Liberals down, NDP up in new projection

Yesterday, Jack Layton surprised us all by coming out into the foyer of the House of Commons and announcing that his party could not support the Conservative budget. This came after both Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe said they would not support the budget either. While Layton made some reference to not being able to support the budget "in its current form", Finance Minister Jim Flaherty emerged to say that no amendment would be considered.

This morning, there is word that the Liberals will use their opposition day to put forward a motion of non-confidence in the government related to accountability issues. The downfall of the government is now unavoidable.

For all intents and purposes, the election campaign begins today. And this means a lot of work at ThreeHundredEight.com. What can you expect?

I've decided upon a daily routine which I hope to keep to throughout the campaign.

I will be getting up bright and early (today was an exception!) and work on inputting the newest polls into the projection model. As soon as it is ready, I will be posting the daily projection. I'm hoping I can do this before 8:00 AM each day.

Then, after catching up a little on the news, I will post a summary of the previous day's polls. These will be all national and provincial polls released during the previous day, and will be accompanied by an analysis of new trends, especially fascinating results from the individual polls, and a one-poll-only seat projection for what I consider to be the most interesting poll of the lot. Hopefully, this poll summary will be out before noon.

Finally, in the afternoon I will post about different things. This could be a riding poll or interesting regional poll, a new individual poll that is out during the day that deserves an immediate look, or some piece of analysis that I've been working on.

Any and all suggestions for things to cover during the campaign are welcome! But let's get to today's new projection.

At the national level, the Conservatives have dropped 0.5 points to 37.8% but are still projected to win 149 seats. The Liberals are up 0.3 points to 27.7%, but have lost two seats and now stand at 73. The New Democrats are up 0.5 points to 16.3%, and are now projected to win 34 seats, a gain of two since March 21st.

The Bloc Québécois is up 0.1 points to 9.9% nationally, while the Greens are down 0.3 points to 7.3%.

Rather than go through the regional changes one by one, each day I will be presenting the following chart:

Note that the Conservatives have dropped everywhere west of Quebec, with the losses in British Columbia and Alberta being especially large. The Liberals, meanwhile, are relatively stable except for some encouraging gains in Alberta and Ontario.

The NDP is up strongly in the west as well as in Atlantic Canada, while the Greens have gained in the one province that matters: British Columbia.

At the riding level, the New Democrats have re-gained Edmonton - Strathcona from the Conservatives. The Liberals have lost Ajax - Pickering and Brampton - Springdale in the GTA to the Tories, while the New Democrats have taken Sault Ste. Marie back from the Conservatives in northern Ontario.

British Columbia is a province to watch for the New Democrats. With their gain and the Tory loss, they are now moving closer in Burnaby - Douglas, Surrey North, and Vancouver Kingsway.

Below are the individual riding projections. I've put them all in one big image, which should be more convenient. As always, they are also presented in the right-hand column.

Let's get this campaign rolling!