Friday, August 7, 2009

Weekly Update - Conservatives by Seven

The projection has been updated. The EKOS poll from yesterday has been added and polls have been "aged" since we have passed into a new month.

The Conservatives have gained one seat in Quebec to rise to 121 seats. The Liberals lost one seat in Quebec and now stand at 114 seats. This puts the Tories in a minority position, with enough of a seat gap to form government - though just barely. The NDP and Bloc have remained steady.
Nationally, the Conservatives and Greens have gained 0.1 points. The Liberals and New Democrats have lost 0.1 points.

Regionally, there were few movements larger than 0.2 points. The Conservatives gained half a point in British Columbia and 0.3 points in Quebec. Both of these gains are important, as the Tories were beginning to slide on the West Coast and their Quebec performance simply needs to be better. The Liberals have lost 0.3 points in Alberta and 0.4 in Quebec - only the latter is particularly damaging. The New Democrats have gained 0.3 in the Prairies, a good sign.

You may have noticed the "short-term projection" on the right-side of the page is gone. I started making that projection because the "long-term projection" was reacting too slowly to the Liberal change in fortunes. I didn't want to be perceived as favouring one side over the other. During an election campaign, when several polls per day will be released, this won't be as much of an issue. I don't want my projection to swing widely - it will require a real change in trends to move in one direction or the other. But outside of an electoral campaign, where we only get several polls per month, the projection moves much more slowly.

But now that the long-term and short-term projections have become so close together, there is no more need for the short-term projection. I've thus removed it, and so the projection at the top of the page will remain as the only "official" projection of this site.