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.
