PQ begins election in majority territory

And we're off and running in Quebec's provincial election campaign, starting today and culminating with a vote on April 7, 2014. Pauline Marois and the Parti Québécois will be asking Quebecers to give them a majority government instead of the minority one they were handed less than two years ago. The polls suggest she starts the campaign with a good chance of getting her wish.

The Léger/Journal de Montréal poll out this morning goes a long way to confirm the sort of numbers that CROP had in February. The gap is smaller, at two points instead of five, but the PQ enjoys the same yawning margin over the Liberals among francophones, who decide elections in Quebec.

The current projection, based primarily on the Léger poll but also incorporating other polls going back to the beginning of the year, gives the Parti Québécois 37.5% support to 34.9% for the Liberals, 15.4% for the Coalition Avenir Québec, and 7.9% for Québec Solidaire. With these levels of support, and taking into account the potential for polling error, the PQ would likely win between 62 and 81 seats. With 63 seats required to win a majority, the polls point almost exclusively to a PQ majority government at the moment.

The Liberals would win between 36 and 56 seats, with the CAQ winning between five and seven and QS taking two. The precise projection - the result should normally fall closest to it - is 69 seats for the PQ, 49 for the PLQ, 5 for the CAQ, and 2 for QS.

Check out the Quebec projection page for the full details, including regional breakdown and riding-by-riding results. Tracking charts will be added as the campaign continues and new polls emerge.

The model is virtually unchanged from the one used in the Nova Scotia campaign, with one important difference. For that campaign, the minimum and maximum projections were based on the worst polling errors in recent years. In other words, the model was assuming the exact same sort of errors as in Alberta and British Columbia would take place to derive these maximum and minimum estimations.

That was a little crude, so instead this time the minimum and maximum ranges are meant to estimate 95% of potential results. These are calculated based on polling errors in the past, so it does take into account errors like in Alberta and B.C. But it leaves a little room for further error, which is always a possibility. Put simply, 19 times out of 20 the results of the election should fall within the projected minimum and maximum ranges. For a more precise estimation, see the chart below:

What the chart above shows is the likelihood of results falling between the various projected ranges. So, for example, if an election were held on March 3 (the last day of polling), there is a 75% chance that the result would be higher than the projected average. There is a 90% chance that the Greens and Option Nationale would get lower than the projected average. There is a 5% chance that the results will fall outside the minimum and maximums for any of the parties.

A full explanation of the methodology can be found here. A link is also omnipresent in the right-hand column.

Now, let's briefly take a look at the poll.

The poll shows no major change from Léger's last survey from mid-January. It gives the PQ 37% support against 35% for the Liberals and 15% for the CAQ.

Recall that the CROP poll which resulted in much spilled ink about a PQ majority had the split at 40% to 35%, so the Léger poll is only marginally and insignificantly different. Of most consequence, electorally speaking, is the francophone vote: 45% for the PQ against 23% for the Liberals. CROP had it at 47% to 24%, which was remarkable itself. So Léger has confirmed that the PQ has made big strides among francophones, and it could be a crushing advantage.

The poll had a few other tidbits that are worth paying attention to. The PQ and PLQ had the most committed voters, with 74% and 70%, respectively, saying their choice was definitive. For the CAQ and QS, only about half of their supporters had definitively made up their mind. That isn't surprising for a small party like QS, but it is incredibly worrisome for François Legault.

The Liberals have much to gain if those CAQ voters drift away: 44% said that the PLQ was their second choice, with only 19% saying the PQ was their second option. The PQ does have room to grow among supporters of QS and ON, but that is a much smaller voter pool.

On leadership, Marois topped Philippe Couillard with 27% to 25%. That is a gain for Couillard, which is good news for him. Less glowing, though, is that he scored just 17% among francophones - putting him in a tie with Legault. If Couillard struggles to make inroads among this demographic, the Liberals have no chance of winning. Quebecers seem to agree, since 46% of them think the PQ will prevail. Only 26% think the Liberals will win.

The Liberals should be doing better, though, as they score higher than the PQ on many issues: healthcare (29% to 24% for the PQ), jobs (33% to 25%), tackling the deficit (25% to 20%), and infrastructure (32% to 24%). These are all important issues in an election campaign. Perhaps the Liberals will be able to take advantage as the campaign unfolds, but the PQ has its own issues of strength: reasonable accommodations (33% to 21% for the PLQ), tackling corruption (26% to 18%), and protecting the French language (55% to 9%). It is obvious how the two parties will design their campaign strategies, with the Liberals focusing on issues of the head and the PQ on issues of the heart. 

Steep drop in support for Redford and Alberta Tories

New numbers from a Léger poll for the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal show the Alberta Progressive Conservatives suffering a significant drop in support since the fall. But that is nothing compared to the fall in approval ratings experienced by Premier Alison Redford.

Léger was last in the field in mid-October, when the Tories and Wildrose were in a very tight race. But since then, the PCs have dropped by six points to just 25%, while Wildrose has increased by five points to 38%. These shifts would be statistically significant with a probabilistic sample of this size (the poll was done online, however).

The Liberals were down two points to 16%, while the New Democrats were up one point to 15%. Support for the Alberta Party stood at 3%, while 2% of Albertans said they would vote for another party. Of the entire sample, 24% was undecided.

These are horrible numbers for the Progressive Conservatives. They have now dropped in four consecutive Léger polls going back to January 2013, when the party was at 40% support. The score of 25% is the worst the Tories have managed in any poll since November 2009. Wildrose has been the major beneficiary, though it should be pointed out that since April 2013 the party has been polling in a relatively tight band of between 33% and 38% support.

The Tories dropped primarily in Edmonton, where they were down seven points to just 19% support. Wildrose was up seven points to 29%, followed by the NDP at 27%. The Liberals, down six points, were tied with the PCs for third with 19% support.

In Calgary, Wildrose led with 41%, while the Tories were down to 28% and the Liberals were steady at 18%. The NDP had 7% support in the city.

In the rest of Alberta, Wildrose increased to 44% and the Tories dropped to 29%, expanding the gap between the two parties by 10 more points. The Liberals and NDP were at 12% and 10%, respectively.

Due to a very inefficient vote in the two major cities, the PCs would be reduced to third party status with these levels of support. Wildrose would win a majority with 58 seats, virtually sweeping Calgary and the rural parts of the province. The Liberals would win 11 seats, 10 of them in the two main cities, while the NDP would win nine seats, almost all of them in Edmonton. The Tories would be reduced to just nine seats as well, generally divided between the three regions of Alberta.

(Yes, we all remember the results in 2012. But the model performed well when the actual numbers were plugged into it - in other words, if Léger's poll matched an election's results exactly, these seat estimates would turn out to be quite close to the actual result. A two-seat margin between the Liberals and PCs/NDP, however, is hardly decisive.)

The major problem for the Progressive Conservatives appears to be Redford herself. Her approval rating (Léger last inquired about this in September 2013) dropped 12 points to just 20%, among the worst numbers put up by a sitting Alberta premier in recent memory. Her disapproval rating was up 12 points to 64%, and just 35% of PC voters from 2012 said they approved of her performance. That is ghastly.

Danielle Smith of Wildrose had an approval rating of 39%, with her disapproval rating dropping four points to 33%. Among Wildrose voters, her approval rating was 85%.

Raj Sherman of the Liberals had an approval/disapproval rating of 29% to 28%, with Brian Mason of the NDP enjoying a 32% to 23% split (the best net rating of the four leaders). Among their 2012 voters, Sherman's approval rating was 68% and Mason's was 78%.

But Redford is not less popular than her party (among decided respondents, her approval rating was 24%) so it is unclear if her resignation would change things. It is clear, however, that she is a big reason for the dramatic decline in support for her party over the last year. In a little more than 12 months, she has lost almost two out of every five supporters. And the timing is certainly bad, as Smith and Wildrose move more towards the centre-right. Unless Redford can somehow turn things around, or if she is replaced by someone that can give the Tories new life (difficult after 43 years in office), the stars may be aligning for a change of government at the next election. And then, one assumes, we can expect several decades of Wildrose dominance. That is just Alberta's way.