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Archived Seat Projections

Shakeup After Alberta Election
       
The following seat projection differs from others typically produced for LISPOP, in that it is based upon a smaller aggregate sample approximately 4,000 respondents including Ekos, Forum and Insights Canada (BC only), and is drawn from a shorter than usual time frame (since May 6 following the Alberta election). This decision was made because public opinion has seemed to move significantly over this time period. During the previous six months, Canadian political support had appeared to lock into a pattern where our seat projections had hardly changed at all beyond variance attributable to sampling error. Over that time our projections hadn't varied by more than five seats from 137 Conservatives, 119 Liberals and 76 New Democrats. It might be a short-term blip, but something has dramatically changed over the past two weeks, with most notable impact in Quebec, BC and Alberta, largely favouring the NDP. The result is the closest thing to a three-way tie we have ever experienced in seat projections. Along the table presented below, the seat projection is also illustrated on a map of Canada's new 338 districts, which will be contested in the next federal election: http://lispop.ca/elections/fed2015.html

Projected distribution of seats by party and region compared with actual election results (in brackets), released May 19, 2015

  conservative liberal ndp bq
Other
Canada
128(166)
103(34)
104(103)
2(4)
1(1)
Atlantic provinces
6(14)
22(12)
4(6)
--
--
Quebec
9(5)
18(7)
49(59)
2(4)
--
Ontario
56(73)
45(11)
20(22)
--
--
Prairies & North
17(26)
7(2)
7(3)
--
--
Alberta
27(27)
2(0)
5(1)
--
--
British Columbia
13(21)
9(2)
19(12)
--
1(1)

Note:

The "regional swing model" is more fully explained in a paper originally prepared and presented by Dr. Barry Kay to the 1990 annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, entitled "Improving Upon the Cube Law: A Regional Swing Model for Converting Canadian Popular Vote into Parliamentary Seats". It should be noted that the application of the model above does not make use of the "incumbency effect" described in that paper. In tests for past elections, using late campaign polls to project electoral outcomes, the model has proved to be accurate within an average of four seats per party since 1963. Readers interested in post-dictions for past federal elections dating back to 1963, for projections using pre-election polls dating back to the 1980 federal election and for three Ontario provincial elections, may contact me at bkay@wlu.ca.