After almost a week of campaigning, polls have moved. The Liberals aren't as high as they were before and their 'guaranteed' majority is anything but. The Conservatives have climbed back in the West, especially in BC, while slightly closing the gap in Ontario. Frank Graves from Ekos even said that his new numbers, that will be published today, have the CPC ahead in Ontario!
In Quebec, we are seeing signs that we could have a four-way race with all 4 parties between 15 and 30%. And Atlantic Canada has seen a massive drop of the Liberals.
With that being said, the Liberals are still polling, in average, 9-10 points ahead of the Tories in Ontario and by the same margin in Quebec over the Bloc. The model therefore still sees them in majority territory as opposed to other models. Please keep in mind that as opposed to 338, the topline numbers are not averages. This is why my seat numbers don't have decimals. Yes I run simulations to get ranges and probabilities, but the topline numbers are the results of the average polling numbers only. This explains why I have the Liberals at 174 but the chances of a majority are only 43%. What it means is that if the polls are spot on, Trudeau likely wins a majority. But if the polls are a little bit wrong or if the Liberals are just slightly less efficient, they win a minority. To give a specific example, my 'official' projections have the Liberals at 174 but the average of the 5,000 simulations only gives them 165 seats. It's just two different approaches and there is no right or wrong. But I wanted to point it out to explain the numbers.
I think we are seeing that people are paying attention (Google Trends shows that as well) and things can definitely move fast. O'Toole is definitely performing better than expected while the Liberal campaign has not been at its best. As for Singh, he is, as expected, quite good on the campaign trail. We have known this since 2019.
So it is possible that things will change quickly, we'll see. But as it stands, with the polling average, I still think the Liberals are clearly ahead and either winning a majority or close to it.
Map
Detailed projections
Proj Canada 21 August 2021 by bryanbreguet on Scribd
