The Pollcast: Is Jason Kenney's bid to unite the Alberta right about to begin?

If Jason Kenney is named the next leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives on March 18, it could mark the end of the once dominant Alberta PCs — and the beginning of a campaign that could result in a single Alberta Conservative Party taking on the governing New Democrats in 2019.

But while the chances of Kenney succeeding in achieving his short-term goal look good, his longer term aim of merging the PCs with Wildrose, a party led by Brian Jean, the leader of the Official Opposition in the Alberta legislature, will not be so simple.

To help break down the state of Alberta politics and what to expect in the coming months, I'm joined by Alberta pollster Janet Brown and Graham Thomson, columnist for the Edmonton Journal.

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

5 provincial politicians to watch in 2017

With a federal government willing to meet with premiers and provincial and territorial ministers on a regular basis, federal-provincial relations are likely to continue to loom large while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in office.

Elections will be held in two provinces in 2017 as British Columbians and Nova Scotians head to the polls. And while no provincewide votes will be held in Alberta and Ontario, the premiers of these provinces will nevertheless have difficult political obstacles to tackle this year.

Though a third referendum on Quebec's sovereignty is very unlikely for the foreseeable future, a change of venue for one politician could bring that debate back to Ottawa.

With that in mind, here are five provincial politicians to watch in 2017.

You can read the rest of this article here.

The Pollcast: Jason Kenney's quest to unite the Alberta right

Jason Kenney left federal politics earlier this month to mount a bid for the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives.

But his plan to redraw the political landscape in Alberta doesn't end there. After winning the leadership, he wants to merge the PCs with Wildrose, another conservative opposition party, and take down Rachel Notley's New Democrats in 2019.

It's a tall order. Can he do it?

Joining me to break down the leadership campaign is Janet Brown, an Alberta pollster, and Graham Thomson, columnist for the Edmonton Journal.

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

The Pollcast: The Liberals and their digital revolution

For years, the Conservatives beat their rivals at the ballot box thanks in part to their superior skills at slicing and dicing the electorate. They learned a lot about their potential supporters and appealed to them as consumers. Then they reaped the electoral rewards.

But their election-winning strategy hit a wall in 2015 when the Liberals finally caught up in the data wars and employed new and risky advertising strategies with success.

"Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them," originally published in 2013, delves into how politics and marketing have come together in Canada.

Susan Delacourt, columnist for the Toronto Star and iPolitics and author of the book, joins me to discuss the new chapters in her updated edition that look at how the Liberals won in 2015.

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

Uniting Wildrose and the PCs in Alberta no easy task for Jason Kenney

Jason Kenney might be planning to leave federal politics to enter the fray in Alberta, riding in as a white knight to unite the divided right and defeat Rachel Notley's governing New Democrats.

It may prove even more difficult than many think.

Kenney, a former high-profile cabinet minister in Stephen Harper's government, has been widely seen as a likely front-runner in the race to replace the departed Conservative leader.

Instead, the job vacancy that Kenney might now be hoping to fill is the leader of Alberta's Progressive Conservatives — a position abandoned by Jim Prentice after the PCs, who had governed the province uninterrupted from 1971, were reduced to third-party status in the 2015 election.

The party that vaulted ahead and currently occupies the role of the Official Opposition is Wildrose, led by former Conservative MP Brian Jean. Kenney would need to absorb Wildrose into the PCs in order to unite the right and create a common front to fight the NDP.

Wildrose, however, is not much inclined to be absorbed. And Brian Jean doesn't want to go anywhere. With more seats (22 compared to nine for the PCs) and more money in the bank, he could easily make the argument that it is the PCs that need to sacrifice themselves.

You can read the rest of this article here.

British voters split on Brexit referendum vote, but Remain may have edge: polls

The tumultuous and divisive referendum campaign on the future of the United Kingdom's place in the European Union comes to a fittingly tense and uncertain end Thursday, as polls suggest it could be decided by the narrowest of margins.

But after some harrowing days on an increasingly negative campaign trail that seemed to be leaning towards Brexit — interrupted by the tragic and violent murder of Labour MP Jo Cox — the edge may be back with the Remain camp.

In the last six polls published by members of the British Polling Council before Wednesday, the Remain side has averaged 45.5 per cent support. The Leave campaign follows less than two points behind at 43.8 per cent. On average, 10 per cent of voters remain undecided.

You can read the rest of this Brexit analysis here.

Donald Trump slumps in polls after Orlando

If Donald Trump believed that the Orlando shooting and a renewed focus on terrorism would help boost his sagging presidential campaign, polls suggest it has had no such impact.

In fact, his reaction to the tragedy may be hurting him.

The presumptive Republican nominee is now trailing rival Hillary Clinton in CBC's weighted average of U.S. polls by a greater margin than two weeks ago. His support stands at 43.2 per cent among decided registered or likely voters, compared to 49.3 per cent for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

You can read the rest of this U.S. politics analysis here.

March 2016 federal and provincial polling averages (updated)

An update to this post was made on April 15, for two reasons. Firstly, the original post failed to include a poll by the Innovative Research Group that had been conducted in March. Secondly, there was an error made in how the maximum seat projection ranges have been calculated since the election. Edits have been made throughout the text and the graphics have been updated as well.

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Federal polling picked up a little in March, with five national and one Quebec poll being conducted and published throughout the month. In total, over 10,000 Canadians were sampled, and the numbers continue to show robust support for the Liberals.

The Liberals led in March with an average of 45 per cent support, down four points from February. But they are down only 0.2 points from January and 1.2 points from December.

As February had only two national polls, it would perhaps be unwise to draw too many conclusions from a comparison to that month. It might be more accurate to say the Liberals are down slightly from where they were in December and January. It is also their lowest result since the election.

The Conservatives averaged 30.5 per cent support, up one point from February and 2.1 points from January. This was their best score since the election.

The New Democrats were at 13.1 per cent, up 0.6 points from February but down 3.2 points from January — and 6.6 points since the October vote.

The Greens were at 5.5 per cent and the Bloc Québécois at 4.4 per cent, steady numbers since the election. Another 1.5 per cent, on average, said they would support another party or independent candidate.

I won't make any direct comparisons to the regional results in February, as the two polls from that month would have still had very small combined regional sample sizes.

The Liberals led in British Columbia with 47.4 per cent support, a second consecutive month of increase putting the party back where it was in the aftermath of the election. The Conservatives have been wobbling back and forth, and averaged 25.6 per cent in the province. The New Democrats were down again, falling to 15.8 per cent. The Greens were at 9.9 per cent.

This would likely deliver between 29 and 38 seats to the Liberals, with the Conservatives winning between two and 11 and the New Democrats and Greens only one apiece. That is a decrease from last month for both the Conservatives and NDP, and a gain for the Liberals.

In Alberta, the Conservatives continued to lead with 58.7 per cent support, followed by the Liberals at 28 per cent, the NDP at 6.6 per cent, and the Greens at 4 per cent. This would likely deliver 29 to 31 seats to the Conservatives and three to five seats to the Liberals.

The close race in the Prairies continued, with the Liberals and Conservatives tied at 40.8 per cent, enough to give the Conservatives 17 to 19 seats and the Liberals between nine and 11. The NDP was at 11.3 per cent and the Greens at 6 per cent.

The Liberals dropped to a post-election low in Ontario to 46.7 per cent, dropping them to 75 to 93 seats in the projection. The Conservatives were up to one of their highest level of support since the election with 35.4 per cent, enough to give them 27 to 43 seats. The New Democrats were at 12.6 per cent (one to five seats), and the Greens were at 4.5 per cent.

The Liberals were down 4.1 points in Quebec from February (there were three polls in the province that month) to 46.2 per cent, but that would still give them almost all of the province's 78 seats with 63 to 73. The NDP was up 0.6 points to 17.9 per cent, but that would likely only win them one seat. The Bloc Québécois was up 2.8 points to 17.5 per cent (zero to five seats), while the Conservatives were down 0.2 points to 13.5 per cent. That would likely give them five to nine seats. The Greens were at 3.8 per cent.

And in Atlantic Canada, the Liberal voted oscillated back down to 59.9 per cent, followed by the Conservatives at 19.9 per cent, the NDP at 11.3 per cent, and the Greens at 6.5 per cent. This would likely give the Liberals 29 to 32 seats and the Conservatives zero to three seats.

Altogether, the Liberals would likely have won between 211 and 255 seats in an election held in March, well above the 184 seats they won in the election.

The Conservatives would have won between 80 and 116 seats, straddling the 99 seats they won in the October vote.

The New Democrats would win between two and seven seats, well down from the 44 they currently have.

The Greens would have retained their one seat, while the Bloc Québécois would have won between zero and five seats, an improvement over the projected shutout in February.

The maximum ranges take into account big polling and projection misses. But they might also be a good proxy for the impact of a campaign.

In 2015, when the one-election model was in use, the Conservatives began the campaign on August 2 with a projected maximum range of between 83 and 189 seats — so it did envision their eventual outcome.

For the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc, however, it took until October for the maximum ranges to extend to where the parties eventually wound up. So I think it is fair to say the maximum ranges give a window of what two to three weeks of campaigning could do to the polls. In that sense, they give an indication of what outcomes we might expect if we were in the early stages of a campaign.

The maximum ranges currently give the Liberals anything between a huge majority and a very slim ones. The Conservatives would almost certainly finish second.

The New Democrats could best hope to win 16 seats while the Bloc still could not achieve official party status (9 seats), or be shut out (the NDP too).

I had made an error with the earlier projections, as after the election I had forgotten to re-classify the parties. That is why the Liberal lower end was so low — they were being treated like a third party, not like the governing party.

With the chart now corrected, you can see that the Liberals have not been in a position since the election that would put their majority government in doubt. And only in January did the NDP have an outside chance of finishing in second place.

Provincial polling averages

It was a busy month at the provincial level, with new polls in every province but British Columbia.

In Alberta, Wildrose led with 34 per cent, followed by the New Democrats at 27 per cent, the Progressive Conservatives at 25 per cent, the Liberals at 8 per cent, and the Alberta Party at 4 per cent. Though Rachel Notley's governing NDP is back in second, they have been on a pretty consistent slide since the summer.

The March polling in Saskatchewan averaged 57.1 per cent for Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party, 32 per cent for the NDP, and 6.4 per cent for the Liberals. The result of the election on April 4, however, was 62.6 per cent for Wall's party and 30.4 per cent for Cam Broten's NDP.

The campaign continues in Manitoba and we have already seen some polls conducted in April. But in March, the Progressive Conservatives averaged 44.8 per cent, followed by the NDP at 24.8 per cent and the Liberals at 23 per cent. It was the first time the New Democrats were in second since last summer.

One poll in Ontario showed continued stability in the province, with Patrick Brown's PCs ahead with 40 per cent to 30 per cent for the Liberals and 24 per cent for the NDP.

In Quebec, the Liberals fell to 32.5 per cent, giving new support to the Coalition Avenir Québec, which was up to 23 per cent. The Parti Québécois was steady at 30 per cent, while Québec Solidaire stood at 10.5 per cent.

The Liberals dropped in New Brunswick to 45 per cent support, followed by the PCs at 27 per cent, the NDP at 18 per cent, and the Greens at 8 per cent.

In Nova Scotia, the Liberals were down to 56 per cent, with the PCs up to 23 per cent and the NDP falling to third place to 16 per cent support.

It was steady sailing in Prince Edward Island, wit the Liberals at 61 per cent, the Progressive Conservatives at 19 per cent, and the Greens at 11 per cent.

And in Newfoundland and Labrador, the post-election honeymoon is on with Dwight Ball's Liberals, who were up to 66 per cent. The PCs were at 23 per cent and the NDP at 11 per cent.

New federal poll from Forum, Alberta poll from Insights West

Forum Research has a new federal poll out today, showing continuing strong numbers for the Liberals.

Insights West also has a new poll on the Alberta provincial scene, focusing on the 'unite-the-right' debate, and where supporters for each of the party think they are on the political spectrum.

Despite Donald Trump's wins, U.S. primaries far from over

The American presidential primaries have been playing out for six weeks — and they are not even close to being over.

That is because the outcome will remain uncertain for another three months — or even until July, when the Republican Party could have to hash things out on the convention floor in Cleveland, Ohio.

You can read the rest of this article on the U.S. primaries here.

Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party gains in 2 new polls

Two new polls suggest that the Saskatchewan Party's position is improving as the province's election campaign continues into its second week.

The CBC Saskatchewan Poll Tracker now pegs the Saskatchewan Party to hold the lead with 56.1 per cent support, a gain of just under three points since last week's update. The New Democrats have slipped about two points to 32.7 per cent, while the Liberals and Greens trail with 7.3 and 3.2 per cent support, respectively.

You can read the rest of this article on the Saskatchewan provincial election here.

The Pollcast: Breaking down the Manitoba election

Voters in Manitoba will be heading to the polls on April 19, as Premier Greg Selinger dissolved the legislature today.

But will he still be in the job on April 20?

You can listen to the podcast with guest Cameron MacIntosh, the CBC's senior report in Manitoba, here.

How embattled NDP Leader Tom Mulcair stacks up against his predecessors

The New Democrats' rise to Official Opposition status in 2011 was sudden and euphoric, its fall back to third-party status traumatic.

Nevertheless,Tom Mulcair's electoral performance in 2015 ranks positively against those of NDP leaders who preceded him.

However, the party's concentration of support in Quebec masks regional weaknesses that make Mulcair look much less impressive when stacked up against his predecessors.

You can read the rest of this article on Tom Mulcair's NDP leadership situation here.

February 2016 federal and provincial polling averages

Polling was particularly thin in the month of February at the federal level, with only two national and one Quebec poll being conducted and published. In all, just under 4,000 Canadians were surveyed.

The polls suggest that the high levels of support the Liberal government has been enjoying since its election victory in October are, for the time being, holding fast.

In the two polls conducted in February, the Liberals averaged 49 per cent support — up about four points from their January averages.

The Conservatives under interim leader Rona Ambrose were up about one point to 29.5 per cent, while the New Democrats were down four points to 12.5 per cent.

The Greens averaged 5 per cent and the Bloc Québécois 3 per cent.

Tom Mulcair's New Democrats were at their lowest level of support in February since I began calculating the monthly averages in January 2009, or over seven years ago. Going through my sparser archives before that date, it seems likely that February 2016 could have been the worst month in polling for the NDP since the end of 2003.

The Liberals led in British Columbia with 46.5 per cent support, followed by the Conservatives at 27 per cent and the New Democrats at 19 per cent. The Greens averaged 7.5 per cent. With these numbers, the Liberals would be able to win 22 to 38 seats in British Columbia, with the Conservatives winning between two and 13 and the New Democrats between one and nine. Elizabeth May would be in no danger in her seat.

The Conservatives averaged 57.5 per cent in Alberta, and would take 28 to 32 seats with those levels of support. The Liberals were at 29 per cent, good for two to six seats, while the New Democrats averaged 7 per cent, good for none. The Greens were at 5 per cent here.

In the Prairies, the Liberals moved narrowly in the lead with 42.5 per cent (enough for nine to 11 seats), while the Conservatives slipped to 39.5 per cent (17 to 19 seats). The NDP was down to 12 per cent. The Greens were at 5.5 percent.

There was little movement in Ontario, where the Liberals led with 50.5 per cent support (and could win 80 to 101 seats with that number). The Conservatives were at 32 per cent (19 to 39 seats) and the New Democrats dropped to 11 per cent (one to three seats). The Greens were at 5.5 per cent.

The Liberals dominated in Quebec with 50.3 per cent support, enough to win them 68 to 73 of the province's 78 seats. The New Democrats were down to 17.3 per cent (zero to one seat), while the Bloc Québécois was unchanged at 14.7 per cent. The Conservatives dropped to 13.7 per cent, but would win five to nine seats with that level of support. The Greens averaged 3.3 per cent.

And in Atlantic Canada, the Liberals were at 72 per cent — a big 15-point jump that we can mostly ignore since it was derived from just two small regional samples. The Conservatives were down to 16 per cent and the NDP to 9.5 per cent, and would continue to be shutout of the seat count. At 3 per cent, the Greens had their lowest level of support here.

Likely ranges

Overall, that would put the Liberal tally at between 216 and 264 seats, a big increase from the 184 seats the party won in October.

The Conservatives would win between 71 and 112 seats, putting them in the ballpark of the 99 seats they currently hold, while the New Democrats would be down sharply to between two and 13 seats.

The Bloc would not win a single seat and the Greens would retain their one.

At the maximum ranges, the Liberals and Conservatives barely overlap even at the 95 per cent confidence interval, while the New Democrats are solidly in third — or worse.

Provincial polling averages

New polls were conducted and published in the month of February in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

In Alberta, the Wildrose was narrowly ahead in a three-way pile-up with 33 per cent, followed by the Progressive Conservatives at 31 per cent and the New Democrats at 27 per cent. The Liberals had 5 per cent and the Alberta Party just 4 per cent support. This represents a rather big spike for the leaderless PCs, though Brian Jean's Wildrose and Rachel Notley's NDP have been jostling for position since the May 2015 election.

The Saskatchewan Party under Brad Wall continued to lead in Saskatchewan with an average of 54 per cent support, followed by Cam Broten's New Democrats at 33 per cent. The Saskatchewan Party has led in the province since before the 2007 provincial election.

The Manitoba Progressive Conservatives under Brian Pallister averaged 50.5 per cent in February, followed by Rana Bokhari's Liberals at 21.5 per cent and Greg Selinger's New Democrats at 21 per cent. The Tories' lead against a divided set of opponents continues to look unassailable for the April election.

In Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives were well ahead with 40 per cent support. Trailing in second were the governing Liberals under Kathleen Wynne at 30 per cent, with the New Democrats under Andrea Horwath at 24 per cent support. Patrick Brown's PCs have been leading since August 2015, though this is the widest gap since September.

And in Quebec, the Liberals continued to lead with 36 per cent support, followed by the Parti Québécois at 30 per cent, François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec at 19.5 per cent, and Québec Solidaire at 11 per cent. After a brief surge following Pierre Karl Péladeau's PQ leadership victory, the lead of Philippe Couillard's Liberals has been holding steady.

Week in Polls: Manitoba PCs hold lead, NDP down nationally, margin narrows in Ontario

The latest poll out of Manitoba, which will vote on April 19, shows the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Pallister continuing to hold a wide lead over the governing New Democrats and surprising Liberals.

Mainstreet Manitoba poll

The new poll from Mainstreet Research put the PCs at 50%, down just one point from Mainstreet's previous poll of February 11. Rana Bokhari's Liberals were up three points to 23%, while Greg Selinger's New Democrats were unchanged at 21%. The Greens followed with 6% support, down one point.

These numbers have been holding steady for some time, as Mainstreet has pegged the three parties within a tight band of support over their last three polls: 50% to 52% for the Tories, 20% to 23% for the Liberals, and 20% to 21% for the NDP.

With half the vote and against a divided field, the PCs would win a big majority government with these numbers. And that should come as no surprise: in addition to their 27-point lead in the 'rest of Manitoba', they are also up 18 points in Winnipeg.

Seat and vote projections for the Manitoba election will be launching soon, likely after next week.

Liberals dominating in Forum national poll

New federal numbers from Forum Research show the Liberals with a big national lead as well as some impressive numbers at the regional level. The party suffering, though, is not the Conservatives, but rather the New Democrats.

Forum federal poll

The Liberals led with 49%, up three points from Forum's previous survey of December 6-8. The Conservatives were unchanged at 32%, which matches their election result, while the New Democrats were down three points to 10%.

That is half of the vote they took on October 19.

The Liberals put up some massive leads in this poll: 15 points in British Columbia, 16 points in Ontario, 37 points in Quebec, and 50 points in Atlantic Canada. The Conservatives were only ahead, though by 34 points, in Alberta, while the Prairies were a toss-up.

This is a very bad poll for the New Democrats, who ranked fourth in Quebec with just 11% (behind the Bloc, which was down to 13%). The best result for the NDP in this poll was in British Columbia, and there it only scored 14%.

Margin narrows in Ontario

Despite polls showing Kathleen Wynne being one of Canada's least popular premiers, her party is still running competitively with Patrick Brown's Progressive Conservatives in Ontario.

The new poll from Mainstreet Research (which quickly seems to be supplanting Forum as Canada's busiest pollster) puts the Tories at 36%, down four points from Mainstreet's previous poll of November 1. The Liberals were up five points to 33%, while the NDP was up one point to 26%.

These numbers match quite closely to a Forum poll from the end of December.

Regionally, the province is quite divided. Only in Southwestern Ontario, where the Tories are up by 10 points, and in Toronto, where the Liberals are up by six, does any party have a robust lead. Elsewhere, the margins are much closer: a four-point PC lead in Eastern Ontario, leads of two points for the Liberals in Northern Ontario and the Hamilton/Niagara region, and a lead of just one for the PCs in the 905 area code.

Lethbridge poll provides window on Alberta

Polling by Lethbridge College shows some interesting results in the city of Lethbridge, providing a bit of a glimpse on where things stand in the province today.

At the provincial level, the poll found the Progressive Conservatives leading in Lethbridge with 33% support, followed by the New Democrats at 26%, Wildrose at 22%, and the Liberals at 12%.

Compared with the provincial election results in the two ridings of Lethbridge East and Lethbridge West, this represents a slide of between 26 to 31 points for the NDP — a huge number. All the other parties have taken advantage, though primarily the PCs. They were up between nine and 12 points, the Liberals up between six and seven points, and Wildrose between three and five points.

The NDP also seems to be suffering at the federal level in Lethbridge. The poll put the Conservatives ahead with 50%, followed by the Liberals at 31% and the NDP at 8%.

The boundaries are not contiguous, but to put these numbers into perspective the Conservatives took 57% of the vote in the federal riding of Lethbridge in October. The Liberals took 19% and the NDP took 21%, suggesting that the federal NDP has also taken a tumble in the region.

Trump, Clinton heavily favoured in Super Tuesday

About a quarter of delegates for the Republican and Democratic primaries will be handed out over the next week, and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are poised to dominate.

Our go-to site, FiveThirtyEight, gives Trump some big leads in some of the states voting on Tuesday. According to their "polls-plus" forecast, Trump is up by 5.5 points in Virginia, 10 points in Georgia, 10.5 points in Alabama, and 25 points in Massachusetts. Oklahoma is a toss-up while Ted Cruz is up by 13 points in Texas.

On the Democratic side, Clinton is up by eight points in Massachusetts, nine points in Oklahoma, 32 points in Virginia, 33 points in Arkansas, 35 points in Tennessee, 36 points in Texas, and 49 points in Georgia. She is also ahead by 39 points in this weekend's primary in South Carolina.

Only in Vermont is Bernie Sanders forecast to win on Tuesday — by 74 points!

At the national level, there hasn't been much change in the last week. Trump leads with 35%, followed by Cruz at 19%, Marco Rubio at 16%, and Ben Carson and John Kasich at 8% apiece. For the Democrats, Clinton is ahead with 49% to 39% for Sanders.

My CBC articles this week

• The Pollcast: Super Tuesday could be decisive for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton - Joining me in this week's episode of the Pollcast is Keith Boag, the CBC's senior reporter in Washington. We discuss the state of the presidential race, and Keith has lots of fascinating things to say.
• Brad Wall retains wide but shrinking lead in new Saskatchewan poll - My analysis of the latest numbers from Mainstreet for the province. You can expect regular analyses from me on the provincial race at CBC Saskatchewan throughout the campaign.
• Justin Trudeau rates highly on economy and approval in new polls - I broke down the approval ratings data from the latest polls by the Angus Reid Institute and Forum Research. I also took a look at the 'Best PM' numbers from Nanos Research and Forum. You can check out my hit with Power and Politics at this link, too.
• Donald Trump could hold off Marco Rubio, polls suggest - My look at how realistic it is to think that Rubio could ride the establishment wave to beat Trump in a winnowed feed. Spoiler: it isn't all that realistic.

The Week in Polls: Trudeau and Couillard lead, Ontario PCs win, Alberta NDP in third

The Liberal honeymoon continued in a new poll from Léger, which gave the party a wide lead over its rivals. Only in Alberta did the Liberals register less than 43% support, and that was also the only region in which the party was not in front.

This was the first poll from Léger since the election, and it showed the same kind of significant gains for the Liberals that we've seen in other polls. Overall, the party had 49% support, followed by the Conservatives at 27% and the New Democrats at 15%.

Of note at the regional level was that the Conservatives were trailing the NDP for second place in British Columbia, while in Quebec the NDP narrowly edged out the Conservatives and Bloc for second spot.

Léger federal poll

The poll also showed wide satisfaction with the government, at 54% to 33% dissatisfaction. Even 54% of NDP voters said they were satisfied with the Trudeau government.

Trudeau led on who would make the best prime minister with 40%, followed by Tom Mulcair at 10%, Rona Ambrose at 9%, and Elizabeth May at 4%. Trudeau led in every region of the country, while Ambrose only hit double-digits in Alberta and the Prairies. Mulcair only did so in Quebec.

Those numbers were somewhat different from the polling done by Nanos Research, though the permitted responses could have been behind that. Léger allowed respondents to say "someone else" or "none of them", which together captured 20%. Nanos only provided an "unsure", which stood at 17% in its last poll — not too different from Léger's combined 16% for "I don't know" or "I prefer not to answer".

The weekly poll from Nanos showed little change of significance from its previous independent sample. Trudeau led with 51%, with Ambrose at 15%, Mulcair at 12%, May at 4%, and Rhéal Fortin at 1%.

Ontario PCs win Whitby–Oshawa by-election

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives won yesterday's by-election in Whitby–Oshawa in dramatic fashion. The PCs' Lorne Coe took 52.9% of the vote, with the Liberals capturing just 27.5% and the New Democrats 16.1%. Turnout, however, was only 28.9% of eligible voters.

This represented a big increase for the Tories over the 2014 provincial election, with a jump of 12.3 points. The Liberals dropped four points and the New Democrats shed seven points.

The by-election results were forecast quite closely by Mainstreet Research.

As you can see, its final poll taken on Monday pegged the PCs at 46%, compared to 29% for the Liberals and 12% for the New Democrats. Considering the low turnout and the difficulty in polling both by-elections and individual ridings, I'd consider this a very respectable showing.

Pierre Karl Péladeau falters in Quebec

Léger was also busy at the provincial level in Quebec, finding that the Parti Québécois continues to struggle to make inroads despite the unpopularity of Philippe Couillard's Liberal government.

Léger poll in Quebec

The Liberals led in Quebec with 36%, followed by the PQ at 29% and the Coalition Avenir Québec at 21%. In fourth stood Québec Solidaire at 10%.

That represented a drop of three points for the PQ since November, but remarkably the Liberals improved their score slightly despite satisfaction with the government sliding three points to only 29%. Fully 62% of Quebecers said they are dissatisfied with the government.

PQ leader Pierre Karl Péladeau does seem to be part of the problem for the PQ, as just 17% of Quebecers see him as the best person to be premier. That is down five points from November, putting him behind Couillard (23%) and just narrowly ahead of François Legault (15%). Françoise David stood at 11%.

Support for sovereignty was also down to just 35%, as Péladeau is in the midst of setting up an organization to promote sovereignty and there is talk about more concerted efforts between sovereigntist parties. At this stage, though, a divided vote doesn't seem like the issue — even if one party garnered all of the sovereigntist vote, it still might not win an election today.

Three-way pile-up in Alberta with the NDP at the bottom

In Alberta, the governing New Democrats have taken a hit in the polls, dropping to just 27% support in the latest Mainstreet Research survey.

Mainstreet poll in Alberta

Wildrose held onto its lead with 33% support, but also took a bit of a tumble. The Progressive Conservatives, against all odds, were the beneficiaries, jumping over 10 points to 31% support.

But if an election were held today, the PCs would have some difficulty winning a lot of seats. The New Democrats continue to hold a wide lead in Edmonton, while Wildrose narrowly edged out the Tories in both Calgary and the 'rest of Alberta'.

We will have to wait and see if this is just a blip or not, as there hasn't been much going on in Alberta that would warrant the PCs making such significant gains — unless voters are just tiring of both the NDP's governing and Wildrose's opposition styles.

A check-in south of the border

The most exciting electoral battle at the moment, though, is taking place in the United States. And, little surprise, my go-to for the data on this is FiveThirtyEight.com.

Polling for South Carolina and Nevada (where the primaries/caucuses head next on February 20 for the Republicans and Democrats, respectively) has been thin, with no new data for Nevada since before the New Year. Nevertheless, the FiveThirtyEight poll averages there give Hillary Clinton a lead of 50% to just 28% for Bernie Sanders.

At the time of the last polling in Nevada, the national polls gave Clinton a 25-point lead over Sanders. Now, that leads stands at 16 points. So, it is reasonable to think that Clinton's lead in Nevada may have narrowed as well, but perhaps not enough to put her at risk of losing the caucus.

On the Republican side in South Carolina (where polling dates from mid-January), FiveThirtyEight gives Donald Trump an average of 36% support, followed by Ted Cruz at 20%, Marco Rubio at 13%, Jeb Bush at 9%, Ben Carson at 9%, and John Kasich at 2%.

The site's "polls-plus" forecast, which takes into account other factors like endorsements, gives Trump an average forecast of 33% to 23% for Rubio, 19% for Cruz, 12% for Bush, 6% for Carson, and 5% for Kasich.

Again, looking at how the national polls have shifted since the last polling was done in South Carolina, we would expect Trump to be down a few points, Cruz to be unchanged, and Rubio to be up a few points. So, as in Nevada for the Democrats, not enough to change the dynamic dramatically — but I suspect the results in New Hampshire would be more likely to give Trump some new momentum, while sapping Rubio's.

My CBC articles this week

• Canadians think referendum on electoral reform needs to be held, poll says - The results of an Insights West poll show that electoral reform awakens little passion among Canadians, but that going ahead without a referendum may be a problem for the Liberals.
• Do Canadians want to end the ISIS bombing mission? It depends - I try to make some sense of the polls coming out concerning the mission in Iraq and their contradictory results. Also, at that link you can see my appearance on Power and Politics this past Wednesday, as well as listen to the latest episode of The Pollcast, with guests Shachi Kurl from the Angus Reid Institute and Christian Bourque from Léger.
• Uber should be regulated like taxis, say Canadians in new poll - A look at the latest numbers from the Angus Reid Institute on this issue.

More Albertans have negative view of Notley, positive view of Jean

An interesting poll by Abacus Data for Progress Alberta, a progressive interest group in Alberta, was released this week about the views of Albertans on themselves, their leaders, and some of the policies the new NDP government has put into place.

Where Albertans place themselves on the political spectrum, and where they place other Albertans, is particularly interesting. You can check out the full report from Abacus Data here.

But for our interests, the views Albertans have on the province's party leaders is notable. For one, Rachel Notley is seen as more progressive than the NDP, while Brian Jean is seen as more centrist than the Wildrose party.

Overall, 61% of Albertans said Notley was progressive or leans progressive, compared to 16% who thought she was conservative or leans conservative. Jean scored 15% on being progressive, while 47% thought he was conservative. The remainders considered these leaders to be in the centre.

Of the three main party leaders, Notley did score the highest on Albertans having a positive impression of her. She had 32% on that mark, but 38% said they had a negative impression of her. Another 25% were neutral while 5% did not know.

Not terrible numbers for Notley, but the honeymoon does seem to be over. Her best results were in Edmonton, where she had a 43% to 27% split on positive/negative impressions. That worsened to 30% to 36% in Calgary, while between 49% and 57% of Albertans outside of Calgary and Edmonton had negative views of the premier.

Jean is still largely unknown, with 35% saying they have a neutral impression of the Wildrose leader and another 23% being unsure. Of those with a firm opinion, 24% had a positive impression of Jean and 18% had a negative impression.

Ric McIver, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives (who may be mulling a run for the permanent position), is much more unknown: 65% were either neutral or undecided on him. Another 16% had a positive impression, while 19% had a negative impression.

The poll has some interesting findings on some of the moves the NDP has made, and I encourage you to check out the Abacus report. There are, of course, the caveats that this poll was commissioned by a group with a political point-of-view, and that should be taken into account when reading Progress Alberta's own analysis. But the Abacus report itself is about the numbers, and there some fascinating ones there.

Premier approval ratings: cracks in the Wall?

The Angus Reid Institute has published its quarterly review of premiers' approval ratings from coast-to-coast (excluding the territories and Prince Edward Island). The numbers show some significant shifts in opinion since Angus Reid's summer poll, and diverging fortunes for the two premiers headed for an election in April.

But while Brad Wall still topped the list, some (small) cracks are beginning to show in his dominance in Saskatchewan.

Wall's approval rating stood at 60 per cent in the poll, with 35 per cent disapproval. That puts him as the only premier with a majority approval rating, but it is his lowest approval rating recorded by the Angus Reid Institute since these quarterly polls began at the end of 2012.

The Saskatchewan premier was the only one with a strong net rating, but two other premiers also had positive scores. Stephen McNeil of Nova Scotia had the approval of 46 per cent and the disapproval of 43 per cent, while Rachel Notley in Alberta had an approval rating of 45 per cent and a disapproval rating of 44 per cent.

(Paul Davis was included in this poll, as he lost the Newfoundland and Labrador election on November 30.)

Brian Gallant of New Brunswick was the only other premier with a generally even rating, scoring 34 per cent approval and 39 disapproval. His 'not sure' rating of 27 per cent was, by far, the largest.

Four premiers put up some very poor numbers. The best of them was Philippe Couillard of Quebec, with an approval rating of 35 per cent and a disapproval rating of 57 per cent. He was followed by British Columbia's Christy Clark (34 per cent approval, 60 per cent disapproval) and Ontario's Kathleen Wynne (30 per cent approval, 60 per cent disapproval). For Wynne, that was her lowest rating since becoming premier in early 2013.

At the bottom of the list — again — was Manitoba's Greg Selinger, with an approval rating of 22 per cent and a disapproval rating of 65 per cent.

Wall and Selinger, book-ending the table, are also the two premiers headed to an election in the spring. However, in terms of who has positive momentum and who has negative momentum, the roles are reversed.

Since the last quarter, Selinger's net approval rating has increased by three points, from a woeful -46 to a still woeful -43. But since this time last year, in the final quarter of 2014, Selinger's net approval rating has actually improved by 13 points. That is the greatest improvement recorded by any premier in the last year. Admittedly, though, it was from a very low base.

Wall, on the other hand, has seen his net approval rating drop by seven points since the last quarter, and 14 points since last year. Only Wynne had a worse year-on-year drop in support, with her net rating dropping by 20 points to -30.

McNeil and Gallant, perhaps buoyed by the federal Liberals' strong performance in Atlantic Canada, saw their net approval ratings increase by eight and 30 points, respectively. Clark was also up three points since the last quarter.

Notley, however, has seen her net approval rating slide by 13 points over the last three months. That has decreased her net rating from a respectable +14 to a break-even +1. Couillard's rating has also dropped by 13 points over the last three quarters, though he was in a worse position a year ago.

If approval ratings can act as a proxy for potential electoral performances, a few of these premiers are in a very safe position: Wall, McNeil, and Notley. Couillard could prevail in a divided political landscape in Quebec. Clark and Gallant would be in much more trouble, while Wynne and Selinger would be defeated.

Luckily for most of these premiers, they do not have to face the electorate for quite awhile — the provincial elections on the schedule for 2017 are in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, and Clark has shown her resilience before. Wall is a virtual lock for the April election in Saskatchewan, but Selinger looks like he will be in tough.

Of course, four months is an eternity in politics, so neither Wall nor Brian Pallister, leader of the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, can take anything for granted. But these will be hard numbers to mess up, in Wall's case, or, for Selinger, overcome.

Without Wildrose or a divided right, the Alberta NDP would have still won (updated)

The only reason that the Alberta New Democrats won last month's provincial election is because the vote on the right was split between the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose. Or, at least, that is what many people have said. Here are a few examples of that. It certainly feels right. But it isn't.

(I've added an update to the end of this post to clairfy some things.)

The New Democrats captured 40.6% of the vote, with the PCs taking 27.8% and Wildrose capturing 24.2%. If you add up the PC and Wildrose vote, seeing as they are both conservative parties, you get 52% and 59 seats. That beats the NDP, even if you give them the votes of the Liberal and Alberta parties.

Of course, the math is not as simple as that. We don't even need to break out a calculator. We can just look at Alberta's history. If the NDP's victory was an artificial one, we should expect to see multiple cases of an opposition party winning at least 40.6% of the vote and losing against a united right.

But only four times in Alberta's 29 provincial elections has a party taken more than 40.6% of the vote and fail to form government: Harry Strom's Social Credit in 1971 (41.1%), Andrew Davison's Independent Citizens Association in 1940 (42.5%), and Edward Michener's Conservatives in 1917 (41.8%) and 1913 (45.1%). That we have to go back 44 years to find the last example, when the political dynamics of the province were completely different, shows how this line of thinking falls flat.

Granted, few governments have won less than 40.6% of the vote, so it does make Rachel Notley's victory somewhat notable. It has happened only three times, with the most recent one being 75 years ago: John Brownlee's United Farmers in 1930 (39.4%), as well as his 1926 victory (39.7%) and that of his predecessor, Henry Wise Wood, in 1921 (28.9%).

Nevertheless, this isn't the smallest government to take power. Ralph Klein won a smaller share of seats in 1993, as did Ernest Manning in 1955, Brownlee in 1930, and Arthur Sifton in 1917.

By historical standards, then, the NDP's victory is somewhat exceptional. But generally speaking, if you get 41% of the vote in Alberta you'll win the election.

More compelling is the data from the 2015 vote. The idea that the PCs and Wildrose share the same voter pool is simply wrong. The right wasn't divided. Rather, the anti-PC vote was divided between the New Democrats and Wildrose.

In Ipsos Reid's final poll of the Alberta campaign, one of the questions asked voters what their second choice would be if they were forced to make such a choice.

For the most part, the results were intuitive. The top second choice option for PC voters was Wildrose, while it was the Liberal Party for New Democrats (it wasn't all so simple, though, as a large proportion of PCs chose the NDP as their second choice, and a large proportion of New Democrats chose Wildrose). 

But the results for Wildrose showed that they were not all, or even mostly, lapsed Tories. The New Democrats were the second choice of 33% of Wildrose voters, compared to just 21% for the PCs. More Wildrosers would vote for the Alberta Party (15%) and the Liberals (9%) than the Tories if forced to make a choice. 

Another 16% were undecided and 5% would not vote, while 2% would support another party.

Immediately, we see that Wildrose was not an obstacle to the Tories. In fact, Wildrose potentially drew away more anti-PC voters from the NDP than they did conservative voters from the PCs.

If we distribute Wildrose's vote according to this second choice poll (doing away with the undecideds entirely, and portioning out Wildrosers' Liberal and Alberta Party second choice votes where they did not run a candidate), we get a surprising result. The NDP's majority is not reduced. It is increased.

The New Democrats would capture 53% of the vote and 68 seats, with the Progressive Conservatives taking just 36% of the vote and 17 seats. The Liberals, with 6%, and the Alberta Party, with 4.5%, would each retain the one seat they actually did win on May 5.

The New Democrats would dominate Edmonton and the surrounding region, with 64% to the PC's 27%, and all 27 seats.

The NDP would also win Calgary with 45% to 39% for the Tories, and 20 seats to the PCs' five.

In the rest of the province, the NDP would take 49% and 21 seats to 41% and 12 seats for the Tories.

We could run the numbers different ways, but we always come to the same result: an NDP majority.

If we got rid of the PCs and instead gave those votes to Wildrose (as more PC voters did opt for Wildrose as a second choice), the overall tally would be closer (roughly 48% for the NDP to 36% for Wildrose), but it would still deliver a solid majority government.

If we distribute Wildrose votes in ridings where they finished behind the PCs and PC votes in ridings where they finished behind Wildrose, we still end up with an NDP majority government (55 seats to 30 for the combined PC/Wildrose option).

Mainstreet Technologies also had a second choice question in its final poll, but it only asked voters whose commitment to their party was weak. It found that 46% of uncommitted Wildrosers would opt for the PCs as their second choice, while only 23% would go for the NDP. The rest were either undecided or would vote for the Liberals.

But since this question was limited to only uncommitted voters, it doesn't get to the root of the issue as the Ipsos poll did. Committed Wildrosers might have been more anti-PC than they were pro-conservative. Ipsos's numbers would certainly seem to suggest that.

Nevertheless, if we distribute Wildrose's vote according to Mainstreet's breakdown, we still get an NDP majority. A narrow one (48% of the vote to 42% for the Tories, and 44 NDP seats to 41 for the PCs), but a majority nevertheless. The NDP did not win because the vote was divided. The PCs simply lost, and no re-jigging of the numbers gives them victory.

Of course, if Wildrose never existed perhaps the dynamics of the campaign would have been completely different. That's the kind of hypothetical that numbers cannot inform us about.

The divided right undoubtedly did help the NDP in certain ridings, and perhaps if Mainstreet's second choice poll was more reflective of reality it made a big difference in the magnitude of the NDP's win. But based on the data at hand, the narrative that the NDP's victory was due to a split on the right does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

JUNE 5 UPDATE ------

I wanted to further clarify something as some readers have misinterpreted this post. They've interpreted it as a sort of hypothetical, what-if scenario that imagines that Wildrose did not exist. I've written about those kinds of things before, so this interpretation is perhaps not a surprise. And my chart showing what would happen if we distributed Wildrose's vote elsewhere might give the impression that this re-distribution is the focus. It was meant, instead, to illustrate why the 'divided-right' argument does not hold-up because the votes to the right of the NDP were not uniform, and in fact a large proportion of those voters preferred the NDP to the re-election of the Progressive Conservatives.

This post is instead about debunking the notion that "Alberta was able to elect a majority NDP government because the conservative vote was split", to quote one of the links in the first paragraph. Or how "if you take [the PC] vote, plus the Wildrose vote, you'd have had a much different result in almost every constituency" and "Wildrose and PCs split the vote in a number of ridings that caused [Rachel Notley] to get a much bigger win than she otherwise would have", to quote two others, is based on a faulty premise. Those votes do not combine so easily.

The NDP's win was no accident caused by the split on the right. As I lay out in the first part of my post, the 41% the NDP won has historically been enough to form a government. If it wasn't, and the split on the right was behind the NDP's win, we'd expect to see many cases of parties taking that much of the vote but failing to form government.

Moreover, as I lay out in the second part of my post, the conservative vote to the right of the NDP was not something that was split between two parties that, instead, should have been the domain of one. That is because it was not a uniform vote. Many Wildrosers preferred an NDP government to a PC re-election, and many others would rather have voted for more centrist options like the Liberals or the Alberta Party than the PCs, which the people quoted above seem to believe would be their natural home. That simply was not the case. There were enough Wildrosers who preferred the NDP to the PCs to actually boost the NDP's majority, as my second chart spells out. Voters made a choice to defeat the PCs. They were not bamboozled by having their conservative loyalties split in two.

This post is written wholly within the context of 2015 and the anger voters had with the PC government. It says nothing about a hypothetical alternate universe where voters are not angry at the PCs or where the climate for the emergence of Wildrose never existed. It says nothing about whether Alberta is a conservative province or not. It says nothing about whether Albertans were truly enamoured with the NDP rather than just angry with the PCs. It says nothing about what will happen in 2019.

It is entirely about the 2015 campaign and the choice Albertans made. And that choice was not an artificial one because their 'true' conservative nature was split between two options. Wildrose did not split the PCs' vote and doom them to defeat. The PCs simply lost the election because too many Albertans did not want to vote for them, and the NDP won because enough Albertans wanted to vote for them. The split of the actual conservative vote did mean the PCs came out of it worse than they would have otherwise, but they had alienated so many voters that they no longer had a base large enough to re-elect them. The NDP did not win by default.

That some people misinterpreted my argument is, as the writer of this post, in part my fault. The headline might have been more appropriately along the lines of "the split of the right was not behind the NDP's victory," as the current headline sets people up for this misinterpretation. I hope this update clears things up.

Redemption for the pollsters, revolution for Albertans

It was an historic night in Alberta, as the Progressive Conservative dynasty was cut short at 43 years and Albertans elected an NDP government for the first time. And they did so in dramatic fashion.

Others will parse what this means for Alberta and the New Democrats more generally. But let's talk about how the polls did.

The sigh of relief you might have heard was from pollsters from coast-to-coast. Whether or not they were involved in either the 2012 Alberta or 2013 B.C. elections, the credibility of every pollster was chipped away by those misses. With the success last night, the ghosts of the 2012 result have finally been put to rest.

It was all the more a relief because it was Alberta, and because what the polls were saying could happen was so outlandish that everyone bent over backwards to try to explain why they were wrong. There were a lot of people ready to gloat last night before the votes were counted. It was a terrifying prospect.

But in the end, as I pointed out in my final analysis, the polls could argue for nothing but an NDP landslide. They were right. Individual pollsters had good nights. They were even better in the aggregate - though what they missed on, as marginal as it was, is revealing.

I was pleased with how ThreeHundredEight.com's projection performed, and I'll get into that more below. But one thing I was disappointed with was the assumption I made about the support of the Liberals and the Alberta Party. I penalized them for not running full slates, and distributed those lost votes to the other parties proportionately. This had the effect of boosting, above all, the NDP, and overall made the projection less accurate than it could have been.

As you can see, an adjusted projection would have performed better than any pollster except Léger. With the adjustment, ThreeHundredEight.com finished fourth.

The winner of the night was Léger, with a total error of just 1.6 points per party (for the purposes of this calculation, I've lumped AP together with the others). A bit of luck played into this, though, as Léger's final poll was out of the field seven days before the vote. It was the only pollster that was not active over the final weekend to not finish behind those who were.

Only its estimates for the Liberals and other parties was outside of the (theoretical) margin of error, and Léger was one of only two pollsters to put the Progressive Conservatives in second place.

This is an important point, as I think it is very revealing of what happened last night. All but Léger under-estimated PC support, by margins of four to eight points. It is unlikely to be coincidence. The Tories either benefited from better turnout (relatively speaking), had harder-to-reach supporters, or experienced a bit of a ballot box boost that might have been worth some four to five points. I think a combination of all three is likely.

Insights West and EKOS Research also had good nights, though both had the PCs outside the margin of error and EKOS had the NDP a little high.

Forum Research and Mainstreet Technologies performed well, but both had the NDP high and the PCs low.

Ipsos Reid had the Liberals too high and the PCs too low, while ThinkHQ only had the NDP within the margin of error. Return on Insight had way too much support for the Liberals and other parties, which had an effect on their overall estimation.

But Ipsos Reid, ThinkHQ, and Return on Insight were out of the field a week before the vote, so they may have simply stopped polling too early to catch a collapse in Liberal support that benefited the Tories (though Léger did not have the same problem). They get a bit of an asterisk.

Nevertheless, for the worst performance to be an average error of just 3.8 points per party is absolutely stellar. And no pollster presented a narrative that was wrong. They all suggested the NDP was headed towards victory, and probably a majority one, while Wildrose and the PCs would fight it out for second place. In the end, they under-estimated the Tories in the popular vote, but their view that Wildrose would fill the Official Opposition role proved correct. Albertans were not misled by the polls whatsoever.

A few other revealing insights from these polls: all but Insights West and Forum Research over-estimated the Liberals, to the tune of one to six points. So perhaps my assumption that this is what would happen was not wrong (it was just too penalizing).

The polls in the field before April 29 all under-estimated NDP support (by two to four points), while all the polls in the field after April 29 over-estimated that support (by one to four points). There was a bit of bandwagon effect in the final days, perhaps, but also a bit of a deflation in the final moments.

Wildrose was estimated just about correctly by everyone, and certainly in the aggregate. But why was Wildrose able to win more seats than the PCs, despite winning fewer votes?

Wildrose benefited from a very efficient vote outside of the two main cities.

The New Democrats did, in the end, win Calgary. But the margin was a lot tighter than expected, with 33.1% of the vote instead of the 35% to 41% the projection model awarded them. The PCs were the largest beneficiary, taking 31.5% of the vote (instead of 25% to 29%). Wildrose under-performed, at 23.8% instead of 26% to 29%.

But despite this performance by the PCs in Calgary, they just didn't win many seats out of these numbers. With only a 1.6-point advantage over the PCs, the NDP managed to win 14 or 15 seats in Calgary, with the PCs winning just seven or eight. The Liberals won one and the AP won another of the 'Calgary'-named ridings.

Why did I say 14 or 15 seats? Oh, nothing. Just that the riding of Calgary-Glenmore had a freaking tie at 7,015 votes apiece for the PC and NDP candidates!

The New Democrats dominated Edmonton, taking 57.6% of the vote. That was just about as expected. The PCs over-achieved a little at 22.7%, while Wildrose under-achieved at 13.6%. Probably not too much of a surprise - in both Calgary and Edmonton there seems to have been a small coalescing of the conservative vote in the PCs' favour.

In the rest of Alberta, though, there was no such coalescing. And that was the death-knell for the Tories. Wildrose won the rest of the province with 35.2%, just about as expected. While the PCs did take a little more of the vote than projected, with 29.3% in this region, they still finished in third. The NDP dropped from a range of 34%-40% to 30.6%, but it was enough. The party won a few rural ridings, as well as sweeping Red Deer and Lethbridge. The PCs just came up short everywhere. Their uniform support was disastrous when the NDP had the advantage in the cities and Wildrose everywhere else.

Overall, I was very happy with the performance of the projection. All parties but the Liberals (who nevertheless had a maximum of one seat) fell within the likely ranges, and very comfortably so.

The NDP and Wildrose fell just short of the low range in the vote projection (but within the minimum range), and the Liberals outside of the maximum range, but this was in large part due to my penalizing of the Liberals. The PCs fell within the high-to-maximum range. No party but the Liberals ended up outside the 95% confidence interval anywhere, which is a very happy result.

The model did very well at the riding level. The winner was called correctly in 74 to 75 ridings (depending on how Calgary-Glenmore, projected to go NDP, turns out), for an accuracy rating of 85% to 86%. This is a good result considering the number of incumbents who were defeated.

More importantly, the ranges identified the potential winners in 80 to 81 ridings, for an accuracy rating of 92% to 93%. The average confidence in the ridings that were missed was just 63% to 64% (and four of them were 50/50 toss-ups), and the margin in these incorrect ridings averaged just 1,033 votes.

This election was an usual example, though, of the model actually doing slightly worse with the real results plugged into it. This, too, is revealing. It shows just how inefficient and unlucky the PCs were.

Had the polls been exactly right, the projection would have awarded 26 to 52 seats to the NDP, 15 to 25 to Wildrose, 12 to 43 to the PCs, zero to two to the Liberals, and zero to one for the other parties.

All results would have been within the 95% confidence interval, and only the PC and NDP results would have fallen outside of the likely vote ranges. But we would have headed into election night far more uncertain about the NDP's potential victory.

Many of the errors would have occurred in Calgary, giving NDP seats to the PCs. Again, this demonstrates how inefficient the PC vote was in the city. Nevertheless, the correct winners would have been identified in the likely ranges in 79 of 87 ridings, for an accuracy rating of 91%. That is a perfectly acceptable result.

This is where I think post-mortems using seat projections come in handy. It tells us a lot about what happened. The PCs did a lot worse than they should have in many ridings, while the NDP did a lot better. Wildrose performed up to expectations.

Kudos go to the pollsters, who called this election boldly and correctly. Lesser men and women would have balked at re-entering the field in the final days in such an unusual campaign. But because they did, we knew that the NDP was on track to win a majority government. People just needed to see it to believe it.

Final Alberta projection: NDP majority

Rachel Notley's New Democrats are on track to win a majority government in Alberta's provincial election tonight, according to the polls and ThreeHundredEight.com's projection. Brian Jean's Wildrose will likely form the Official Opposition, while Jim Prentice's Progressive Conservatives should finish as the third party in the legislature. Greg Clark's Alberta Party could win one seat, and David Swann's Liberals should be shut out.

This being Alberta, though, we should be ready for anything tonight.

The likely outcome

The New Democrats are projected to win between 48 and 61 seats, putting them comfortably over the 44-seat mark required for a majority government. They are projected to take between 40.9% and 47.6% of the vote. Even at their lowest range, the NDP is projected to win by almost 13 points. The NDP has a higher probability of finishing within the low to average band of seats (48 to 55) than they do in the upper band of 55 to 61 seats. The precise projection awards 55 seats and 44.5% to the New Democrats, which would mark the party's best performance in its history (by far).

Final projection

Wildose is projected to win between 17 and 31 seats and between 24.6% and 28% of the vote. Wildrose has a higher probability of finishing within the average to high band of 25 to 31 seats. The precise projection, of 25 seats and 25.9% of the vote, would be a mixed bag for the party. It would give them the most seats they have won in their short history, but represents a significant drop from Wildrose's 34% from the 2012 election.

The Progressive Conservatives stand to suffer the bulk of the seat losses tonight, and are projected to win between four and 17 seats, with between 22.5% and 26.1% of the vote. There is a much stronger probability that the party will win between six and 17 seats, however, than between four and six. The precise projection of six seats and 23.7% would represent the party's worst performance since 1967, in terms of seats, and 1963, in terms of votes.

The Liberals are projected to win no seats and between 2.9% and 3.4% of the vote. The precise projection of 3.2% represents the party's lowest share since 1982.

The Alberta Party could potentially win one seat. Along with other parties and independents, this group is projected to take between 1.9% and 3.2% of the vote.

Expecting the unexpected

The polls in the final days of the Alberta campaign have been absolutely unanimous, so in normal circumstances we would not be entering into today's vote with much uncertainty. The only real question would be whether Wildrose or the PCs would finish second.

Projection ranges

But because of what happened in 2012, and particularly since this projected outcome is so out of character with the province, we do need to pay attention to the projection's wider bands. These are meant to reflect 95% of potential outcomes, assuming the polls perform as well (or as poorly) as they have in other recent elections.

At these ranges, a series of outcomes are plausible. The New Democrats could win between 31 and 70 seats. That low end still represents their best result in the party's history, and would almost certainly put the NDP in the Official Opposition role (and give them largest opposition contingent Alberta has ever seen).

For Wildrose and the PCs, a victory is still plausible. It requires the polls to be about as wrong as they were in 2012, causing a swing that would still give the NDP the most votes but penalize them in the seat count. The NDP finishing second in the popular vote falls outside of the 95% confidence interval.

Wildrose could win as many as 44 seats, which technically gives them a majority. But that is at the extreme edge of the range, and so extremely unlikely. The PCs top out at 40 seats, meaning a majority is not in the cards for them. Altogether, only the NDP has a realistic chance of winning a majority of seats.

The projection maxes out at one seat for the Liberals, though I suspect they could do better than that (more on this below).

As for the minimum ranges for the PCs and Wildrose, both would be disastrous (one and nine seats, respectively). Both are unlikely to occur in conjunction, though. If the PCs end up that low, Wildrose has likely made some gains. And vice versa.

So, we should not rule out entirely a plurality of seats for either Wildrose or the PCs. But it is unlikely, going by the numbers. There was far more overlap in the projection between the Liberals and the PCs, in Ontario, and the Liberals and the PQ, in Quebec, when both Liberal parties won big majorities in 2014.

Regional breakdown

The New Democrats are projected to finish first by wide margins in both Calgary and Edmonton, while the race is tighter in the rest of the province.

Regional projections

In Calgary, the New Democrats are projected to win between 34.9% and 40.6% of the vote, giving them between 14 and 18 seats. The party has been making gains in the city throughout the campaign, finally moving in front at the end of April. Wildrose is projected to finish second with between 25.7% and 29.3%, winning two to seven seats. While the party is expected to place second in the vote, it will likely finish third in the seats. The PCs are projected to win between four and nine seats, with between 25.2% and 29.1% of the vote. The Liberals should take between 4.6% and 5.4% of the vote, while the Alberta Party could win its one seat here.

Regional tracking

As they have throughout the campaign, the New Democrats are projected to have a massive lead in Edmonton and its surroundings, with between 55.3% and 64.3% of the vote. That should give them between 23 and 28 seats, leaving only zero to four seats for the Tories and one to four seats for Wildrose. The PCs should take between 17.8% and 20.6% of the vote, with Wildrose in third at between 14.4% and 16.4%. The Liberals are projected to take between 3.5% and 4.1% of the vote.

The seat projection in the rest of Alberta has little relation to the popular vote. The NDP is likely to finish first in the region with between 34.2% and 39.8% support, but place second with between 11 and 15 seats. Wildrose should take between 32.1% and 36.5% of the vote, but between 14 and 20 seats. For the Tories, they are squeezed out horribly. They are projected to win between zero and four seats, despite having between 24.2% and 28.0% of the vote. The Liberals, with between 1.1% and 1.3% support, should finish behind the Alberta Party.

The polls

Polling in Alberta has been remarkably consistent. In the final set of polls, which all left the field on or after April 28, the NDP has registered between 37% and 45% support. In fact, in the last five polls - all taken on or after April 29 - the NDP has registered between 42% and 45%. That is a very tight grouping.

Polls making up at least 95% of the projection

In that very last set of polls, Wildrose has been the consensus second place finisher with between 23% and 27% support, compared to a range of between 21% and 23% for the PCs. It is hard to argue with that sort of agreement.

Not that this will stop anyone. There is no arguing with what the polls are saying - the only argument can be with whether or not to believe them at all. There is no reasonable way to look at these polls and conclude that Alberta is a three-way race, or that anybody but the NDP will win. That argument could be made using a whole slew of other factors, but the polls cannot be one of them.

Vote projection over time

The trends are an important reason for that. The New Democrats have only been gaining. Not once since the projection was launched at the start of the campaign has the NDP dropped in support. The NDP started the campaign at 20%, which promptly grew to 25%, then 30%, then 35%, then 40%, and now 45%.

The PCs, by contrast, have been nothing but flat, with a slightly downwards tilt. The party is showing no signs of momentum in the final days. The same goes for Wildrose, which took a hit after the debate and has been stuck in the mid-20s ever since. If there is to be a late swing, it will have to be sudden and not based on any previous movement.

How the leaders fared

For a provincial election so dominated by the leaders, and with a relatively high number of polls, there hasn't been much leadership polling. But what there has been has echoed the voting intentions surveys - great for Notley, middling for Jean, bad for Prentice.

Notley's numbers have been stellar, with about half of Albertans saying their opinion of her has improved throughout the campaign (less than 1-in-10 think otherwise). She has topped all of the polls on who would make the best premier, and her approval rating is through the roof.

Prentice, by contrast, has seen his personal approval ratings plummet. His campaign has had the opposite effect of Notley's, worsening voters' opinion of him in a majority of cases. His approval rating rivals that of Alison Redford before she resigned in disgrace.

For the other leaders, the campaign has not had much effect. Jean and Swann roughly split on approval ratings and whether they have improved or worsened voters' opinion of them. This argues against any sort of advantage for them going into the ballot box.

Riding projections

The most confident prediction I can make is that Rachel Notley will win her seat of Edmonton-Strathcona. In fact, the projection model gives this a 100% probability. Her projected vote share, of between 84% and 98%, is almost certainly exaggerated. The PC candidate, Shelley Wegner, is projected to take 7% to 8% of the vote. I think she'll do better.

Brian Jean will have a closer race in Fort McMurray-Conklin, which he is projected to win with just 56% confidence. His vote share is projected to be between 35% and 40%, with the NDP's Ariana Mancini taking 32% to 37%. The PC incumbent, Don Scott, comes up third with between 25% and 29%. I imagine there will be more of a movement towards Wildrose from anti-PC voters who could instead be wooed by the NDP.

Jim Prentice is expected to win his riding of Calgary-Foothills with 90% confidence, and between 50% to 58% of the vote. Wildrose's Keelan Frey is projected to take between 27% and 31%.

Liberal leader David Swann could be in tough in Calgary-Mountain View, where the NDP's Marc Chikinda is favoured by the projection with 37% to 42% of the vote. Swann is awarded 24% to 28%. I think it will be closer than that, and Swann could defy the model (Liberals have done that before in Alberta).

The most interesting race may be in Calgary-Elbow, where Alberta Party leader Greg Clark is narrowly favoured with between 20% and 33% of the vote. PC incumbent Gordon Dirks is expected to take between 26% and 30%. The projection is a literal toss-up. The wildcard will be Wildrose and NDP supporters.

A note on the Liberals

One major assumption the model has made in this campaign is that the polls will over-estimate the Liberals by about the proportion of candidates the party is not running in this race. As a result, the projection drops the Liberals' vote considerably, as the party is running less than a two-thirds slate. But the latest round of polls have had the Liberals very low already. Perhaps Albertans are more aware of whether or not there is a Liberal candidate in their riding than other voters have proven in other elections where a party did not run a full slate.

If I did not penalize the Liberals as I have done, they would be projected to take 4.9% of the vote province wide (6.1% in Calgary, 4.6% in Edmonton, and 3.4% in the rest of Alberta). This would award them between zero and two seats, with the maximum range going up to three.

I have also done the same thing with the Alberta Party, which did not run even half a slate of candidates. The party is expected to take around 1.5% of the vote. If, instead, I relied on the polls, I'd give the Alberta Party and the other parties a total of 5% support, reducing (in conjunction with removing the penalty from the Liberals) the NDP to 42.7%, Wildrose to 24.9%, and the PCs to 22.7%. The seat projection would be virtually unchanged.

2015 not like 2012 or 2013, but could have its own surprises

The PC dynasty about to meet its maker? Sounds like 2012 in Alberta. The NDP projected to win in a western province? Sounds like 2013 in British Columbia.

Oh, did you not know the polls missed those two elections? I'm reminded every day - apparently I keep forgetting!

There are a lot of reasons that this election is nothing like those two examples.

In the 2012 Alberta election, Wildrose held a lead of eight points over the Progressive Conservatives, on average. In this election, the NDP's lead has averaged 17 points over Wildrose, and 18 points over the PCs. Obviously, that is quite different. The degree of error, or the size of a late swing, needs to be at least twice as large as it was in 2012, and that election was exceptional enough.

But if there was a late swing in 2012, there were few pollsters to capture it. In an election that occurred on a Monday, all but two pollsters dropped out of the field on Thursday or earlier. This time, however, the last three days of the campaign had three pollsters in the field (four polls in total), and the numbers held steady. In 2012, by contrast, the final Forum poll showed the gap between Wildrose and the PCs shrinking to just two points - a hint that something big was about to happen?

No such hint has been given this time.

The dynamics of the campaign were different as well. Anecdotally, there seems to be a lot more anger and fed-uppedness with the Prentice Tories than there was with the Redford Tories. There seems to be more genuine interest and energy surrounding the NDP campaign than the Wildrose campaign in 2012. The last week of the Wildrose campaign in 2012 was a very bad one. This time, the only party that had a particularly bad last week was the PCs.

Rachel Notley is polling better than Danielle Smith was, and Jim Prentice is polling worse than Alison Redford was. There are three parties garnering a lot of support, giving vote-switchers from these three parties two viable alternatives. In 2012, there was only one alternative.

The only commonalities between the 2012 and 2015 elections are that they are elections in Alberta, and the PCs are trailing. That's it.

In the 2013 B.C. election, the New Democrats held a lead of only eight points over the B.C. Liberals, again half the size of the lead the Alberta NDP currently enjoys. And the B.C. Liberals had spent the entire campaign closing the gap. Here, the PCs have spent the entire campaign widening it.

In B.C., Christy Clark had moved neck-and-neck with Adrian Dix on who would make the best premier, and her party was polling better than the NDP on the economy. Now in Alberta, Notley is polling about twice as high as Prentice on the premier question, and is beating him on the economy.

Notley's polling numbers are far better than Dix's were. Clark's were also better than Prentice's.

And with the NDP ahead, many voters seemed comfortable voting for the Green Party. An exit poll showed that British Columbians expected the NDP to win. In Alberta, no party is filling that equivalent spoiler role.

But there are factors related to this election that could make the results tonight different from what the polls are suggesting.

The most important one is history. The Progressive Conservatives have been in power for almost 44 years, and change is a scary thing. A lot of voters may finally balk in the ballot box, with both Wildrose and NDP voters flipping back to the PCs. The polls give no indication that something like this will happen (in some polls, Wildrosers choose the NDP as their second choice, and New Democrats choose Wildrose), but theoretically it could. A lot of Albertans with infinitely more knowledge of the local situation than I believe it will happen - but that opinion cannot be based on any of the data I am seeing.

The biggest danger for a surprise result may be in the seat count. Things are still close enough in Calgary that a marginal swing could flip a lot of seats. Ditto for the rural parts of the province. Give the PCs seven-points' worth of NDP support, and you have a PC plurality. Give them even less, but a sprinkling of Wildrose support, and you have the same result.

So hold on to your hats. The polls are unanimous. In any other jurisdiction we'd all be very confident in the result. But this is Alberta, and not only is the polling history mixed but decades upon decades of experience are arguing against this surprising result. If you listen to your gut, to your anecdote, to conventional wisdom and assumptions, maybe you see the PCs pulling it off. If you want to go by objective, cold, unapologetic numbers, though, the NDP has it.

If I was a betting man, I'd go with the numbers. But then again, my gut has been feeling uneasy all week.