Tuesday, March 10, 2009

New Polls, New Projection!

Strategic Counsel has released a new poll, and Ipsos-Reid was nice enough to send me the details of their poll (thanks!), so there is a new projection! For the rest of the information from the Ipsos-Reid poll, go to the bottom of the page. Here are the highlights from the Strategic Counsel poll, held between March 5-8 and involving 1000 people:

Conservatives - 35%
Liberals - 31%
New Democrats - 16%
Greens - 10%
Bloc Quebecois - 9%

In Ontario:

Conservatives - 41%
Liberals - 37%
New Democrats - 15%
Greens - 8%

In Quebec:

Bloc Quebecois - 40%
Liberals - 30%
Conservatives - 10%
New Democrats - 10%
Greens - 10%

Now this result is interesting, for a few reasons. One, apparently the Green Party has had a disastrous drop from 26% to 10%. What happened?! Oh right, Strategic Counsel messed up the last poll. Two, the Conservatives are down to 10%, the lowest result I've seen since 2005. It's clear that the Conservatives are in trouble in Quebec.

Strategic Counsel also groups the poll by the "West", which can't be entered into my system. But here is the result nonetheless:

Conservatives - 45%
Liberals - 23%
New Democrats - 20%
Greens - 12%

There has been a change in the projection. The Conservatives are down to 137 seats, the Liberals up to 100, the NDP down to 21, and the Bloc up to 50. As for the national popular vote, the change from early February's projection is:

Liberals +0.4
Bloc Quebecois +0.3
Greens +0.2
Conservatives -0.1
New Democrats -0.7

In Ontario, the change is as follows:

Liberals +0.5
Greens +0.1
Conservatives -0.3
New Democrats -0.4

And Quebec:

Bloc Quebecois +0.9
Greens +0.2
Liberals -0.3
Conservatives -0.3
New Democrats -0.6

What do the various parties have to take from this? The Conservatives have to be concerned with what is going on in Quebec, and Ontario is becoming a real battleground. The Liberals have to be pleased with their performance in Quebec and Ontario, but are losing ground in British Columbia. The NDP is in trouble across the board, and needs to re-evaluate their strategy.