Note: no projections update today, see yesterday's post for the numbers. Also, remember that there is a French debate tonight.
Two days ago I was lamenting how boring this election had been, at least from the point of view of polling. I showed that, for the CPC for instance, the variations observed since the beginning of the campaign could be entirely explained by the sampling variations. In other words: no change in the underlying voting intentions.
But yesterday was a really good day for the Conservatives. First the daily tracker from Nanos put the CPC still ahead by 2.3 points. Similar to the previous days -although it was an increase of 1 point but this isn't significant- but the data regarding the preferred Prime Minister put Scheer ahead for the first time this election.
Now this trendline for preferred PM is getting VERY interesting. Scheer/Trudeau within the margin of error but this is a numerical new. Will this continue or not? @globeandmail @ctvnews @niknanos tracking #elxn43 #cdnpoli subscribe to data portal https://t.co/wMp9j9Rz7K pic.twitter.com/wADrOoXxrc— NikNanos.DataHound.KeynoteSpeaker (@niknanos) October 1, 2019
This is, at the very least, a symbolic turn.
Then Mainstreet's daily tracker moved from the CPC being down by 0.3pt to being ahead by 2.8pt!
It didn't stop there for the CPC. Ipsos' latest poll had this party at 37%, 3pt ahead of the Liberals (although that was actually a smaller lead than in the previous Ipsos poll). Finally, Angus-Reid published two polls. One was showing the swing in the 67 ridings won by less than 5% in 2015. The other was simply a normal nationwide poll. Both were showing essentially the same however: the CPC-LPC gap compared to 2015 improving by around 14-15 points (so from 7 down to 8 up). A poll that, if true, could maybe be good enough for a Conservative majority.
How good was yesterday for the Tories? If I only use those 4 polls (2 IVR, 2 online, so a nice mix), I'd get the following projections:
CPC: 149
LPC: 143
NDP: 21
Green: 4
Bloc: 20
That compares to 138-160 if I instead add the new polls to the average. So clearly the polls yesterday were good. Angus-Reid even had the Tories with the lead in Ontario, something that had only happened in one Dart poll 2 weeks ago.
It is obviously just four polls. But hey, if you are reading this blog on a daily basis, you expect some overreaction to what could ultimately be meaningless variations!
We'll see if Wednesday is as good for Scheer as Tuesday was. I'll likely update the projections and map tomorrow. In the meantime, I have updated the simulator with all the riding and local adjustment I have made so far. So have fun with it.
