As Conservative leadership deadline looms, list of 14 could be winnowed down

Should auld contestants be forgot, and never brought to mind?

A few Conservative leadership candidates might be asking themselves this question on New Year's Eve.

That's because the first deadline in the Conservative leadership race looms on Dec. 31, when contestants who have already launched their campaigns have to pay the party a $50,000 compliance deposit in order to stay in the running.

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The Pollcast on the year in politics: Leadership races, Trudeau and Trump

It was a year for change. A new government getting settled in Ottawa, a new president on the way in the United States, and two opposition parties searching for the next leaders to take on Justin Trudeau.

But if there was one lesson to take from 2016, it is that politics can be unpredictable.

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.

What were the successes of Trudeau's first full year in office? What were some of his failures? What has the Liberal government's new approach and the election of Donald Trump taught the media about what matters most to people outside of the political bubble in Ottawa or Washington, D.C.?

And what to make of the candidate-less NDP leadership race and the cavalcade of contestants in the running for the Conservative top job?

Joining me on the last Pollcast episode of 2016 are Susan Delacourt, columnist for the Toronto Star and iPolitics, and Althia Raj, the Ottawa Bureau Chief of The Huffington Post Canada.

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.

Justin Trudeau still in strong position in polls, but recent drop suggests vulnerability

For most of 2016, public support for Justin Trudeau's Liberals appeared to be invulnerable to the slings and arrows of the opposition. But a series of recent polls suggests some of the attacks might be leaving a mark — though the extent of the damage isn't entirely clear just yet.

The first indication of Trudeau's troubles came a little over a week ago in a Forum Research poll conducted for the Toronto Star. It was the first survey done in the aftermath of the government's decision to approve two oil pipelines and reject a third. It was also taken as the controversy surrounding the prime minister's attendance at $1,500-per-ticket fundraising events was in full tilt.

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The Pollcast: 6 months to go before B.C. goes to the polls

The next provincial election in British Columbia is six short months away, and the campaigning has already unofficially begun.

Will British Columbians decide to re-elect Christy Clark's B.C. Liberals, a party that has been in power since 2001? Or will they instead install John Horgan's New Democrats, setting off a possible confrontation with the neighbouring NDP government in Alberta over pipelines?

And will pollsters get redemption after missing the call in 2013?

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.

The B.C. election will be held on May 9. Polls suggest the race is close. While the New Democrats were leading in the polls by about 16 points at this point in 2012, the latest survey puts the gap between the two parties at just one point.

Clark has a booming economy on her side, but after 15 years in power the B.C. Liberal government is long in the tooth. Horgan still has a low profile, and is challenged from the left by the B.C. Greens, who hold one seat in the legislature and have designs on more.

Richard Zussman, the CBC's legislative reporter in B.C., joins me to break down the coming election season.

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.

Just for the rich? All taxpayers pitch in for $1,500 fundraising tickets

It doesn't matter if you can't spend an evening with the prime minister because the $1,500 ticket price for entry to a party fundraising event is too high. You'll still be on the hook for some of the bill.

And you can thank Canada's political financing laws, which award donors significant tax credits on contributions to political parties and in election years reimburse parties half (or more) of their election expenses, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

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Poll suggests no Conservative leadership contestant has captured Canadians' attention yet

A new poll suggests no candidates for the Conservative Party leadership have been able to lift themselves out of the pack in the eyes of Canadians and Conservative supporters — a stark contrast to the last two races for the leadership of the New Democrats and Liberals, when clear front-runners had already emerged at this stage of the campaign.

The poll, conducted by Forum Research and published in Postmedia's Sun chain of newspapers, found that none of the contestants tested in the poll scored more than 9 per cent support among Conservative voters, while 49 per cent said they preferred "someone else."

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The Pollcast: Electoral reform, like math, is hard

Some of the government's most controversial files — pipelines, fighter jets, a new health accord with the provinces — could seem like child's play when compared to the minefield of electoral reform.

Justin Trudeau's campaign pledge to ensure the 2015 federal election was the last held under the first-past-the-post electoral system is looking like one of his most difficult promises to keep. Time is running out, the opposition is howling for a referendum on proportional representation and the government has yet to give any indication of what it plans to do.

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.

Last week, the special committee on electoral reform put forward its recommendations after spending months hearing expert testimony and speaking directly with Canadians. The report recommended the government develop a proportional representation system and put it to Canadians in a referendum.

But the report was not without its contradictions, with a supplemental report from the Liberals on the committee suggesting that implementing a new electoral system before the 2019 federal election was unrealistic and casting doubt on the necessity of a referendum.

Further complicating matters, the New Democrats and Greens also included a supplemental report of their own questioning the necessity of a referendum.

Maryam Monsef, the minister for democratic institutions, then criticized the committee for not doing its job and falsely claimed the report recommended putting a mathematical formula on the referendum ballot. She subsequently apologized for the comments.

Now the government has launched an online survey to gauge Canadians' views on electoral reform. But the opposition has made a mockery of the survey's questions and raised privacy concerns.

So, what now?

Joining me again to discuss the ups and downs of the electoral reform file are the CBC's Aaron Wherry and Kady O'Malley of the Ottawa Citizen.

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.

November 2016 federal polling averages

Below you will find the federal polling averages for the month of November. The averages combine four federal polls (Mainstreet, Forum, Abacus and EKOS) and one Quebec poll (CROP), altogether surveying 11,652 Canadians.

Compared to the October 2016 averages, the Liberals were down 0.1 point, the Conservatives were up 0.2 points, the New Democrats were up 0.1 point, and the Greens were up 0.4 points.

Monthly tracking chart

The tracking chart below shows the monthly polling averages stretching back to January 2009. Elections and campaigns as well as the arrival of new federal leaders are also included.

You can click or tap on the chart above to magnify it.

Seat projections

The chart below shows how many seats each of the parties would have won in an election held in this month. This seat projection uses the current first-past-the-post system. For full methodology, see here.

The tracking chart below shows the maximum and minimum seat ranges (which are wider than the likely ranges above) projected for each party since the 2015 federal election.

You can click or tap on the chart above to magnify it.

Seat projections with alternate electoral systems

The chart below shows potential seat outcomes using alternative electoral systems.

In addition to first-past-the-post (FPTP), the chart shows estimations for proportional representation (PR) and alternative voting (AV).

For PR, each province retains the number of seats they currently have. The number of seats each party receives is rounded up or down according to the vote share received in each province, and any leftover seats are awarded to the party that finished in first place in the region.

A very simple calculation is done for AV. Because the Liberals and New Democrats tend to be each other's second choice, they are awarded any seat where they are projected to be in first place (along with the Greens). Any seat that the Conservatives or Bloc Québécois leads with 45 per cent or more is awarded to that party. Any seat where the Conservatives or Bloc Québécois is in first place but with less than 45 per cent is given to the Liberals, the NDP, or the Greens, depending on which of these parties was in second place.

Though a crude method, past experience with more sophisticated methods have yielded virtually identical results in the current political landscape.

These projections also assumes no change of behaviour by the parties based on the system in place, no change in the behaviour of voters, and no other parties on the ballot. All of these assumptions are likely to be greatly tested in any change to the electoral system.

All past monthly averages posts can be found here.

Liberals hold on to honeymoon gains in national polls

Justin Trudeau's Liberals continue to enjoy more support today than they did in the 2015 federal election and have yet to see their poll numbers take a negative turn. But as the government enters the second year of its four-year mandate, it's making decisions that have the potential to disappoint some of its new supporters.

Over the last quarter, the Liberals have averaged 47.9 per cent support in national polls, a marginal gain over the previous quarter but up 8.4 points compared to election night. The Conservatives have averaged 28.7 per cent, down 3.2 points from the election, while the New Democrats have slipped 7.1 points to just 12.6 per cent support nationwide.

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Maxime Bernier's donor base is bigger and broader than Kellie Leitch's

The most recent set of fundraising data for the Conservative leadership race put Kellie Leitch narrowly ahead of Maxime Bernier in total dollars raised. But an analysis of where these contributions came from suggests Bernier has a bigger and broader base of national support within the party — and that puts him in a much better position to win than Leitch. 

Between April 1 and Sept. 30, the latest data available from Elections Canada, Leitch raised $450,421.56, a little more than Bernier's $427,508.72. Ontario MP Michael Chong raised $208,913.72, while Alberta MP Deepak Obhrai raised $1,100.

The other 10 contestants either launched their campaigns after Sept. 30 or had no contributions to report prior to that date.

Taking into account individuals who made multiple contributions and counting them only once, Bernier raised his money from 1,788 individual contributors, compared to 1,049 for Leitch, 370 for Chong and two for Obhrai. In other words, Bernier received money from 56 per cent of all donors to the race in this period, compared to 33 per cent for Leitch and 11.5 per cent for Chong.

But over and above Bernier's advantage in the number of donors, he has a superior regional distribution of that support than does either Leitch or Chong.

And that's a decisive factor in the Conservative leadership race.

You can read the rest of this article here.

The Pollcast: 4 byelections and many questions in Quebec politics

Voters head to the polls in four provincial ridings in Quebec on Monday. The contests will mark the first test for Jean-François Lisée, the Parti Québécois's new leader.

Byelections will be held in the ridings of Arthabaska, Marie-Victorin, Saint-Jérôme and Verdun. The last riding, held by the Liberals on the island of Montreal, is not considered to be at play.

But the Parti Québécois will be looking to hold their ridings of Marie-Victorin and Saint-Jérôme, while the Coalition Avenir Québec will try to defend its turf in Arthabaska. The CAQ may also try to make a play for Saint-Jérôme, a seat that Pierre-Karl Péladeau won away from the CAQ in the 2014 provincial election.

A few surprises could be in store. Will the results prove to be bad news for Lisée, could they blunt the gains that François Legault's CAQ has recently made in the polls, or will they turn out to be a shot across the Liberal bow, as the government's satisfaction ratings reach new lows?

Joining me to discuss Quebec's politics on this week's episode of The Pollcast is pollster Christian Bourque, executive vice-president of Léger.

You can listen to the podcast here, subscribe to future episodes here, and listen to past episodes here.