PCs move ahead in Ontario

A new poll by Nanos Research released on Saturday shows that the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are leading in provincial voting intentions, the first time Nanos has put the PCs ahead of the Liberals in Ontario since before the October 2011 election.

Nanos was last in the field on Apr. 14-15, and since then the PCs have gained 1.5 points to reach 33.6% support. That is a modest gain, but due to the drop of 4.4 points by Dalton McGuinty's Liberals down to 31%, the PCs are leading. The New Democrats are up two points to 28.5%, making this a very tight three-way race.

The Greens are down 0.4 points to 5.6%.

This is the first time since at least the election campaign that Nanos has been in general agreement with the conclusions of Forum Research, the only other pollster that has been consistently active in Ontario. Forum's poll from May 14 (released a couple of weeks ago) put PC support at 34% to 32% for the NDP and 27% for the Liberals. Though the order of the parties is still different, with the MOE they are all bunched up around 30%. It makes it a bit easier to say with some confidence that, firstly, the three parties are splitting the electorate almost three ways and, secondly, that the PCs are probably ahead.

With these Nanos numbers, the Progressive Conservatives win 43 seats to 37 for the Liberals and 27 for the New Democrats. It is another minority legislature, though one that is far more split than is currently the case. Who would emerge as the government in this scenario is difficult to determine.

The PCs win most of their seats in eastern, central, and southwestern Ontario while the Liberals dominate in Toronto and the GTA. The New Democrats do best in Toronto and northern Ontario.

Not surprisingly, considering the current fight between the McGuinty government and the Ontario Medical Association, healthcare has moved to the forefront as the top issue in Ontarians' minds: 34% said so, an increase of more than seven points in only a month. Concern about jobs and the economy has dropped 5.5 points to 17%, while the debt and the deficit has dropped by five points to only 7%, putting it behind high taxes and education as a top issue.

But with this conflict over healthcare still up in the air and the three parties running almost even, an election campaign could be incredibly volatile. McGuinty will survive for at least the rest of the year thanks to the support of the NDP, and if he manages to win the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election he could very well survive until 2015. If the PCs manage to hold on to the riding, however, all bets are off come 2013.

Someone leads in Ontario

Two completely contradictory polls were released today, suggesting that the Ontario Liberals hold a 10-point lead over the Progressive Conservatives or trail by 12 points. There's no way to find a common thread in these polls, but perhaps something else is at play.

Forum Research released its poll to the Toronto Star today while Nanos Research's numbers appeared in The Globe and Mail.

Nanos suggests that the Liberals lead with 39.9% support, up 0.8 points since their last poll from November. The Tories sit at 30%, down 4.5 points, while the New Democrats have 24.7% support, up 3.1 points. The Greens trail with 4.3%, up 0.8 points.

Meanwhile, Forum has the Progressive Conservatives at 40%, up four points since their February 15 poll thanks to gains in suburban Toronto. The Liberals are down four points to 28%, dropping in the 905 and in northern Ontario, while the New Democrats are down three to 23%, in large part due to a slip in southwestern Ontario. The Greens gain three points to hit 8% support.

How can support differ by 10 or more points for the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives in these two polls? Small differences are to be expected, even large differences can be within the margin of error. These are not, as you can only really stretch Liberal support down to 36% or so for Nanos and up to 31% for Forum, and PC support up to 34% for Nanos and down to 37% for Forum.

Nevertheless, comparing these polls is not exactly like comparing apples to apples. Nanos and Forum are two different firms using two different methodologies: live callers on the one hand and the IVR method on the other. Nanos surveyed 500 Ontarians while Forum surveyed 1,065. But most importantly, Nanos surveyed between March 3-5 and Forum on March 13 only. The field dates differ by as many as 10 days. Could opinion have shifted so violently? What was happening on those days?

When Nanos was in the field, the headlines were pretty good for Dalton McGuinty. He was criticizing Alberta, suggesting a wage freeze to teachers, and joining Jean Charest in harshly warning the federal government against off-loading costs to the provinces in a quest to balance their budget. All solidly populist fare.

When Forum was in the field, the headlines were pretty bad for the Premier. He was increasing the costs of driver's license renewals, talking about increasing revenues through new casinos, compromising on his green energy policy, and the ORNGE issue wasn't going away.

In this context, it seems plausible that Nanos and Forum were both accurate in gauging support on the days during which they were polling. But if that is true, it suggests that Ontario's voters are extraordinarily unsettled. Roughly one in four Liberal voters would have had to flip to the Tories in a span of one week, while one in four PC voters would have had to flip to the Liberals during the month of February.

Perhaps that is too much to believe. But if we take into account the margin of error and the vastly different headlines between these two field dates, it doesn't look so unbelievable. Of course, if in a few months we see Nanos and Forum at odds against one another again, we will then have a good indication that one or the other (or both) is not gauging things correctly.

Ontario: Projection vs. Results

The 2011 Ontario election was a tricky one. Throughout the campaign, the polls showed a neck-and-neck race between the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. Some of the polls showed a widening gap between the two parties in the final days, but the end result wound up being just as close as the campaign had promised it would be.

The Liberals under Dalton McGuinty won their third consecutive election, but were reduced to a minority government by a margin of one seat. Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives formed the Official Opposition while Andrea Horwath's New Democrats remained in third place. Both opposition parties, however, improved their standings in the legislature and all three leaders stayed on.

ThreeHundredEight projected a Liberal majority of 58 seats, with the Progressive Conservatives taking 29 and the NDP 20. The end result was 53 seats for the Liberals, 37 for the Progressive Conservatives, and 17 for the New Democrats.

This was a total error of 16 seats, or 5.3 per party.

Using the actual provincial vote result improved things only slightly, to an error of 4.7 seats per party. The Liberals were still erroneously projected to win a majority.

Whether using the projected vote or the actual vote, the riding level accuracy was 85.0%, with 91 of 107 ridings being accurately called.

The seat ranges, however, envisioned a Liberal minority as it stretched from between 51 and 62 seats. But for the PCs, the upper seat range was 35, or two seats less than the party actually won. For the New Democrats, the lower seat range was 19, or two seats more than they actually won. But the ranges did give a clearer picture of what was possible.

The vote projection under-estimated the Tories by 2.1 points and over-estimated the NDP by two points. But generally speaking, an error level of 1.6% per party was not bad at all.

The chart below shows a few quick facts about the projection at the riding level.

The average margin of victory in the ridings that were incorrectly called was 8.9%, so a relatively significant amount.

The New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives were generally well called, as between 70% and 75% of their riding level projections were within 5%. This dropped to about 59% for the Liberals, and overall 45% of ridings, or 48 out of 107, had every party at or within 5% of their actual result.

On average, Liberal riding projections were 0.4 points higher than their actual result, while NDP projections were 0.8 points higher. For the Tories, the average riding-level projection was 2.5 points lower than their actual result.

This was the real problem. The Progressive Conservatives were under-estimated in 61 of 107 ridings, and only over-estimated in 36 ridings. Ten were called exactly.

This contrasts greatly with the Liberals and NDP, who generally split evenly. The New Democrats were under-estimated in 50 ridings and over-estimated in 48, with nine being called exactly, while the Liberals were over-estimated in 53 ridings and under-estimated in 46, with eight being called exactly.

In all, the margin of error at the riding level was +/- 3.3% per party.

These are the top three ridings in terms of accuracy:

For Niagara West-Glanbrook, the Liberals and NDP were only off by one point apiece, while in Oak Ridges-Markham the projection was off by one point for the Tories, NDP, and minor parties. In Thornhill, the projection was off by one point for the NDP, the Greens, and the minor parties.

But why did the projection get 16 ridings wrong? It wasn't just the polls under-estimating the Progressive Conservatives, as the model would have still gotten 16 ridings wrong with the actual province-wide numbers.

The problem is that province-wide numbers are difficult to use in such a regionally diverse province. If we look at the results more closely, we see where things failed regionally. The bulk of the incorrect ridings were in southwestern Ontario, where the Tories were under-estimated in 17 out of 21 ridings. They were also under-estimated in every riding in northern Ontario.

For the three major parties, the riding level projections had an average error of +/- 4% or less in central Ontario, the Hamilton/Niagara region, and the GTA. But that error was more than 5% in Toronto, southwestern Ontario, and the north, where more than two-thirds of the errors took place. This demonstrates why a regional model is necessary, despite the lack of uniformity in how the pollsters divvy up the province.

This was a big reason for a lot of the errors, but there were also some specific factors at play. For example, Rocco Rossi was not a "star candidate" in Eglinton-Lawrence, or at least that bonus made that riding an inaccurate call.

Overall, however, it was not a bad projection. The 1.6% popular vote error was acceptable, as was the +/- 3.3% error at the riding level. Being off by 5.3 seats per party is less acceptable, but had the Liberals eked out their majority it would not have been as consequential an error as it turned out to be.

Ontario election - the morning after

Ontario elected a Liberal government last night, but it took until the wee hours of the morning before it could be definitively called a minority government. The Liberals won 53 seats, one short of a majority. It doesn't get any closer than that.

I called a Liberal majority. The polls suggested that would be the case, with the gap being 3.3 points in my weighted aggregation and 4.8 points in the average of the last six polling firms to report. Instead, the gap was 2.2 points. Some pollsters did very well (Forum and Abacus, for example), others did less well. That is how it goes.

And just like the pollsters, ThreeHundredEight will learn from this election and move on. It was, by no means, a failure like that of the 2011 federal election. And it was only a few days ago that I called 98.2% of ridings, 56 out of 57, in Manitoba. Like the pollsters, you lose some and you win some. In this election, my vote projection beat out four of the seven polling firms to report in the last week of the campaign.

Before moving on to how the projection performed, I invite you to read my articles today on The Globe and Mail website about how the pollsters performed, and at the Huffington Post Canada, on where the election was won and lost. Also, a full post-mortem of the Ontario projection will follow in the coming weeks.

The projection model performed adequately, with an 85% accuracy rating on the riding calls and an average error of 5.3 seats per party. In a more clear cut election, that would have been acceptable. In a close election like last night's, that was the difference between a minority and a majority government. But it compares quite favourably to the 13.3 seats per party error in Ontario that I had in the abysmal federal election projection.

The seat ranges, dipping to 51 for the Liberals, did envision this sort of minority result.

But the polls are not to blame for the errors in the precise projection. With the actual results, I would have still projected a Liberal majority of 58 seats, with 30 going to the Progressive Conservatives and 19 to the New Democrats. Why?

There are two reasons for the discrepancy. The first is turnout. At 48%, a drop from 53% in 2007, the question of who votes becomes paramount. Polls showing between 70% and 90% of respondents as decided are going to have problems and seat projections based on past results are going to have problems. Whether this was actually one of the reasons for the errors in the projection is difficult to say, but it would seem to be one likely suspect.

The second is the regional variations in Ontario. As the polls don't divide Ontario up uniformly, I did not have a regional model for the province. In other provinces this might not be a big issue, but in Ontario it is a big problem. I will work towards developing a regional model for Ontario for the next election, whenever it comes.

That it was the regional breakdown that caused the most problems is apparent by the projection's accuracy on a region-by-region basis. The projection called every seat correctly in the Hamilton/Niagara region and 91% of the seats correctly in central Ontario and Toronto. The accuracy rating was 89% in the GTA, still acceptable, while it was 86% in eastern Ontario. In northern Ontario, 9 out of 11 were called correctly.

In southwestern Ontario, however, the projection was only 67% accurate. This is where the projection failed.

Had the polls been dead-on, my projected seat range would have been much better, at 49-60 Liberals, 28-39 Progressive Conservatives, and 18-21 New Democrats. I only would have been off for the NDP by one seat in the ranges. This is where local factors come into play - the projection (except in rare cases, as in Manitoba) cannot get everything right. The ranges are just as important, but just as a pollsters can't report only using the MOEs, I need to make a precise call.

The Electoral Track Record has been updated with these details, and you can see how it stacks up to past performances. Let no one say that I cover up past errors, they are there for everyone to see - as are my successes.

Going forward, I believe that a regional model is necessary for some provinces, particularly Quebec and Ontario. They will be developed. I also believe that ThreeHundredEight needs to be able to predict the vote and not just aggregate the polls. An aggregation needs to be maintained to give a clear picture of what the polls are saying, but a prediction should be more useful in the future. With the Conservatives being under-estimated in every election so far this year, it seems that there is a systemic problem in how people respond to polls. Is the "shy Tory" factor for real in Canada?

I don't consider it too likely that Ontario will be heading back to the polls soon, so there is time to work on these things. Newfoundland and Labrador votes Tuesday and Saskatchewan goes to the polls on November 7. There is still a lot to do! The Newfoundland and Labrador projection will be updated over the Thanksgiving weekend, but in the meantime the Campaign Polling Trends chart has been updated for the province.

Final Ontario Projection: McGuinty's Liberals win majority

Prince Edward Island and Manitoba were appetizers to what is the main course of this election season: the provincial election in Ontario. ThreeHundredEight projects that the Liberals under Dalton McGuinty will win their third consecutive majority government, with Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives forming the Official Opposition. The New Democrats under Andrea Horwath will be the third party in the Ontario legislature.

The projection has changed since the last update, as Angus-Reid and Forum Research released some new data. They made it a consensus - the Liberals lead in every final poll of the campaign, but the size of that lead stands at anywhere from one point to as much as 10. Either way, the Liberals should be re-elected with a majority. Even Forum's numbers point to a slim two-seat majority for them.

UPDATE: EKOS ruined my night by posting their final numbers a little before 11 PM. I've updated everything (again) with these new numbers, but it changes little.

Before the successful projection of the Manitoba election, the volatility and uncertainty indicated by the polls would have left me ill at ease going into the Ontario vote. I don't know how the polls will perform tomorrow, but I am confident that if the polls do well the projection model should also do well. Of course, the 2011 Ontario might be one of those enigmatic elections, like the one in 1990 that left everyone surprised.

ThreeHundredEight's aggregation of the polls gives the Liberals a 3.3-point lead over the Tories. The Liberals are projected to take 36.6% of the vote, with the Progressive Conservatives taking 33.3% and the New Democrats 24.7%. The Greens come in fourth with 4.1% of the vote.

The Liberals are projected to win 58 seats, with 29 being won by the Tories and 20 by the New Democrats.

The Liberals are projected to win 15 seats in Toronto, 15 seats in the Greater Toronto region, 14 seats in southwestern Ontario, seven seats in Ottawa and eastern Ontario, three seats in the Hamilton/Niagara region, and two seats in central and northern Ontario each.

The Progressive Conservatives are projected to win nine seats in central Ontario, six in Ottawa and eastern Ontario, six in southwestern Ontario, three in the Hamilton/Niagara region, two in Greater Toronto, two in the north, and one in Toronto itself.

The New Democrats win seven seats in northern Ontario, six in Toronto, four in the Hamilton/Niagara region, and one each in Ottawa, Greater Toronto, and southwestern Ontario.

When the campaign began, there were about 30 races which were projected to be 'close'. That has dropped to about a dozen.

The Liberals lead in seven close races and trail in four, putting their likely seat range at between 51 and 62 seats. In other words, the possibility for a Liberal minority still exists.

The Progressive Conservatives lead in four close races and trail in six, putting their likely seat range at between 25 and 35 seats.

The New Democrats are leading in one close race and trailing in two, putting their likely seat range at between 19 and 22 seats. Note that the NDP won 10 seats in the 2007 election.

But with the last month's worth of polling, one can't help but feel like anything could happen on election night. Ontarians have been some of the most difficult voters to call in the last three federal elections. Will they fall in line as they did in 2007, when the polls were within 1% of the PC and Liberal results?

A lot of polls were released in this campaign. Twelve were taken in the five first days of October alone. In the 26 polls released since September 1, the gap between the Tories and the Liberals has been three points or less in 12. It has been an amazingly close race, and only in the final week has it really become clearer who is ahead.

And that party is, of course, the Liberals. They took the lead on September 29, two days after the debate, and have never looked back. The gap has narrowed in the last few days, but the Liberal lead is larger than any the Tories had during the campaign, except on one day.

Generally speaking, though, the campaign has moved very little. The New Democrats have been steady at around 23% to 26% since Day 1. The Greens have faltered, though, dropping to about 3% or 4% about the same time as the leaders' debate took place. One wonders if the presence of Mike Schreiner in the debate would have changed anything.

As with the PEI and Manitoba elections, though in neither case did the same kind of error repeat itself, let's take a look at some other possible scenarios if the polls are inaccurate in the same ways as they were in the 2007 provincial and 2011 federal elections.

In the 2007 provincial race, the polls were quite accurate, and there would be little change in the projection. The only difference is that the New Democrats take a little less of the vote, giving the PCs one more seat.

If the polls are wrong in the same way as they were at the national federal level in the May election, the Liberals would win the bare minimum of a majority government.

But what if the polls repeat the same error that happened in the federal election in Ontario? Here, the Conservative vote was greatly underestimated. However, the Liberal vote was about right. So what we have in that situation is the Liberals and Tories tied at a little more than 36% and the NDP below 23%. This results, again, in a Liberal majority. Indeed, the Liberals are the beneficiary of a greater drop in NDP support.

The PEI and Manitoba projection each had very different levels of accuracy. As I called 98.2% of races correctly in Manitoba, that gives the Ontario projection a two seat window - in other words, 56-60 seats for the Liberals, 27-31 seats for the Progressive Conservatives, and 18-22 seats for the New Democrats (and 0 to 2 seats for the Greens, if you wish). But with the 85.2% accuracy rating of PEI, that extends the margin to 16 seats, or 42-74 seats for the Liberals, 13-45 seats for the Tories, and 4-36 seats for the New Democrats. That seems to be a margin too wide to be worth anything, but if the Greens win 16 seats you'll have heard it here first.

More so than probably any other province, Ontario has a great degree of political regionalization. Unfortunately, the model was unable to take that into account due to the lack of uniformity in how the pollsters break down their polls. This could be a problem when the votes are counted, but I don't think it will be. If the polls have this one right, and even if they are off by a little, Ontario will elect a slim Liberal majority government on Thursday night. But if this campaign has taught us anything, it is to expect nothing.

Liberals up in Ontario, but outcome still uncertain

Before getting to what will likely be the last Ontario projection of the campaign, a few words about last night's election in Manitoba.

The polls nailed it. Angus-Reid and Probe Research put out the last polls of the campaign and both agreed that the NDP had 46% support and the Tories 43%. They put Liberal support at between 7% and 8%.

The end result was 46% for the NDP, 44% for the Tories, and 7.5% for the Liberals.

And when the polls are right, the seat projection model should be right as well. And, with the one error being the riding of St. Norbert, decided by less than 200 votes, the seat projection model called 56 of 57 ridings for an accuracy rating of 98.2%. If only the good people of St. Norbert had voted for the PCs, the projection would have been 100% correct. But I'll take 98.2%.

With this boost of confidence, I can now look to the Ontario election. But it is going to be trickier, because two polls released at the end of the day yesterday ruined the consensus that was building.

Nanos Research set the stage, saying that though they pegged the gap at about five points from October 1 to 3, the last two days of polling showed the Liberals over 40% support and well on their way to a majority.

EKOS Research, in a poll put out yesterday morning, agreed, with the Liberals at 39.1% support to the PCs' 29.1%. A poll they released this morning through iPolitics, with extra data from yesterday, corrobated their findings. Their IVR poll taken from October 2 to 4 and surveying 2,081 people has the Liberals at 39%, the Tories at 29.7%, and the New Democrats at 23%. In what EKOS considers likely voters, the Liberals still lead with 40% to 32% for the Tories and 21% for the NDP.

Regionally, EKOS has the Liberals ahead in Toronto (49% to the NDP's 23%), the GTA (38% to the PCs' 33%), southwestern Ontario (35% to the PCs' 31%), and northeastern/central Ontario (36% to the PCs' 28%). The Tories and Liberals are tied at 36% apiece in eastern Ontario, while the PCs lead in northwestern Ontario (37% to the NDP's 29%).

Ipsos-Reid then sealed it with a poll for the Ottawa Citizen, giving the Liberals a 10-point lead. In a telephone poll taken between September 30 and October 3 and surveying 1,020 people, Ipsos-Reid found Liberal support standing at 41%, with the Tories trailing with 31% and the NDP with 25%. Considering that Ipsos-Reid has generally put Conservative support higher than most other polling firms (to, perhaps, their credit), this kind of lead for the Liberals was doubly important.

The Liberals led in almost every part of the province in this poll: in the GTA (44% to the PCs' 28%), central Ontario (36% to the PCs' 35%), eastern Ontario (50% to the PCs' 35%), and southwestern Ontario (36% to the NDP's 34%). The NDP led in the north with 40%, ahead of the Liberals and Tories (both at 28%).

Ipsos-Reid also found that Dalton McGuinty was the preference to be premier at 37% to 27% for Tim Hudak, and gave the Liberals a 10 point lead among those aged 55 or older, the people in Ontario most likely to vote.

Then Abacus Data came along and muddied the waters in a poll for Sun Media. In an online poll of 1,015 Ontarians taken between October 3 and 4, the Liberals led with 37% to the Tories' 34%. A lead, but nowhere near as comfortable as Nanos, Ipsos-Reid, and EKOS found to be the case. The New Democrats came in third with 24%.

Regionally, Abacus gave the Tories the lead in eastern Ontario (42% to the Liberals' 35%), southwestern Ontario (35% to the Liberals' 27%), central Ontario (51% to the NDP's 24%), and the Hamilton/Niagara region (32% to the Liberals' 31%). The Liberals lead in Toronto (49% to the NDP's 26%), while the NDP led in the north (39% to the PCs' 34%). The GTA was tied with 38% apiece for the Liberals and Tories.

Abacus gave the leadership edge to McGuinty, with 30% to Hudak's 21%.

Finally, this morning Angus-Reid in a poll for the Toronto Star completely demolished the consensus of a Liberal lead. In an online poll taken between October 3 and 4 and interviewing 2,223 people, Angus-Reid pegged Progressive Conservative support at 36%, with the Liberals trailing at 33% and the NDP at 26%.

The Tories led in the 905 (41% to the Liberals' 29%), the southwest (38% to the Liberals' 29%), and the east (43% to the Liberals' 30%). The Liberals led in the 416 (46% to the NDP's 27%) and the Hamilton/Niagara region (36% to the PCs' 35%). The NDP led in the north (39% to the Liberals' 36%).

Perhaps significantly, though, Angus-Reid had McGuinty at 24% on who would be the best person to be premier, slightly ahead of Hudak (23%).

So what to make of this? We aren't talking margin-of-error issues at this point. Some of the pollsters will have egg on their face on Thursday night. One might consider Angus-Reid the outlier, but they nailed the Manitoba election and their data is newer than that of Nanos and Ipsos-Reid, and partly that of EKOS. It's also the largest poll in this last week. Perhaps it is a methodological issue, as the online polls are showing more favouable results for the Tories than those done over the telephone. Angus-Reid shows the Tories gaining, everyone else has them falling.

There are a few points of consensus, however. Dalton McGuinty is beating Tim Hudak on the all important leadership question, while regionally the Liberals are dominating in Toronto and the NDP is good in the north. Outside of these two regions, there is no consensus but it should be pointed out that in only one poll do the Tories have the kind of lead they need in the GTA to make a run at the premiership.

So, with all of these conflicting numbers the projection is falling, as it should, somewhere in the middle. The Liberals are projected to take 36% of the vote, with the Progressive Conservatives netting 33.2% and the NDP 24.8%. The Greens take 4.6% of the vote.

Since yesterday, that is a 0.1 point gain for the Liberals and a 0.5 point gain for the Greens. The Tories are down 0.2 points and the NDP is down 0.5 points. Nothing major, then.

The Liberals have picked up one seat, and are now projected to win 57. The Progressive Conservatives are unchanged at 30, while the New Democrats are down one to 20 seats.

The seat change is in the southwest, where the Liberals are now projected to win 13 seats, the Tories seven, and the New Democrats one.

There are still a number of close races, but not enough to put the Tories in range of even a minority government.

The Liberals lead in six close races and trail in four, putting their seat range at between 51 and 61 seats. Only 30% of their range is in minority territory.

The Progressive Conservatives lead in four close races and trail in five, putting their range at between 26 and 35 seats. They are no longer in danger of being supplanted by the NDP, as was starting to look like a possibility yesterday.

The New Democrats lead in one close race and trail in two, putting their range at between 19 and 22 seats.

But with the polls as confusing as they are, Thursday night is far from a sure bet. The Liberals were clearly going to win PEI and the electoral geography of Manitoba pointed to an NDP victory.

Tomorrow's final projection report will also make mention of the poll error adjustments I have done for Manitoba and PEI. In addition, though, I will put up projections for the kind of lead that Nanos, Ipsos, and EKOS are showing, as well as the result that Angus-Reid predicts. It will be a long night, and anything could still happen. But even the Tory lead in the Angus-Reid poll is not large enough to give the PCs much hope - which means we're looking at a Liberal re-election.

Liberals gain in Ontario, still low in Newfoundland

Before getting to today's polls, a few words about Prince Edward Island's election last night. A full post-mortem will come after the Newfoundland and Labrador election, when there will be some time to digest the results.

There were only two polls conducted in Prince Edward Island during the campaign and none in the last six days. But they nevertheless under-estimated Tory support and over-estimated that of the New Democrats. Had the polls been accurate, ThreeHundredEight's projection model would have had the Liberals at 25 seats and the Tories at two. Still off, but a little better.

My projected seat range with those numbers would have been 1-3 seats for the Tories, but if I extend that range to ridings projected to have been won by six per cent or less (instead of five per cent), then the high seat range for the PCs would have been five. I will be using the margin of six per cent to determine whether a race is close or not for subsequent elections.

Now, projecting a slightly larger overwhelming Liberal majority than the overwhelming Liberal majority that actually was elected last night is not a huge problem. It is Prince Edward Island, a province with a population smaller than a few ridings in Ontario. When two PC ridings were won by about 30 votes and 425 votes separated my high seat range of two from their result of five, I don't consider the model to have failed.

But the under-estimation of Conservative support, the third consecutive time this has happened in an election I have done projections for, is vexing. I will take a close look at it before making my final Manitoba projection later today.

Ontario

One poll was released this morning by Nanos Research, as part of their rolling three day polling. Taken between October 1 and 3 and surveying 900 people, Nanos finds Liberal support standing at 37.7%, followed by the Tories at 33.2% and the NDP at 25.8%. This matches EKOS's latest findings in that the Liberals are beginning to pull ahead. Though the sample sizes are small, Nanos even has the Liberals over the 40% mark over the last two days.

With this Nanos poll added to the projection, the Liberals now stand to take 35.9% of the vote, with 33.4% going to the Progressive Conservatives.

The New Democrats are projected to take 25.3% while the Greens take 4.1%.

This is a gain of 0.7 points for the Liberals and 0.1 points for the NDP since yesterday's projection. The Greens have dropped 0.2 points and the Tories 0.6 points.

One seat has changed hands as a result, with the Liberals now up to 56 seats and the Progressive Conservatives down to 30. The New Democrats remain at 21 seats.

The Liberal seat gain comes in southwestern Ontario.

The Liberals are now projected to win 12 seats in the region, with seven going to the Tories and two to the New Democrats.

As mentioned, the bar for the seat ranges has now been moved to six per cent as a result of the PEI election. This doesn't change too much in Ontario, however.

The Liberals are leading in eight close races and trailing in five, putting their seat range at between 48 and 61. This is significant, as the Liberals are now at about even odds of pulling out a minority or majority government on Thursday.

The Progressive Conservatives lead in four close races and trail in six, putting their seat range at between 26 and 36. Things need to change in order for the Tories to be back in the race to form government.

The New Democrats lead in two close races and trail in three, putting their seat range at between 19 and 24. If things continue to go badly for the Tories, a scenario in which they finish third is not out of the question.

Newfoundland and Labrador

When MQO Research put Liberal support at 13% last week, Kevin Aylward, leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals, put out a press release accusing the Tories of having bought and paid for the poll. It was an unusual thing to do, as most political leaders brush poll results aside. It was a risky gamble that would pay off if the next poll put the Liberals up.

Well, it didn't. The latest poll by NTV and Telelink, conducted between October 1 and 2 and surveying 511 people by telephone, puts Progressive Conservative support at 58.9% of decided and leaning voters. The New Democrats follow with 28.4% while the Liberals stand at 12.5%.

In other words, this plainly independent poll is even better for the Tories and worse for the Liberals than the poll by MQO Research.

Kathy Dunderdale comes out even better on the leadership question, with 55% saying she is the best person for the job. Lorraine Michael of the NDP follows with 19% while Aylward is at 7%.

With this poll added, the Progressive Conservatives are now projected to take 56.7% of the vote. The New Democrats follow with 30.3% and the Liberals come up in third with 12.8%.

This represents a gain of 2.9 points for the Tories and a drop of 2.5 points for the NDP since the last projection. The Liberals are down 0.4 points.

This has not caused any changes in the seat projection.

The Progressive Conservatives are still projected to win 42 seats, the New Democrats four, and the Liberals two.

This has nudged a few seats out of being considered close races. The Liberals and NDP each lead in one close race, trailed by the Tories.

This puts the PC seat range at between 42 and 44 seats. The New Democrats are projected to win between three and four seats and the Liberals between one and two seats.

There is still a week to go before Newfoundland's vote, and I expect two or three polls before then. But Newfoundland and Labrador will pose some of the same problems as Prince Edward Island. The ridings are about twice as large, but they are still very small and subject to local factors to a degree that other provinces, particularly Ontario, are not. The polls seem to be relatively consistent, though, so the big question will be how they translate into seats.

I will post the final projection for Manitoba shortly, incorporating the latest poll from Angus-Reid.

McGuinty down to 54 seats, Aylward to 2

Five polls were released over the last 24 hours, four of them for Ontario and one of them for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ontario

All four polls in Ontario showed a statistically insignificant gap between the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. It's a remarkably close race.

The oldest poll was conducted online by Environics for the Canadian Press between September 26 and 28, interviewing 1,000 people. It found that the Progressive Conservatives stood at 36% to the Liberals' 35%, with the New Democrats trailing at 25% and the Greens at 3%. The poll found the Liberals ahead in Toronto and tied with the PCs in the GTA. The New Democrats were ahead in the north and the Tories in eastern and central Ontario.

The next poll was by Nanos Research for CTV and the Globe and Mail. This telephone poll was conducted on September 28 and 29, and surveyed 600 people. Nanos found the Liberals leading with 37.7% and the Progressive Conservatives trailing with 34.4%. The NDP stood at 25.5% and the Greens at 1.8%. Compared to Nanos's last poll from early September, the Liberals are down 0.4 points and the PCs 0.3 points. The NDP is up 1.2 points, all insignficant.

Then Sun Media released a Léger Marketing poll conducted online on September 28 and 29 and that interviewed 1,012 people. In this poll, the Tories led with 34% to the Liberals' 32%. The New Democrats came in at 29% while the Greens were at 5%. This is a two point drop for the Tories and a one point drop for the Liberals since Léger's mid-September poll, while the NDP picked up three points.

Regionally, Léger found the Tories to be leading in eastern Ontario (38% to the Liberals' 31%) and southwestern Ontario (33% to the NDP's 30%). The Liberals led in Toronto and the GTA (38% to the Tories' 34%) while the New Democrats led in Hamilton (38% to the PCs' 30%) and northern Ontario (39% to the Liberals' 30%).

Finally, Angus-Reid and the Toronto Star released a poll this morning. Conducted online between September 28 and 30 and interviewing 1,002 people, Angus-Reid pegs PC support at 34% with the Liberals at 33% and the NDP at 26%. The Greens trail in fourth with 6%. This is a two point drop for the Tories since Angus-Reid's mid-September poll and a one point gain for the Liberals. The NDP are unchanged.

Regionally, the Tories lead in the 905 (36% to the Liberals' 33%), southwestern Ontario (39% to the Liberals' 32%), eastern Ontario (36% to the Liberals' 30%), and northern Ontario (37% to the NDP's 33%). The Liberals lead in the 416 (46% to the NDP's 27%) while the NDP is ahead in the Hamilton/Niagara region (34% to the Tories' 28%).

It's a lot of new data. Interestingly, all of the online polls show an insignificantly slim lead for the Tories, while the one telephone poll has a less insignificant (but still within the margin of error) lead for the Liberals. Support for the Tories is very consistent, ranging between 34% and 36%. Liberal support is pegged at being between 32% and 38%, a much wider range that means the difference between winning and losing. NDP support is generally solid, at between 25% and 29%.

In terms of trends, this is Environics's first poll of the campaign so they have nothing to tell us on that score. But the other three all show stability for the two main parties, with changes being comfortably within the margin of error. However, they also all show the Tories slipping a little and two of them have the NDP gaining. Taken together, it would appear that Liberal support is solid, PC support is sliding, and NDP support is on the rise.

Regionally, Environics, Léger, and Angus-Reid all put the Liberals ahead in Toronto and running neck-and-neck with the Tories in the GTA. They all show the PCs leading in eastern, central, and southwestern Ontario, while the NDP is ahead in the Hamilton region. Two of the three have the NDP leading in the north, while the other shows a close race. For the smaller sample sizes that regions have, this is pleasantly consistent.

The projection has only moved slightly, however, as these polls have generally fallen on either side of the last set of numbers. The Progressive Conservatives still have a 0.1 point edge (if it can be called that) with 34.2% support. The Liberals follow with 34.1%.

Both parties have dropped 0.4 points since the last projection of September 27.

The New Democrats are up 2.2 points to 25.9%, while the Greens are down 1.5 points to 4.5%.

Only one seat has changed hands, with the Liberals losing it to the New Democrats. This puts the Liberals at a projected 54 seats, the bare minimum for a majority government. With a Liberal Speaker, the legislature would be tied at 53-53 between the government and the opposition.

That opposition is now projected to be made up of 32 Progressive Conservatives and 21 New Democrats.

The one seat that switched hands was in southwestern Ontario. The Liberals are now projected to win 11 in the region, with eight going to the Tories and two to the New Democrats.

At dissolution, the Liberals held 15 seats in the region and the PCs six.

There are enough close races to keep the result up in the air. The Liberals lead in 13 of them and trail in four others, while the PCs lead in four and trail in 10.

This puts the Liberal range at between 41 and 58 seats. The Progressive Conservative range is between 28 and 42 seats.

This means that the Liberals could win anything from a majority to one less seat than the Tories. The odds are still heavily favouring a Liberal government, however.

The New Democrats lead in one close race and trail in four others, meaning they could win between 20 and 25 seats.

Newfoundland and Labrador

One poll from MarketQuest Omnifacts Research was released yesterday for Newfoundland and Labrador, and it was a little controversial.

Taken online and over the telephone between September 28 and 30, the poll of 464 people pegged Progressive Conservative support at 54%, up one point since their last poll earlier in the campaign. The New Democrats were up four points to 33%, while the Liberals fell five points to a woeful 13%.

The controversy erupted when the Liberals questioned the credibility of the poll. But in my experience, when a party starts saying that the numbers in a poll are cooked it is more of a sign that the party itself is cooked. Standard operating procedure is usually to claim that "I don't pay attention to the polls."

Many polling firms employ people with former ties to political parties and governments, and governments are often clients. It's just how it goes, and it seems unlikely that a parent company would sabotage its polling firm's credibility by putting out numbers which can be shown to be false on election day. How easily people are ready to believe that professionals are capable of lying, cheating, and breaking every ethical code in the book for marginal partisan gain is, frankly, depressing.

On that cheery note, let's take a look at how this poll has shifted the projection. The Progressive Conservatives are now projected to take 53.8% of the vote, up 0.8 points since the last projection of September 21.

The New Democrats are up 4.1 points to 32.8%, while the Liberals are down 4.8 points to 13.2%.

With this shift in support, the Liberals have dropped two seats to the Tories. The Progressive Conservatives are now projected to win 42 seats, with the New Democrats taking four and the Liberals two.

The PC gains come in the regions of the Avalon and Burin Peninsulas and the main part of Newfoundland.

The Progressive Conservatives are now projected to win eight seats in the Avalon and Burin Peninsulas (excluding St. John's), with one seat going to the NDP. In the rest of Newfoundland, the Tories are projected to win 19 seats and the Liberals and NDP one apiece.

In these two regions, the Progressive Conservatives held 27 of the seats at dissolution, while the Liberals held three. That score is still 27 for the PCs, but the Liberals are down to one and the NDP stands at two.

There are only a few projected close races at this point. The Tories lead in one of them and trail in another. The Liberals lead in one of their own, while the NDP trails in one.

This puts the Progressive Conservative range at between 41 and 43 seats. The New Democrat range is now between four and five seats, while the Liberals are projected to win between one and two seats.

In other words, it appears that the NDP are well positioned to form the Official Opposition.

It should be an exciting week. Prince Edward Island is heading to the polls on Monday, while Manitoba votes on Tuesday. There may be another poll out of Manitoba before that happens.

Ontario goes to the polls on Thursday, and I suspect we will hear from every firm at least once before that happens. Newfoundland and Labrador then votes next Tuesday, and I have an inkling we could have three or four more polls out of the province before then. That would be welcome, as we have only heard from MQO Research since the campaign began

Final projections will be posted on the day of each province's vote. Post-mortems may have to wait until after the Newfoundland and Labrador vote, but I am very curious to see how the projection model performs. PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Manitoba are all small provinces which makes things more unpredictable. Newfoundland and Labrador has the NDP in uncharted territory and Manitoba is incredibly close. Ontario is even closer, so plenty of surprises could still be in store.

Little change in Ontario, race narrows in Manitoba

A bevy of polls in two provinces were released over the last 24 hours, so we have a lot to get to. Let's start with Ontario before moving on to Manitoba.

Last night, Abacus Data released the results from its latest poll, taken between September 23 and 25. It showed the Progressive Conservatives leading with 37%, compared to 33% for the Liberals, 23% for the New Democrats, and 6% for the Greens. Regionally, Abacus had the Tories leading in eastern Ontario (51%), the GTA (37%), and southwestern Ontario (38%). The Liberals led in Toronto (45%), while the New Democrats were tied with the PCs in the north (37%).

Abacus used the standard voting intentions question for this poll, but also used the sliding scale they had experimented with earlier in the campaign. The results of that method of polling were not very different: 38% for the PCs, 30% for the Liberals, and 25% for the NDP. Compared to their last poll using this method, that is a drop of three points for the Tories, a drop of two for the Liberals, and a gain of five for the NDP.

Appearing this morning is a poll from EKOS Research, which hasn't waded into the provincial campaign yet and has been silent since the federal election. The EKOS poll, taken between September 21 and 25 using the IVR method, found that the Liberals lead with 34.9% of the vote, with the Progressive Conservatives at 31.4%, the NDP at 24.7%, and the Greens at 7.6%.

EKOS has the Liberals leading in Toronto (47%), while the New Democrats are ahead in "northeastern and central" Ontario (33%). The Tories hold a slight edge in the suburban GTA (35%), southwestern Ontario (34%), eastern Ontario (41%), and northwestern Ontario (34%).

Certainly, these polls differ. But they were taken over a few different days and we have no trend to look at in the EKOS poll for comparison, since this is their first.

With these polls added to the model, the Progressive Conservatives hold the slimmest of leads with 34.6% of the vote. The Liberals trail with 34.5%, while the New Democrats stand at 23.7% and the Greens at 6.0%.

This is a drop of 0.8 points for the Tories and 0.4 points for the Liberals. The NDP is up 0.3 points and the Greens are up a full point.

This does not result in any seat changes, so the Liberals are still projected to win 55, the Progressive Conservatives 32, and the New Democrats 20.

The ranges for the Tories and the Liberals have also not changed, though the New Democrats are now in range of one more seat.

That puts the NDP range at between 18 and 22 seats, while the Tories and Liberals are unchanged at between 28 and 43 and between 44 and 60 seats, respectively.

Now let's move on to Manitoba, where two polls were released yesterday.

The first, by Viewpoints Research for CJOB News and the Manitoba Real Estate Association, put the New Democrats ahead by a healthy amount.

After being provided the full details, I can say that with decided and leaning voters included, the New Democrats lead in the poll with 48.9%. The Progressive Conservatives follow with 40.3%, while the Liberals stand at 8.2% and the Greens at 2.6%.

This poll was taken by telephone between September 14 and 21. Some criticism of the poll has come from the fact that Viewpoints has a relationship with the provincial NDP. However, the poll was not ordered by the party.

In Winnipeg, the New Democrats lead with 54% to the Tories' 31%. The Liberals are third with 10%. Outside the provincial capital, the Tories are ahead with 53% to the NDP's 40%.

The second poll was by Environics, and was conducted online btween September 20 and 26, so this poll only overlaps with the Viewpoints poll on a few days. Environics found that the Tories are leading with 45% to the New Democrats' 42%, with the Liberals at 10% support.

Interestingly, on who would make the best premier it is NDP leader Greg Selinger who comes out on top with 33% support to Hugh McFadyen's 29%.

These polls tell a different story, but only at first glance. They were mostly taken over separate weeks, and with their respective margins of error (assuming the Environics poll had a random sample) are not actually at odds. We can take from these two polls that the race is very close, and that the PCs may have a little momentum.

With these polls, the Progressive Conservatives are back in front with 43.9% of the vote. The New Democrats are not far behind with 43.1%, while the Liberals are at 9.6%. The Greens trail with 2.9%.

This is a gain of 4.4 points for the PCs since yesterday, and a 7.1-point loss for the NDP. The Liberals are up 3.6 points, while the Greens are down one.

In terms of seats, the New Democrats are projected to win 36, down three from yesterday. The Progressive Conservatives win 20 (up two) and the Liberals win one (up one).

The Tories have picked up one seat in southwestern Manitoba and two more in Winnipeg, all from the New Democrats. The Liberals pick up one seat in Winnipeg from the Tories.

There are only four projected close races, and at this stage the New Democrats lead in all of them, with the Tories trailing. This means that the NDP is at the top of their seat range, while the Tories are at the bottom of theirs.

This means the NDP is on track to win 32 to 36 seats, the PCs 20 to 24 seats, and the Liberals one. With the new polls, they are comfortably ahead in Jon Gerrard's riding.

Only one week remains before the vote is held in Manitoba, and I am told that we can probably expect two more polls to come out of the province. It really is setting up to be a close race in the popular vote, but the NDP seems to have the geographic advantage.

Prince Edward Island is voting in less than a week, and a poll is supposed to come out sometime before the vote is held.

In Ontario, the debate is tonight and less than two weeks remain in the campaign. A lot is at stake, and with things as close as they are tonight's debate is extraordinarily important for all three parties. McGuinty needs to solidfy his support, Hudak needs to make gains, and Horwath needs to do well enough to ensure a minority government.

McGuinty and Selinger in majority territory

With less than two weeks to go in Ontario’s election campaign, voters remain split on who should form the province’s next government. But that is good news for the incumbent Liberals, since were an election held at the end of last week Dalton McGuinty would have likely won a razor-thin majority.

To read the full details of today's Ontario projection update, check out The Globe and Mail website here. The riding projection in the right-hand column is also updated.

A few words on the Forum Research poll that came out this Saturday. The size of the poll should not be over-emphasized. The +/- 0.5 point margin of error only applies to a truly random sample, and of course no poll is taken in a vacuum. As many pointed out during the census debate, increasing the sample size doesn't erase errors in the methodology. That is not to say there is a problem with Forum's methodology, only that a poll of 40,000 people isn't automatically the be-all and end-all of polling.

Because the poll was so large, riding level numbers were also released. Aside from a few cases, often in ridings that the firm itself called "anomalies", the riding polls in the GTA matched comfortably well with my own projections. I haven't seen many numbers outside of the GTA yet, however.

But the big news today is out of Manitoba. CJOB News is reporting on a new poll by Viewpoints Research. As it is radio, they are stretching out the release of details throughout the day, so for now all we have is the decided vote: 41% for the New Democrats, 32% for the Progressive Conservatives, and 5% for the Liberals. Another 19% are undecided, which means we can extrapolate that 51% of decided voters are supporting the NDP, 40% the Progressive Conservatives, 6% the Liberals, and 4% the Greens.

As I am starved for new information out of the province, I will use these numbers for the projection until the full decided/leaners details are released later today. Another poll is apparently scheduled for release tonight, so the situation in Manitoba is finally going to be a little clearer.

The New Democrats are now projected to take 50.2% of the vote, up 10.3 points since the last projection from the end of July. The Progressive Conservatives are down 4.8 points to 39.5%.

The Liberals have sunk 5.5 points to only six per cent support, while the Greens are down 0.1 point to 3.9%.

This results in the New Democrats winning 39 seats in the 57-seat legislature, a comfortable majority. The Progressive Conservatives win 18 and the Liberals are shut-out (though just barely). That is a gain of six seats for the NDP since the last projection and a loss of two for the Liberals and four for the Tories.

The New Democrats have picked up two seats in the southeast and four in Winnipeg, giving them 27 of the 31 seats in the capital. They are running close to the PCs in the rest of the province, however, with 12 seats to 14. The Tories have lost two seats in southeastern Manitoba and three in Winnipeg, but gained one seat from the Liberals in the capital. The New Democrats took the other.

There are only a few close races in the province, and the Liberals are implicated in one of them. Otherwise, the seat range for the NDP and Tories is between 16 and 20 seats for the PCs and 37 and 41 seats for the NDP.

The ranges chart gives a visual representation of the distance between the parties.

With the new numbers being put out by CJOB today and the rumoured other numbers appearing tonight, I should be able to update the Manitoba projection tomorrow as well. Prince Edward Island is going to report soon, and Manitoba is supposed to have at least one more poll at the end of the week. We'll undoubtedly have some new Ontario numbers soon as well.

Also, check out my column in today's The Hill Times. It requires a subscription to read online (the paper edition is available in many downtown kiosks in Ottawa), but is well worth it (the online subscription, that is).