CPAC-Nanos Election Tracking CP 34.2, LP 26.7, NDP 21.4, BQ 9.5, GP 8.2 (ending October 12)

Again more positive news for the Conservatives. The upswing continues into election day.

[updated Mon Oct 13 14:08:54 EDT 2008]

Ouch.

[updated Mon Oct 13 14:19:03 EDT 2008]

Awesome-hope just maybe enough 3 way battles might... just might.. squeeze out a majority????

[updated Mon Oct 13 14:27:32 EDT 2008]

Aside from the state of the world economy, and the effect that it will have on Canada, (which seems to have become the ballot question) what is the one issue that would interest any of you that has not been addressed by any of the parties in this election campaign.

For me, it is about the stance that we would take on the international arena relative to climate change. Even a massive reduction in our carbon footprint has no material impact on the world stage. Expanding industrial economies in China and India and an expanding middle class in those countries will put 10's millions of cars on their roads compared to the 20 million or so now on the roads in Canada.

None of the parties has really addressed this, aside from motherhood statements like "we will be and example for the rest of the world to follow", "we will not export raw bitumen to countries with less stringent emissions goals than ours", etc.

Any comments?

[updated Mon Oct 13 14:54:20 EDT 2008]

There will be no majority with these numbers. In fact, the results are likely to be very similar to 2006.

Plugging in the latest Nanos numbers into the election predictor on the Hill and Knowlton web site gives the following results (http://predictor.hillandknowlton.ca/predictor/):

CONS: 126
LIBS: 86
BLOC: 50
NDP: 46
GRN: 0
IND: 2

Other election prediction sites give similar results. Here is the current prediction from Milton Chan's Election Prediction Project (http://www.electionprediction.org/2007_fed/index.php):

CONS: 125
LIBS: 94
BLOC: 51
NDP: 36
GRN: 0
IND: 2

The current prediction from Democratic Space (http://www.democraticspace.com/canada2008/):

CONS: 128
LIBS: 92
BLOC: 52
NDP: 34
GRN: 0
IND: 2

And, finally, the current prediction from Trendlines Research (http://www.trendlines.ca/electcanada.htm):

CONS: 131
LIBS: 105
BLOC: 42
NDP: 28
GRN: 0
IND: 2

The main reason why the Conservatives will not win a majority (or even a strong minority) is because they are not leading in either of the two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec. According to the Nanos regional breakdown of today's poll (http://www.nanosresearch.com/election/CPAC-Nanos-October-13-2008E.pdf) the Conservatives currently have 19 per cent support in Quebec, behind the Liberals at 22 and way behind the Bloc at 40. As for Ontario, the Liberals currently lead at 35 per cent vs 33 for the Conservatives and 26 per cent for the NDP. As for Atlantic Canada, Conservatives trail there as well: 25 per cent support vs 41 for the Liberals and 24 for the NDP. The only area of the country where the Conservatives currently are leading is the west. But since they already have most of those seats already, leading in the west doesn't do them much good.

[updated Mon Oct 13 15:17:27 EDT 2008]

Time for our predictions. Could we restrict this thread to just what you think each party will get in terms of percentage of popular vote. We can ridicule other peoples opinions on a different thread.

[updated Mon Oct 13 15:28:13 EDT 2008]

I wonder how many are ignorantly basing their votes on what is going on down south rather then on which candidate best represents their riding and are the best fit for the job.

In most cases that happens to be a Conservative, much to the dislike of some who prefer someone closer to their own ideological perspectives.
But they should learn to get over themselves and vote for in the best interests of all people and not just themselves.

"Strategic voting" won't yield positive results... and at the same time subverts our democracy in ways that go against its intended purpose(s).

Thus continues the hypocrisy from some in the "Left" of this country.

Liberals on the other hand are not really "Left" but aim to serve their own self interests...

Jobs for friends and so forth... Anyone who has been paying attention to CPAC over the years knows how much the Liberals no longer deserve to be a party let alone be in opposition.

What-A-Mess.

Hopefully voters will come to understand this in time before they vote and don't allow themselves to be drawn in by the hardline partisan rhetoric which exists predominately amongst the current opposition... and vote in some new groups more suitable and reflective of our country's diversity.

[updated Mon Oct 13 15:46:47 EDT 2008]

Has anyone noticed that Nik called more people per night for the last three nights and the number of undecided has increased. They will be the deciding factor if they turn out in large numbers. All of you on the right made up your minds who to vote for before this polling started and I believe the public did the same thing . The undecided could not make up their minds if they should vote NDP or Green . With all the polls of decided voters showing Harper ahead they will decide when they walk into the polling booth that they need to stop Harper so they will mark their X for the only party who can do that. I believe the Liberals will gain the most from the undecided because so many don' t trust Harper and they will try to stop him from getting a majority. Make your predictions on the thread above .

[updated Mon Oct 13 16:07:53 EDT 2008]

The time has come to decide our future. Good luck to all Canadians - we should get the government we elect.
Another minority.
I think the next election will achieve a majority - so we should enjoy this while it lasts.
I would like guesses on this: If there is another minority how many months will it last?

[updated Mon Oct 13 16:16:37 EDT 2008]

Nik: Thanks for doing such a great job keeping the rest of us informed throughout the campaign; it is greatly appreciated!

[updated Mon Oct 13 18:59:09 EDT 2008]

With Elizabeth not having to challenge the Grits for votes in Nova Scotia, the Green popular vote is of no concern. Sorry Elizabeth, we still have fist past the post. It seems that the coziness between May and Dion is biting both of them. I am surprised at Layton's numbers considering he wants to shut down Fort Mac & Fort MacKay and does not want all Canadian small businesses to realize reduced income tax. All he talks about is big oil an dbanks - there are small businesses who also would benefit from reduced federal taxes - tell it like it is Jack. Jack talks about lost manufacturing jobs - what about the 110,000 jobs created last month - many are manufacturing jobs.

On CPAC today, Harper is speaking like he should have spoken over the past two weeks. With speeches like those today in Atlantic Canada, he would have climbed up by at least 3-5 points in the polls.

[updated Mon Oct 13 19:49:56 EDT 2008]

Is it just me or is the tone a heck of a lot more civilized today? I only read about 3 posts in all of the above that could be considered to be blatently partisan (1 Tory, 1 Lib and 1 NDP supporter by my reckoning). It is SO refreshing. Too bad the election couldn't have been like this.

Thank you folks for toning it down today. Must be the turkey or that we are all just really thankful for the great country we live in.

How ever you decide to vote, do get out there and exercise your democratic right. And may the best candidate in each of your ridings win! Good luck!!!

[updated Mon Oct 13 20:59:13 EDT 2008]

What happens if we have a hung parliament, in other words an effective tie, or one where the maximun seats of any one party don't go over, say, 115 seats.

[updated Mon Oct 13 21:08:17 EDT 2008]

Grand Merde ... and the US will likely elect Obama ... well, our voters have the right to be wrong.

We'll see Tuesday.

[updated Mon Oct 13 22:44:03 EDT 2008]

I see that the US Stock Markets climbed on average 11% today. The Canadian markets were closed for the holiday but they are likely to be affected in a big way tomorrow on election day.

I want to know what our federal government will do about this wild change in the stock market. Will the government intervene right away and bring in some measures to resolve this situation? Surely with such an unprecedented change in the market our government will do something to calm the Canadian public?

[updated Mon Oct 13 23:10:36 EDT 2008]

I still find the number of undecided voters unusually large. This could play out a number of ways: Most likely; undecided won't vote. Other possibilities: Many undecideds will vote but will split along approximately the same lines as decided voters. Many undecideds are upset with leading parties and will register a protest vote for Greens, NDP or a small party where available.

I really don't have a clue where the UD vote will go but caution all that there is still a lot of potential volatility out there.

[updated Tue Oct 14 01:29:16 EDT 2008]

OTTAWA, Oct 13 - The final poll on the eve of Tuesday's general election in Canada projected a strengthened Conservative minority government and a weakened official opposition Liberal Party.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081014/wl_canada_nm/canada_us_politics_projection_canada_1

The Ekos poll issued Monday night projected that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives would advance to approximately 136 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons.

This would be a net gain of nine seats but would still fall short of the 155 Harper needs for majority, in which he would not have to rely on other parties to get his budgets and legislation through Parliament.

Harper was elected with a minority for the first time in January 2006 and managed, by some calculations, to have the longest minority government in Canadian history.

Under the Ekos projection the Liberals, who had a hard time winning public support for a carbon tax at a time of high energy prices, would lose 11 seats and end up with 84.

The Bloc Quebecois, which advocates independence for the majority French-speaking province of Quebec but has not pushed that in this campaign, would rise five seats to 51.

The leftist New Democratic Party would gain between five and 35 seats, and two seats would be independent.

Harper called the election on September 7 to seek a renewed mandate to govern. He predicted it would produce another minority but said that once re-elected the opposition parties would be reluctant to block his agenda, at least to start with.

Ekos's automated telephone rolling poll covered the three days through Monday. In popular support, it had the Conservatives out front with 34.8 percent compared with 26.4 percent for the Liberals, 19.4 percent for the New Democrats, 9.8 percent for the Bloc and 9.6 percent for the Green Party.

It predicted the Greens would have no seats. The party struck out in the last election too, but one independent legislator joined them last month.

The poll covered 2,358 committee voters and carries a margin of error of 2 points 19 times out of 20.

(Reporting by Randall Palmer)

[updated Tue Oct 14 08:15:19 EDT 2008]

Last Night, Claude Genest, Deputy Leader of the Greens was on Duffy telling everyone to vote ABL. He says that the Liberals have used them and double crossed them. The former Green, now Liberal candidate from Saanich Island BC, Briony Penn was on with him. He had less than kind words for her. The Greens will be following this up with a national email and phone campaign to their candidates to get the word out to dump the Liberals. The NDP will likely be get the vote benefit from this but the largest benefactor will be the Tories as it will minimize the Liberal strategic vote. Of course not one word in the Liberal biased MSM about it but you can listen to on the CTV website under Duffy Live 13 Oct.

[updated Tue Oct 14 08:22:19 EDT 2008]

Will the Liberal Venue for election results will it be empty?

"It is quite likely that the Liberals under Stephane Dion will post among the worst showings in Liberal Party history. The current low water mark is the 1984 Turner loss (28%) and the research points to a potential final Liberal outcome in that range." -Nanos

What rivals will be left for a run at the leadership?

Bob Rae, Brian Tobin, McKenna, Belinda Stronach come to mind.
I don't think Iggy can make a serious run if he barely holds onto his riding. A leader should have a gap of +3,000 votes.

[updated Tue Oct 14 08:37:46 EDT 2008]

After all the sanctimonious crap from Liberals about the Cadman tape the truth is finally starting to come out and now it is the Liberals own two experts who are saying that the Liberals (not Zytaruk) are guilty. An excerpt from an article on today's CTV website:

New report casts doubt on Cadman affair tape
Updated Mon. Oct. 13 2008 8:10 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

A new report has cast doubt on the authenticity of a taped conversation which the Liberals say implicates Conservative Leader Stephen Harper in a bribery scandal involving the late MP Chuck Cadman.

CTV News reported Monday that two audio experts, hired by the Liberal Party of Canada to analyze the tape, found that "the recording cannot be shown to be complete."

The latest, Liberal-funded report states "it can be postulated that the original ... tape recording was digitized, edited digitally and then electronically placed on the evidence tape associated with this dispute."

[updated Tue Oct 14 08:49:45 EDT 2008]

Good Morning and here we go....

Already voted and NL will be reporting first...

Good Luck to all

[updated Tue Oct 14 09:55:30 EDT 2008]

Please help: Including NIK

Here is the promise:

Much of the tension that has arisen between the federal and provincial governments over the last decade is the result of the fiscal imbalance. Paul Martin's government denies the fiscal imbalance exists despite the fact the provinces are struggling to deliver essential services such as health and education while the federal government accumulates surpluses. I don't think this is fair and I don't think this is right. A conservative government is committed to bringing balance to the fiscal relationship between the federal and provincial governments.

A conservative government would also support changes to the equalization program to ensure provinces and territories have the opportunity to develop their economies and sustain important core social services. We will remove non-renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula to encourage the development of economic growth in the non-renewable resource sectors across Canada.

That was what Harper promised!

This has nothing to do with a promise on the Atlantic Accord - that did not happen.
When the national media refers to a disagreement regarding the Atlantic Accord - they are spinning - it simply is untrue. How this has been allowed to continue without one media outlet providing evidence is beyond me and perpetrates a fraud on the Canadian public.

[updated Tue Oct 14 16:51:16 EDT 2008]

Elections Canada has released its preliminary advance poll figures. The bottom line: Turnout in these early polls is down 6.5% relative to the last election (see table above). Between the lines, there are a lot of interesting stories.

First, the Conservative campaign team has made a lot of its ability to get-out-the-vote (GOTV), particularly to advance polls. Doing so helps the party put votes "in the bank" before people have a chance to change their minds in the final weeks of the campaign. This year, as with each of the past three elections, the Tories could have used a few more "banked votes" to cushion their last-minute fall in the polls.

In a lecture in one of my classes last term, Tom Flanagan estimated that, in some swing ridings in 2006, the Conservatives led the Liberals by as much as 15 percentage points in these pre-vote contests. That is a huge advantage. This year's low numbers (at least, across the board) suggest the Tories have been less successful in pulling out the vote. This could be a sign of things to come on Election Day.

Second, the date of this year's election -- a day after Thanksgiving, and on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot -- has made turnout at the advance polls even more crucial to the Liberals' success (see my earlier discussion for the many reasons why). A close examination of one key riding -- Winnipeg South-Centre -- reveals no huge jump in advance poll turnout. If the Liberals are looking to keep close seats like this one, they had better hope their supporters don't eat too much turkey, or are willing to break religious traditions in order to vote on Tuesday.

Third, looking at the provincial breakdowns, advance poll numbers were down in two key "battleground" provinces: Ontario (-11.7%) and BC (-13.7%), but UP by 16.2% in Quebec (see table above). Again, if the Tories' GOTV strategy involved a heavy front-loading emphasis, it appears to have fallen flat in Ontario and BC. (I'd invite people to scour the riding-by-riding breakdowns to see whether turnout was higher in individual, swing constituencies.) But what's going on in Quebec? Without knowing which party won the advance-poll-war, it's difficult to say whether the increased turnout is the product of a better Tory groundgame in the province. If it is, these "banked votes" may prove important insurance for the Conservatives, whose popularity plummeted soon after these polls were closed. On the other hand, these advance voters may have led the stampede to the Bloc. Either way, we'll have to wait even longer to find out who won many Quebec ridings, as the counting of advance ballots will be crucial to the outcome in many close contests.

Lastly, if advance polls are any indication, we have little reason to expect turnout to rise significantly on October 14th. It's unlikely to drop much, either, but the election doesn't appear to have engaged the public any more than the Christmas campaign of 2005/2006. (In Alberta, incidently, turnout at advance polls was down 24.3%.)

Turnout at Advance Polls

Province/Territory
2006 (final figures)
2008 (preliminary)
% change

Newfoundland and Labrador
11,465
10,178
-11.2%

Prince Edward Island
11,287
10,402
-7.8%

Nova Scotia
52,049
37,715
-27.5%

New Brunswick
49,944
49,684
-0.5%

Quebec
376,724
437,891
16.2%

Ontario
651,697
575,605
-11.7%

Manitoba
43,433
35,607
-18.0%

Saskatchewan
41,644
37,754
-9.3%

Alberta
135,951
102,885
-24.3%

British Columbia
183,861
158,713
-13.7%

Yukon
1,241
1,492
20.2%

Northwest Territories
1,205
1,118
-7.2%

Nunavut
538
209
-61.1%

Total
1,561,039
1,459,253
-6.5%

calculated from: http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=med&document=oct0708b&dir=pre&lang=e&textonly=false

[updated Tue Oct 14 20:04:26 EDT 2008]

Without the benefit of the final numbers I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the CPC supporters who chose to re-elect Stephen Harper.I sincerely hope you were right in your choice . The majority of Canadians did not chose to give him the majority he wanted and I believe we will have to wait until he gets gets it to see what his real agenda is. Since Harper could not gain a majority against the weakest leader in Liberal history he should be weary of forcing another election in the near future . With the Liberals having rules that have an automatic convention after every election he would be wise to govern as a minority since he would fare worse against a leaderless Liberal party than he did this time against Dion. $300.000.000 to have an election might look to some as a waste of tax payers money when we end up with another minority. Celebrate the victory because it might be the last time for a long time even with all the opposition parties being broke for the next election in late March or early April.

[updated Wed Oct 15 00:15:20 EDT 2008]

Well I called it fairly close. I said

CPC - 144

Libs - 76

NDP - 38

Bloc - 50

I feel pretty good about how close i came.

To those liberals who said the cpc would get 88 seats ... hehehehehe - i'm going to enjoy a chuckle at your expense for a while.

Now - the next big question of course - will stephane dion step down or will he go down fighting? Dosanj has all but said he'll support bob rae in an immediate leadership race tonite, dion seems to suggest he'll stay on.

Will dion stay or will he take that long walk in the snow?

[updated Wed Oct 15 02:00:31 EDT 2008]

Our predictions.Using the latest numbers from E.C.
CPC 37.6 Lib. 26.2 NDP 18.2 Bloc 10 Gr. 6.8

Using those numbers and how much we missed by for each party these are what I calculated . Darryl finished first at 4.3 HC second at 4.6 and Enlightened third at 4.8 Others were MAPs.5.5,Informed 6.2.MFox 6.4Craig 8, Christine 8.8, NDP Tweaked 14.8 and the only two with the Liberals ahead were GoHabs and yours truly at 23.2 and 22.2 respectively. Angus Reid finished 5.4%and Nik at 9 %. I think it was fun to make it a little more of a competition. I would like it if we predicted how long this parliament will last. Pick a date the government will fall or when Harper will call the next election ,not the number of months it will last. E.G. October 16,2009. Not my prediction.

[updated Thu Oct 16 20:20:58 EDT 2008]