Striving Against Opposition

A Conservative Majority Government?

Standing at 36% in the polls according the latest Ipsos Reid poll done for CTV, the Conservative Party seems to be inching towards majority territory. The Ipso Reid Poll places the Liberals at 27% in the polls, while the NDP trails at 15%, while the Green sit back at 7%.

What isn't mentioned is that would leave the Bloc at 15% nationally! Which is well.. something resembling 60% in Quebec...

I tend to think that's a bit high, so for the sake of argument I've elected to list party support as Conservative 36%, Liberal 27%, NDP 16%, BQ 13% and Green 8%.

Why? The remainder of the Ipsos poll seems to conflict with its national numbers. 36 +27 +35 + 7 = 85%

At the same time they give the regional data for Quebec as being 41% BQ, Liberal 25, Conservative 16%, NDP 8%, Green Party 6%.

So for the sake of some sort of logical consistency, I've shuffled the numbers and I put the BQ at 13% national, directed 1% towards the NDP as I thought they seemed to be quite substantially down in this survey and 1% to the Greens as they seem to be catching a lot of Liberal support. That decision is admittedly somewhat arbitrary, but I think it entirely possible.

Next I went to the UBC seat projector, splitting the 9.7% Liberal freefall between the Conservatives, the Bloc and the Greens (and arguably the NDP as I left them higher than Ipsos did), what results is A CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY GOVERNMENT.

According the the UBC projections a 160 seat, five seat Tory majority would be the result at the polls. The Bloc Quebecois recieve 67 seats to become the Official Opposition, while the Liberals drop to 3rd place hanging onto only 52 seats, while the NDP increase their seat share significantly recieving 28.

This prediction has the Conservatives sweeping through Western Canada like some sort of angel of vengence and picking up 81 seats, however, I'd expect we'd recieve a few less than that . (the model gives us a few that are within a couple percent.) According to this prediction the Western caucus of the Liberal Party would be Ralph Goodale and Stephen Owens. In Manitoba the projections are predicting the political deaths of Reg Alcock, Anita Neville and Raymond Simard.

Those three ridings are Liberal strongholds, I have difficulty believing as a former Manitoban that we can knock of Reg Alcock..and the idea of Saint Boniface going Conservative is a bit hard to swallow too. Anita Neville on the other hand is a weak MP, I can see a strong campaign knocking her off. None the less, perhaps a massive shift in voter intentions will turn most of the province that sweet, sweet Tory blue.

Saskatchewan leaves only Goodale as the sole non-Tory. While our Saskatchewan troopers seem to manage to ward off the socialist hordes in the province much better than than do provincially.

BC is rather interesting, we take the Liberal's lunch money there as they bleed support to the right and to the left. Its nice to see three way lefty vote splitting in BC - I knew vote splitting would be good for us someday. I can see Jack Layton starting up the Unite the Left conference sometime after this election if the Greens keep polling so high. None the less, the Dippers pick up some Liberal seats, and so do we. Cadman wins in a walk if he remains. Oh yes and in turncoat news - Keith Martin may well be knocked off by the NDP - huzzah!

Back in Ontario, as many as 66 seats go our way, with another 4 or 5 going NDP, while the Liberals fall to 28 seats in Ontario mostly in the Toronto area with Scarborough seeming to be the Liberal stronghold every other regional centre seems to be penetrated at least partially by the CPC or the NDP.

Quebec - if the Bloc have crunched numbers like these its no wonder they seem to have a hard on for an election. The model is predicting the Liberals reduced to 8 seats in Quebec. With the Bloc Quebecois winning the remaining 67. Such Liberal cabinet ministers as Liza Frulla, Pierre Pettigrew and Jean Lapierre could be suffled off this electoral coil.

The CPC seems to have a strong chance of winning the ridings of Louis - Saint Laurent which is our Quebec lieutenant Josee Vanier's riding in Quebec City, and a riding just outside Hull - Pontiac which is essentially split three ways between the Liberals, Conservatives and the Bloc according to these projections. Were I Stephen Harper I would have a small army of volunteers invading these two ridings and be there personally on a very frequent basis. Both of these ridings went PC under Mulroney, and Pontiac has gone Conservative under every Conservative administration since Diefenbaker in the late 50s except for Joe Clark (he doesn't count anyway). These two ridings are musts for us.

In the Atlantic provinces, PEI looks like it will cough up a seat or two for us, Lib 2, CPC 2. While it would seem we pick up 1 extra seat in Newfoundland 4 Lib 3 Cons, while in NS a few more seats gained with Scott Brison may well be regretting jumping on the wrong bandwagon at the wrong time. (Conservatives 5, Lib 3, NDP 3) While in NB we gain some ground as well. (Conservative 6, Lib 3, NDP 1).

While the North splits with the Yukon and Nunavut going Liberal and the NWT going NDP.

To get an idea of the margins involved in this projection the Conservatives are predicted to have 115 safe seats! The Bloc to have 55, the Liberals 21 and the NDP 15.

Read that again closely - there are only 21 safe Liberal seats according to projections based on their current share of the vote. Even being generous and saying there are at least another dozen or two safe Liberal seats - that puts three quarters of the Liberal's current seat share in play.

Is it just me or is Paul Martin starting to look an aweful lot like John Turner - all hype no performance? Not to mention facing the potential of an ignoble end.

Update - Just a thought here but it seems to me like the CBC poll that put the NDP at 24% is looking fairly rogue. I haven't seen another poll yet putting them nearly that high. I'm going to predict they slide in somewhere between 16 and 20% in the polls. I think right now Jack Layton's biggest opponent is not necessarily Paul Martin - but the Green Party. Really..in a perfect world (if your a Dipper) those are your people.

But if the NDP and Greens slip the far left, I'm happy that we don't have to break out the "socialist hordes will eat your children" chant.

posted by Chris @ 4/16/2005 11:23:00 p.m.