Federal Election Poll

[The Green Barbarian]

Final prediction:

Conservative minority
NDP official opposition
Liberals and Bloc lose seats

My final prediction - Conservative majority.

[Glacier]

My prediction: a Conservative minority government, one seat short of a majority. They maintain power through the help of the independent MP. The Liberals form the official opposition despite the NDP receiving more votes. The Greens and Block drop 2% from last election.

[NAB]

Who ever is watching the polls, apparently there is supposed to be one final release late this afternoon. It will probably be the most interesting set in this whole campaign as the one people will have in mind as they head for the voting booths tomorrow.

Look for a last minute trend change in any of the parties as potential indicator. e.g if the Tories tick up in terms of trend line, then that majority is IMO well within sight. The others can fight over the leavings.

Nab

[Urbane]

Keep in mind that the EKOS poll always seems to shortchange the Conservatives more than the other polls, but for what i't worth here's the latest from the National Post site:

By Kathleen Harris, iPolitics.ca

The gap between the front-running Conservatives and the rising NDP has narrowed to just three points, a new poll finds.

The EKOS-iPolitics survey shows the Liberals trailing 11 points behind in an increasingly tight two-way race to the finish. Latest three-day polling data finds the Conservatives with 34.6% of support of decided and leaning voters, the NDP holding 31.4% and the Liberals clinging to 20.4%.

And because the NDP holds a distinct advantage as the second choice for the greatest number of Canadians, pollster Frank Graves said the party still has room to grow if it wins over wavering voters in the final hours of the campaign.

“It’s not impossible the NDP could come out tied in this election,” he said.

The Conservatives show some 11th-hour growth in the important battleground of Ontario, where the party now has 39.8% support. The Liberals hold 26.7% in the province, while the NDP has 26.2%. Vote-splitting makes predicting seat counts extremely difficult, as dynamics vary significantly from riding to riding. With room for movement still left, Mr. Graves said the outcome of Monday’s election will rest largely on these Ontario races.

“The key question is whether those movements to the Conservatives are real, and whether they continue,” Mr. Graves said. “If they do, that will keep the Conservatives in a minority, but there’s no chance they’re going to get a majority.”

In Quebec, the NDP surge shows no signs of receding; the party now holds 39.9% support, while the Bloc Quebecois sits at 22.8%. The Liberals have 15.2% and the Conservatives 14.6%.

In British Columbia, the NDP and Conservatives are tied with 36.5 and 36.3% respectively, while the Liberals hold 15.3%. The Greens have their best strength in that province, where leader Elizabeth May has spent most of the campaign, now holding 9.3% support.

The Greens are at 6.3% support and the Bloc Quebecois at 5.2% nationally.

The EKOS-iPolitics poll surveyed 3,268 adult Canadians, including 2,988 decided voters, between April 28-30. Results are considered accurate within plus or minus 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The poll asked the question: “If a federal election were held tomorrow, which party would you vote for?”

For more details, see http://ipolitics.ca/2011/05/01/conserva ... f-campaign

[NAB]

Regardless whether the poll numbers translate into actual seat count shifts in any major way or not, one thing is very sure - the two main parties (historically speaking) are getting sent some serious messages about how Canadians want them to behave in future. They would do well to be guided by that message.

Strikes me too that the BC Liberal Party should be paying attention to these federal polls, because what can happen federally can happen provincially too. My take is that the electorate isn't going to take too much more extreme right wing policy and BS, and if the only option is a hard shift extreme left then governments and businesses better take note and change their tune before it is too late.

Nab

[Urbane]

Final prediction:

Conservative minority
NDP official opposition
Liberals and Bloc lose seats



My final prediction - Conservative majority.

I salute you! You had it right and (most of) the pollsters had it wrong. Frank Graves (EKOS) the day before the election wrote that Ontario would decide whether it would be a Conservative government or an NDP government and that a Conservative majority was no longer a possibility. As in 2008 the pollsters underestimated the Conservative strength so they'd best do some re-tooling before the next election. Anyway, well done sir!

[The Green Barbarian]

Final prediction:

Conservative minority
NDP official opposition
Liberals and Bloc lose seats



My final prediction - Conservative majority.

I salute you! You had it right and (most of) the pollsters had it wrong. Frank Graves (EKOS) the day before the election wrote that Ontario would decide whether it would be a Conservative government or an NDP government and that a Conservative majority was no longer a possibility. As in 2008 the pollsters underestimated the Conservative strength so they'd best do some re-tooling before the next election. Anyway, well done sir!

Thank you Urbane! It was basically just using logic and insights from you. The sites I followed were showing the Conservatives at around 152 - 154 seats as of the night of May 1st. You made a great point about how Conservative voters by far show up to vote vs. NDP/Green voters, and also you made a point about how the pollsters always underestimate the Conservative strength. I figured that given those variables, that would be worth enough seats to give the Conservatives a majority. Plus I saw how the Liberals were just completely imploding, and I knew that at least some of those Libs would go Conservative as they would know the damage Jackie-O would do to Canada and would do anything to prevent that. I actually told a friend on Sunday that the Conservatives would get "north of 160 seats" and was told that there was no way that was going to happen. Never underestimate the Canadian voter - something all of the pollsters definitely did. PS - That Frank Graves guy has zero credibility - not sure why anyone was listening to him in the first place.

[Urbane]

Your methodology, GB, was far better than that of Frank Graves. Have a look at his post-mortem as he scrambles and fails to regain some grain of credibility:

http://www.ekospolitics.com/

By the way, he claims to have predicted a Conservative victory of some sort but as I posted on Sunday he was suggesting that Ontario would determine whether the NDP or Conservatives would win the election.