Monthly Picture: March 2009

Now that March is past us, here is the way the projection would look like taking only the March polling results as a factor. March featured six national polls with a total of 8,514 interviews. Below we see the national polling average between the six polls, with the change from the February picture in brackets:

Conservatives - 34.3% (+0.3)
Liberals - 33.2% (+1.2)
New Democrats - 14.2% (-1.3)
Bloc Quebecois - 9.5% (+0.7)
Greens - 8.2% (-1.1)

Now, we have the regional results, with the average popular vote followed by the amount of seats that gives in the projection. The change of seats from the February picture is in brackets:

BRITISH COLUMBIA (four polls)

Conservatives - 42.5% - 25 (-2)
Liberals - 26.5% - 10 (+2)
New Democrats - 20.8% - 1
Greens - 8.8% - 0

ALBERTA (four polls)

Conservatives - 60.0% - 26 (-2)
Liberals - 18.0% - 2 (+2)
New Democrats - 12.0% - 0
Greens - 7.8% - 0

PRAIRIES (four polls)

Conservatives - 49.8% - 21 (-2)
Liberals - 25.3% - 5 (+1)
New Democrats - 18.5% - 2 (+1)
Greens - 5.3% - 0

ONTARIO (six polls)

Liberals - 40.8% - 57 (+1)
Conservatives - 36.0% - 41 (+3)
New Democrats - 13.0% - 8 (-4)
Greens - 9.5% - 0

QUEBEC (seven polls)

Bloc Quebecois - 38.7% - 50 (-1)
Liberals - 30.4% - 20 (+4)
Conservatives - 14.9% - 4 (-3)
New Democrats - 10.3% - 1
Greens - 5.4% - 0

ATLANTIC (five polls)

Liberals - 41.0% - 22 (+2)
Conservatives - 31.0% - 8 (-2)
New Democrats - 20.2% - 2
Greens - 7.2% - 0

Assuming the Conservatives win one seat in the North and the Liberals win two, the seat projection for March was:

Conservatives - 126 (-4 from February)
Liberals - 118 (+8)
Bloc Quebecois - 50 (-1)
New Democrats - 14 (-3)

So, what this shows is that the Liberals and Conservatives are really starting to close together - at least in the polling. The projection takes into account past voting tendencies and how things would look after an election campaign. The March polling numbers are just a snapshot - the projection takes into account many more factors.