I have added the Dec 30 SES poll, which shows the Liberals and Conservative statistically tied. My rolling average now includes the following polls:

Dec 30 SES
Dec 22 Ipsos-Reid
Dec 22 SES
Dec 21 Leger
Dec 20 Strategic Counsel

For complete details, see:

http://election.democraticSPACE.com

Adding these to my 5-poll rolling average yields a small Liberal minority with the Bloc Quebecois holding the balance of power.

Note:
LPC+BQ=180
CPC+BQ=167
LPC+NDP=141
CPC+NDP=128

	2006 PROJECTED RESULTS - 20-30 Dec 05
	LPC	CPC	NDP	GRN	BQ	OTH
TOTAL SEATS	118	105	23	0	62	0
% OF SEATS	38%	34%	7%	0%	21%	0%

Hopes for the Second Half of the Campaign
By Gregory D. Morrow

Greetings from the Alberta capital of Edmonton, where I am visiting for a few days before heading to Ottawa. A few of my hopes for the second half of the campaign:

1. Mud-slinging. Let’s pray it stops. The level of political discourse during the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election reached new lows because any talk of real policy was replaced with pure mug-slinging on both sides, with the sole intent of character assassination. Name-calling and digging up dirt doesn’t inform the electorate. It may swing a few voters on the margins, but that is far outweighed by the number of people who simply choose not to vote at all if the tenor of the campaign turns overly negative. A democracy that alienates the many to attract the votes of a few seriously undermines its own legitimacy.

2. Policy. Let’s hope the parties continue to stick with policy. The first half of the campaign has been surprisingly good at laying out real policy choices for Canadians - on child care, on tax cuts, on dealing with crime, for example. This isn’t as sexy as digging up dirt, but it is more useful for the nation’s future. For example, digging up dirt on the income trust probe is important, but it can wait (or, at least just let the RCMP do its job). It needn’t deflect the media’s attention from more substantial policy choices that voters must make going forward.

3. Honesty. Let’s hope that the leaders state their positions openly and honestly. Let’s hope that no party has a hidden agenda - that the leaders say what they mean and will do what they say. Let’s hope that leaders answer the questions posed to them during the debates, rather than avoid a direct answer. Let’s hope that facts are not distorted to intentionally mislead the electorate.

4. Nationalism. Let’s move beyond a childish ‘who loves Canada more’ campaign. Let’s assume that Gilles Duceppe respects Canada but wants a separate Quebec nation, and that the rest of the leaders are patriotic nationalists. Quebeckers will decide who will best look out for their interests, and the rest of Canada will weigh the differences between a Conservative or Liberal minority (surely, the most likely outcomes at this point). If nationalism is covering a more substantial debate about fiscal federalism, then let’s have that debate instead of beating around the bush and wrapping ourselves in the flag.

5. Priorities. Given the likelihood of another minority government (with another short parliament likely), let’s hope that parties outline not only their positions on given issues, but what 3 things top their agendas. That is, what are the most pressing issues and how can they ensure they can deliver progress on those issues?

LAUNCH: democraticSPACE Election Predictions!

predictions.democraticSPACE.com
election.democraticSPACE.com

This new feature at democraticSPACE.com is now up and running. Post your comments and check out our first round of predictions. This site will be continually updated until the Jan 23 election date. The 3 blue links in the navigation bar to the left take you to:

PREDICTIONS HOME — Homepage for Election Predictions
ELECTION HOME — Homepage for Poll Tracking/Seat Projections
LATEST SEAT PROJECTIONS — The most up-to-date seat projection PDF

Within the PDF file, you can also link back to the individual riding pages and the poll tracking pages for the various provinces/regions.

I have added 3 new polls — Dec 22 SES, Dec 22 Ipsos-Reid and Dec 21 Leger to my update (note that I include SES and Strategic Counsel once per week since they are rolling polls). There has been no movement since my last update. From the 2004 election, the Liberals are down and every other party is up. The Liberals are down 15 seats, the Conservatives are up 3 seats, the NDP are up 4 seats and the Bloc Quebecois is up 9 seats. My rolling average now includes the following polls:

Dec 22 Ipsos-Reid
Dec 22 SES
Dec 21 Leger
Dec 20 Strategic Counsel
Dec 19 Pollara

For complete details, see:

http://election.democraticSPACE.com

Adding these to my 5-poll rolling average yields a small Liberal minority with the Bloc Quebecois holding the balance of power.

Note:
LPC+BQ=183
CPC+BQ=165
LPC+NDP=143
CPC+NDP=125

	2006 PROJECTED RESULTS - 19-22 Dec 05
	LPC	CPC	NDP	GRN	BQ	OTH
TOTAL SEATS	120	102	23	0	63	0
% OF SEATS	39%	33%	7%	0%	21%	0%

The above seat projections are based on the following regional support levels, which are the averages of the above 5 polls (change from 2004 in parenthesis):

NATIONAL
Liberal 35.6% (-1.1%) - 120 seats (-15)
Conservative 30.4% (+0.8%) - 102 seats (+3)
NDP 16.4% (+0.7%) - 23 seats (+4)
Bloc Quebecois 12.4% (0) - 63 seats (+9)
Green 4.6% (+0.3%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 0.6% (-0.8%) - 0 seats (-1)

ONTARIO
Liberal 43.0% (-1.7%) - 63 seats (-12)
Conservative 34.8% (+3.3%) - 34 seats (+10)
NDP 16.2% (-1.9%) - 9 seats (+2)
Green 5.2% (+0.7%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 0.8% (-0.5%) - 0 seats (0)

QUEBEC
Bloc Quebecois 53.4% (+4.5%) - 63 seats (+9)
Liberal 27.0% (-6.9%) - 12 seats (-9)
Conservative 8.8% (0) - 0 seats (0)
NDP 8.0% (+3.4%) - 0 seats (0)
Green 3.2% (-1.4%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 1.0% (+0.3%) - 0 seats (0)

BRITISH COLUMBIA
Liberal 39.2% (+10.6%) - 16 seats (+8)
Conservative 29.8% (-6.5%) - 13 seats (-9)
NDP 25.0% (-1.5%) - 7 seats (+2)
Green 5.0% (-1.3%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 1.0% (-1.5%) - 0 seats (-1)

ALBERTA
Conservative 57.8% (-3.8%) - 27 seats (+1)
Liberal 22.0% (0) - 1 seats (-1)
NDP 12.2% (+2.6%) - 0 seats (0)
Green 7.8% (+1.6%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 0.2% (-0.2%) - 0 seats (0)

PRAIRIES
Conservative 41.2% (+0.9%) - 20 seats (0)
Liberal 30.8% (+0.4%) - 5 seats (+1)
NDP 21.4% (-2.1%) - 3 seats (-1)
Green 6.4% (+3.7%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 0.2% (-2.8%) - 0 seats (0)

ATLANTIC CANADA
Liberal 42.6% (-3.6%) - 21 seats (-1)
Conservative 33.0% (+2.5%) - 8 seats (+1)
NDP 21.6% (+1.8%) - 3 seats (0)
Green 2.2% (-0.9%) - 0 seats (0)
Other 0.6% (+0.2%) - 0 seats (0)

I am in the process of rolling out a new feature: the democraticSPACE.com predictions. Note that my regular updates are projections — that is, translations of polling data into seat counts. These reflect the current state of affairs, thus change week-by-week, poll-by-poll. By contrast, predictions are speculations of what will happen in the January 23 election. You can preview what I have done so far at:

http://predictions.democraticSPACE.com

This is incomplete to date, but will be complete this process within the week. This feature will show ridings that I am prepared to call for a given party/candidate and those that are too close to call to date. Each riding will have its own page, where you can post your own predictions and comments. The 2004 results and 2006 candidates will be listed for each riding. I will take into account these comments when making the democraticSPACE.com predictions. You will be able to link directly from the PDF files posted on election.democraticSPACE.com to the individual ridings on predictions.democraticSPACE.com.

I have added 2 new polls — Dec 19 Pollara and Dec 20 Strategic Counsel to my update (note that I include SES and Strategic Counsel once per week since they are rolling polls). Both polls confirm a very slight lead for the Liberals. So, my rolling average now includes the following polls:

Dec 20 Strategic Counsel
Dec 19 Pollara
Dec 16 Leger
Dec 16 SES
Dec 15 Strategic Counsel

For complete details, see:

http://election.democraticSPACE.com

Adding these to my 5-poll rolling average yields a small Liberal minority with the Bloc Quebecois holding the balance of power.

Note:
LPC+BQ=183
CPC+BQ=165
LPC+NDP=143
CPC+NDP=125

	2006 PROJECTED RESULTS - 15-20 Dec 05
	LPC	CPC	NDP	GRN	BQ	OTH
TOTAL SEATS	120	102	23	0	63	0
% OF SEATS	40%	32%	7%	0%	21%	0%

I’ve been quite busy lately, so I haven’t posted an update in a few days. I have added 4 new polls — Dec 12 Pollara, Dec 15 Strategic Counsel, Dec 16 Leger and Dec 16 SES. After some initial modest gains for the Liberals in the first week or so of the campaign, the Conservatives have narrowed the gap this week. The NDP continues a slow decline, but still above its 2004 levels.

I have also tweaked the pages on the main site — now the default page for each region is the ‘moving average’ of the 5 comprehensive polls, instead of simply the seat projections of the individual polls. You can still access those individual polls by clicking on ‘individual polls’ in the upper right. I have also added GRAPHS for the moving average in each region. And I also amalgamated the four Atlantic Canada provinces into one page (the national and Atlantic Canada PDFs still show the breakdowns). I did the same for Saskatchewan and Manitoba = The Prairies and Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories = The North. This change makes it easier for me to update - so my apologies for making you click the PDF to get the breakdown.

For complete details, see:

http://election.democraticSPACE.com

Adding these to my 5-poll rolling average (i.e. the four polls above + Dec 10 Ipsos-Reid) yields a small Liberal minority with the Bloc Quebecois holding the balance of power.

Note:
LPC+BQ=183
CPC+BQ=165
LPC+NDP=143
CPC+NDP=125

	2006 PROJECTED RESULTS - 10-16 Dec 05
	LPC	CPC	NDP	GRN	BQ	OTH
TOTAL SEATS	120	102	23	0	63	0
% OF SEATS	39%	33%	7%	0%	21%	0%

Sudbury pollster Paul Seccaspina appears to have staked his reputation on a hunch when he went out on a limb and predicted a Conservative majority government would be formed on Jan 23. This certainly appears to run counter to every poll in the country. But, it got me thinking about what exactly would it take to form a Conservative majority government, and whether that is even possible. So, I ran a few simple scenarios through my election forecast model. I simply asked, holding all other parties constant, at what percentage shift from Liberal to Conservative, applied equally across all regions (including Quebec), would result in the Conservatives getting 155 seats? It is a theoretical calculation, of course, but it is a rough approximation.

The answer: The Conservatives would have to see a 8.5 point pure shift from Liberal to Conservative across every region from the 2004 election. Impossible? Probably.

This would produce the following seat count:
Conservative 155
Liberal 71
Bloc Quebecois 59
NDP 23

This corresponds to the following support levels:

NATIONAL
Conservative 38.1%
Liberal 28.2%
NDP 15.7%
Bloc Quebecois 12.4%

ONTARIO
Conservative 40.0% - 58 seats
Liberal 36.2% - 35 seats
NDP 18.1% - 13 seats

QUEBEC
Bloc Quebecois 48.9% - 59 seats
Liberal 25.4% -12 seats
Conservative 17.3% - 4 seats
NDP 4.6% - 0 seats

BRITISH COLUMBIA
Conservative 44.8% - 30 seats
NDP 26.5% - 3 seats
Liberal 20.1% - 3 seats

ALBERTA
Conservative 70.1% - 28 seats
Liberal 13.5% - 0 seats
NDP 9.6% - 0 seats

SASKATCHEWAN/MANITOBA
Conservative 48.8% - 21 seats
NDP 23.5% - 3 seats
Liberal 21.9% - 4 seats

ATLANTIC CANADA
Conservative 39.0% - 15 seats
Liberal 37.7% - 14 seats
NDP 19.8% - 3 seats

A new Ipsos-Reid poll out today confirms a slight shift towards the Liberals, although their numbers show a much tighter race than the SES and Leger numbers from yesterday. I’ve included the Ipsos-Reid numbers in my latest update. For complete details, see:

http://election.democraticSPACE.com

Adding this to my 5-poll rolling average yields an election that would result in a parliament very much like the last one. This would result in a parliament very much like the current one, with a virtual tie between LPC/NDP and CPC/BQ.

Note:
LPC+BQ=192
CPC+BQ=154
LPC+NDP=154
CPC+NDP=116

	2006 PROJECTED RESULTS - 3-10 Dec 05
	LPC	CPC	NDP	GRN	BQ	OTH
TOTAL SEATS	130	92	24	0	62	0
% OF SEATS	42%	30%	8%	0%	20%	0%

Two new polls, from Leger Marketing and a week-end round-up from SES, indicate the Liberals have surged ahead. I’ve included these in my latest update. For complete details, see:

http://election.democraticSPACE.com

Adding these to my 5-poll rolling average yields an election that, while still close, is edging slightly towards the Liberals. This would result in a parliament very much like the current one, with a virtual tie between LPC/NDP and CPC/BQ.

Note:
LPC+BQ=192
CPC+BQ=153
LPC+NDP=155
CPC+NDP=116

	2006 PROJECTED RESULTS - 3-9 Dec 05
	LPC	CPC	NDP	GRN	BQ	OTH
TOTAL SEATS	130	91	25	0	62	0
% OF SEATS	42%	30%	8%	0%	20%	0%