Provincial Liberals still lead throughout Atlantic Canada

The apple does not fall far from the tree. So it goes in Atlantic Canada, where both the federal and provincial Liberal parties are leading by significant margins throughout the region.

The Corporate Research Associates released its Atlantic Quarterly polling results yesterday, showing the Liberals in good position in every province, with the Progressive Conservatives well behind in second and the NDP slipping further into third.

In Prince Edward Island, the Liberals led with 48%, followed by the PCs at 28%, the NDP at 16%, and the Greens at 7%. Though the Liberals and NDP were down by five points each compared to CRA's last poll in May, and the PCs were up five, the shifts were within the margins of error. Of the total sample, 25% were undecided.

This is the lowest the Liberals have registered in PEI since August 2013. For the NDP, it is the worst since February 2012. In fact, they had double the support this time last year. Meanwhile, the PCs have put up their best result since December 2012 and, at 14%, Steven Myers has managed his highest score on who would make the best premier since he took over the party.

Robert Ghiz of the Liberals was still well in front, however, with 36%. Mike Redmond of the NDP was second with 18%. He is polling better than his party.

Satisfaction with the Ghiz government was down slightly, to 52%. Dissatisfaction was unchanged at 41%.

The Liberals are continuing to dominate in Nova Scotia, with 63% support. That is their highest in recent memory, while at 14% the NDP has fallen to its lowest level of support. The PCs, at 20%, have been holding steady. In total, 28% of the sample was undecided.

Stephen McNeil was the choice for premier of 48% of respondents, followed by Jamie Baillie at 19% (his best since the start of the 2013 campaign) and 9% for Maureen MacDonald of the NDP.

61% of Nova Scotians said they were satisfied with the government, with just 24% dissatisfied.

And in Newfoundland and Labrador, after New Brunswick (we looked at the CRA poll for that province on Tuesday) the next province to go to the polls, the Liberals were up to 58%, their highest level of support in years. The PCs were down to 26%, their lowest since August 2013, while the NDP was steady at 15%. Total undecideds numbered 31%.

Dwight Ball remains the favourite for premier, with 40% to 28% for Tom Marshall of the PCs and 13% for Lorraine Michael of the NDP.

Satisfaction with the government was the highest in the region at 62%, while dissatisfaction was just 25%. In the province where the governing party is polling lower than anywhere else in Atlantic Canada, it is odd that satisfaction with the government is so high. Are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians simply done with the PCs, no matter what they do? That could be one interpretation. The other is that the Liberals could take a hit during an election campaign when voters have to decide whether to make a change. The satisfaction numbers (note that they were only 31% a year ago) might point to that, but the Liberals have been winning by-election after by-election in the province.

The boost in support for the Liberals in Atlantic Canada does raise a chicken-or-the-egg question. Are the provincial Liberals popular again thanks to the boost Justin Trudeau has given the federal party, or is the federal party doing well because of the work of its provincial cousins?

A complete coincidence can probably ruled out. Weighted for population, the CRA poll averages out to 55.5% support for Liberal parties throughout the region, with the PCs at 25.4%, the NDP at 14.7%, and the Greens at 4.1%.

The numbers are in fact quite uniform across the four provinces: 46% to 63% for the Liberals, 20% to 31% for the Tories, and 14% to 16% for the NDP.

By comparison, the federal polls conducted over the same time have averaged 52.3% for the Liberals, 23% for the Conservatives, 17.7% for the NDP, and 6.3% for the Greens. That is quite close.

Which brings up another question: while Trudeau has probably played a role in helping boost Liberal fortunes throughout the region, what effect have Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair had?

Is the unpopularity of the federal Conservatives rubbing off on the provincial Tories? It could be a factor, though support for the PCs in Nova Scotia has been low for some time. The PCs in PEI have had internal turmoil and the Tories in Newfoundland and Labrador have been sinking ever since Danny Williams left. The abrupt drop in support for the first-term New Brunswick Tories is a little more difficult to explain.

And what about the NDP? The federal party did lead throughout the region in 2012, relinquishing that lead by early 2013. Similarly, the provincial wings of the NDP saw boosts in support in 2012 but also into 2013, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador. Internal turmoil, again, might be the root cause of the party's slip there, and the NDP was in government in Nova Scotia, which gave it a different kind of profile.

It seems likely that Trudeau has given the Liberals new momentum that has carried over to the provincial side, helped in part by effective new leaders in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. The PCs have certainly not been helped by their federal cousins, but their recent slump looks largely of their own making. The NDP was probably boosted by the party's surge in 2011 and 2012, which lingered at the provincial level into 2013, but since then domestic affairs and the drift of the federal party have chipped away at what could have been a breakthrough.

Outside of Atlantic Canada, only Ontario has the same sort of three-party system (plus the Greens) that exists at the federal level, and it is remarkable how closely support is being tracked at both levels of government. It certainly bodes well for the federal Liberals, who have just seen a big provincial victory in Nova Scotia and are on track for other ones in New Brunswick this year and Newfoundland and Labrador next year. A federal near-sweep of the region seems like one of the safest bets to make for 2015.

Liberals with wide lead in first New Brunswick projection

In ThreeHundredEight.com's first projection for the provincial election scheduled on September 22, 2014 in New Brunswick, the Liberals under Brian Gallant have a commanding lead and are in a position to win a comfortable majority government.

The Liberals currently lead with a projected 47.4% of the vote, or between 45% and 52%. The Progressive Conservatives are well behind with 29.7%, or between 29% and 33%, while the New Democrats are in third with 16.4%, or between 12% and 20%. The Greens are projected to have 5% support.

With these support levels, the Liberals would likely win between 32 and 41 seats and form a majority government (25 seats are required). The PCs would win between eight and 15 and form the Official Opposition, while the NDP would take between zero and four seats.

Note that even at the extreme low, the Liberals still take 24 seats. Virtually every scenario gives them victory, and with a majority government.

Before getting into the details of the projection model for this election, let's take a brief look at the two polls that have gotten it off the ground.

The first poll, from Forum Research, was unexpected. It was published to the company's website, and is the first foray into New Brunswick that Forum has conducted.

The poll found the Liberals to be leading with 46%, followed by the PCs at 31%, the NDP at 15%, and the Greens at 7%. In that it differed very little from the last public poll at the time, conducted by the Corporate Research Associates in May, it was rather unremarkable.

It did contain some approval ratings, however, which have been lacking for New Brunswick's political scene. PC leader David Alward's were the lowest, at 27% approval to 60% disapproval. Gallant and NDP leader Dominic Cardy were tied at 34% approval, though Gallant had a higher disapproval rating (33% to 29%). Both leaders are still relatively unknown, with 33% not having an opinion of Gallant and 37% saying the same of Cardy. For a third-party leader without a seat in the legislature, that is not bad for Cardy. But Gallant's numbers are a little high for the apparently-incoming premier.

CRA found very similar numbers to Forum in the poll they published today. The Liberals had 48%, with the PCs at 29% and the NDP at 17%. For the Liberals, that was a drop of five points since May but the party has been wobbling back and forth for a year. The PCs have been steady as well.

Of the entire sample, 14% were undecided and, in total, 25% were either undecided or did not give an answer to the voting intentions question. While that is a big drop from the last poll, this is due to CRA not including leaners in their polls outside of an election campaign.

Gallant topped the list on who would make the best premier with 35%, followed by Alward at 22% and Cardy at 11%. Satisfaction with Alward's government was just 35%. He can't win an election with that number.

The projection model

The model for New Brunswick uses the same template that has been employed in the last elections in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec. The basic methodology has not changed at all. But there are a few other differences.

For one, the model is not designed to include regional data. Both the Forum and CRA polls had no regional breakdowns, and it is unlikely that there will be quality regional data available throughout the campaign. For that reason, the model is just looking at the province-wide numbers. If support increases and decreases uniformly, this will pose no problems. If support jumps for one party in one region but not another, there will likely be more mistakes. This is unavoidable, particularly in a small province like New Brunswick. I will endeavour to include any regional data that becomes available.

Another quirk worth mentioning is the riding of Tracadie-Sheila, the only riding currently projected to be won by the NDP. In truth, it probably will not be won by the NDP. The riding is a strong one in the projection because it was previously the riding of Roger Duguay, the party's leader in 2010. He took 34% of the vote in that election on the riding's current boundaries, which was by far the party's best performance in New Brunswick. But Duguay is not running there again, and is no longer leader. Worse, prior to 2010 the riding had no particular history of voting NDP, and will probably return to that pattern in 2014.

So why does the model still show the riding as leaning NDP? The simple answer is that the model is based on past performances, and anomalies like this one can skew things. There is a mechanism in the model, which I am including for the first time in this election, which takes into account a situation like this one, where a leader is no longer running in a particular riding. But even with that mechanism, based on how the vote dropped in other ridings where leaders did not run again, Tracadie-Sheila is still projected to go NDP. But instead of a 20-point edge, the NDP is just nine points up. It will probably be a miss by the model. I could stick my thumbs in to get a more plausible result, but that would turn the model into an educated guess.

That is not to say that projecting one seat for the NDP is wrong. The party is in a very close race in a number of ridings, so it is very plausible that the NDP could win one of them. In the end, their likely range gives them as many as four seats, so awarding them one is not at all unreasonable.

Lastly, my thanks go to Kyle H. of the Blunt Objects blog for providing me with the transposed results of the 2010 election onto the new boundaries being used in this provincial campaign.