortes pertes en 2015, 4 ans après une vague orange qui avait permis à cette formation de devenir l’opposition officielle. Ils avaient quand même remporté 16 sièges. La question devant nous est ainsi claire : à qui iront ces sièges? Regardons cela en détails.

Sur cette liste, Outremont est déjà retournée en mains Libérales après une partielle en raison de la démission de Thomas Mulcair.

Comme vous pouvez le voir, une bonne partie de ces victoires avaient été acquises par des marges très faibles. Avec le NPD sous les 10% dans les sondages au Québec -donc une baisse de plus de 15 points- il n’y a aucune chance que ces comtés serrées restent NDP.

L’autre fait marquant est que le PLC avait terminé 2^e dans 13 comtés sur 16. Pour le parti de Trudeau, l’effondrement du NPD au Québec fournit une banquet de possiblement 13 sièges supplémentaires (pour rappel le PLC avait remporté 40 sièges en 2015).

Les Conservateurs ne sont pas bien placés pour aucun de ces sièges. Cela fait en sorte que pour Andrew Scheer, s’il veut avoir une chance de devenir Premier Ministre, il doit compter sur le Bloc pour empêcher le PLC de récolter plus de 50 sièges au Québec. Car si un tel scénario devait arriver, cela rendrait la tâche du chef Conservateur très, très difficile. Il lui faudrait gagner l’Ontario par une bonne marge. Or, les sondages actuels ne montrent de loin pas cela.

Est-ce le Bloc peut profiter de la baisse du NPD pour reprendre du poile de la bête au Québec? Après tout, avant 2011, le Bloc était quasiment assuré de remporter le plus de sièges dans la province. Pendant longtemps les électeurs Bloquistes partageaient beaucoup avec le NPD, sauf bien sûr la question de la souveraineté. Je me souviens que la vague orange de 2011 n’avait pas été une grosse surprise pour moi. Au contraire, je m’attendais à une percée du NPD à un moment ou un autre.

Tout ça pour dire qu’il n’est pas illogique de penser que ces électeurs NPD retourneront au Bloc. Le Bloc avait en fait baissé en termes de pourcentages de votes en 2015, cela veut ainsi dire que les votes NPD de 2011 perdus étaient allés au PLC. Est-ce que les électeurs restants sont plutôt du type à avoir le Bloc comme 2e choix? Pas impossible. Un tel transfert d’électeurs permettrait au Bloc de non seulement gagner une bonne partie de ces 16 comtés, mais aussi d’aller chercher des sièges au PLC. Utilisons le simulateur pour illustrer cela.

Si le Bloc pouvait grimper vers les 24-25% tout en ayant le PLC sous les 35% (donc sous son résultat de 2015), cela ouvre la porte à de nombreuses victoires dans le 450 et en régions. Tout à coup le Bloc passe de ses 10 députés en 2015 à 20 et plus. Un tel scénario forcerait presque assurément une minorité à Ottawa. Je ne vois en effet pas comment le PLC pourrait retenir sa majorité étant donné les pertes probables en Ontario et ailleurs.

Le Bloc a aussi une carte majeure à jouer lors de cette élection : c’est le seul parti qui soutient le Québec dans son désir d’imposer davantage de laïcité. Si le chef Conservateur a fait savoir plutôt clairement qu’il ne voudrait pas aller en court pour défaire la loi 21 (bien qu'il ne soutienne pas la loi), le chef Libéral a été bien moins clair. À une époque où la souveraineté pure ne semble pas vraiment d’actualité pour le Bloc, se concentrer sur la défense de la loi 21 pourrait payer. Après tout, une forte majorité de Québécois soutiennent cette loi.

Nous verrons bien ce que nous réserve la campagne, mais je ne serais pas surpris de voir le Bloc gentiment remonter vers les 25% et devenir bien plus compétitif. Après les 4 sièges de 2011, ce serait toute une renaissance pour le Bloc!

Quant au NPD, il pourra peut-être sauver quelques sièges en concentrant ses efforts. Le chef Singh fait un bon début de campagne et son français est meilleur que prévu. Mais il resterait que ce parti ne conservera vraiseblablement que très peu de ses députés dans la province à moins d'un `norme retournement de situation.