Seat Projections

The Conservatives are at the majority mark, according to LISPOP

Harold Jansen — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:59:56 -0600

In my last post, I noted that Wilfird Laurier's Barry Kay had the Conservatives just a couple of seats away from a majority. His latest projections put the Conservatives right at the magic number of 155. This has led Gilles Duceppe to call for support for the Bloc in order to deny the Conservatives a majority. It will be interesting to see whether those calls have any resonance with the electorate. Stephen Harper has worked hard to put a moderate face on the Conservatives (often to the dismay of the more ideologically inclined members of his party). This will be the test of how well Canadians have responded to his move to the political centre. In 2006, the Canadian Election Study found that Harper made gains, but that Canadians still had misgivings about the party and lingering concerns that he is too extreme. He has spent two and a half years trying to dispel those worries. We'll know in a little more than two weeks whether he's been successful.

Latest LISPOP projections have Conservatives just short of a majority

Harold Jansen — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:11:27 -0600

Professor Barry Kay has posted his latest projections of how vote shifts will translate into seats and he has the Conservatives at 153 seats, tantalizingly close to that magic number of 155. It will be interesting to see if there is any fear of a Conservative majority out there and if that sparks a backlash against the party in the last half of the campaign. It will also be interesting to see whether Dion and Layton shift their campaigns from talking about forming a government to denying Harper a majority.

Lastest seat projections from LISPOP put the Conservatives short of a majority

Harold Jansen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:46:30 -0600

One of the challenges of interpreting public opinion polls and predicting election outcomes in Canada is the single member plurality electoral system that only loosely translates popular vote into seats. That's why models that try to predict seat totals are interesting. One of the oldest and most successful is done by the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy. Political scientist Barry Kay has developed a model that looks at regional shifts in party support as reported in polls and maps that on what we see at the district level in the previous election. He has a new seat projection out today that puts the Conservatives at 145 seats, ten short of a majority. Most of those gains over 2006 would come at the expense of the Bloc in Quebec and the Liberals in Ontario. Interestingly, Kay's projections see the Liberal seat totals up in Quebec a a few gains in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. Overall, the Liberals break pretty much even as do the NDP. The story is essentially one of Bloc collapse and Conservative gains. The picture painted by polls and by the seat projections is that Quebec is the real story of the election.

New Federal Party Seat Projections from LISPOP

Greg Farries — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:55:25 -0700

Barry Kay, at the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy (LISPOP), has posted a new set of seat projections based at recent polling data from October:

The model suggests that a federal election held in early October, 2007 would have produced a minority government situation, but one in which the Conservatives would hold a considerable lead over the Liberals compared to our last projection in June. However, the Conservative holding of 138 seats would still be quite short of a majority in the 307 seat House. The table suggests that the Liberals would win 101 seats, the NDP would hold fairly stable at 27 seats and the Bloc would win 41 seats.

Make sure to check out the graphs, tables and other statistical information in the Features and Updates section of the LISPOP website.