With only the two trackers (Liaison Strategies and Nanos Research) publishing their latest findings over the last week — and it’s been over a month since we’ve seen a poll from any other pollster, with the sole exception of Abacus Data — the projection is largely swinging around at the margins based on what those trackers are finding.

That being said, the latest update puts the Liberals back ahead by 10 points, with 44.8% (+0.6 since last week) to the Conservatives’ 34.9% (-0.6). The NDP trails in third with 10.4%, largely unchanged from last week. These numbers put the Liberals ahead in 210 seats across the country, a gain of seven over last week, while the Conservatives are down six to 93 seats. The Bloc is down one seat to 22, while the NDP and Greens are unchanged at 16 and two, respectively.

Taking into account the historical tendency of polls to over- and under-estimate support for certain parties, and the number of close contests involving each party, the model has the Liberals winning an average of 202.4 seats, their best showing since the June 30 update. The Conservatives win 108.2 seats, so even with the assumption that the Conservatives beat their polls the party is still looking at more than 30 seat losses.

On average, the Bloc wins 18.8 seats and the NDP takes 12.7, just over the threshold for recognized party status.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

What does the model say about the three byelections in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Beaches—East York and North Vancouver—Capilano? Let’s take a quick look.

Read more

Updated July 28, 2026

The Liberals would very likely win a big majority government if an election were held today, with gains coming primarily from the Conservatives. Mark Carney’s Liberals have dipped in the projection compared with the spring but continue to hold a wide lead over the Conservatives, while the Bloc has about as much support as it did in the 2025 election. The New Democrats have ticked up and are in a position to potentially win enough seats for recognized party status in the House of Commons.

Note to Readers: These projections are presented using Datawrapper’s interactive charts. They are best viewed on a desktop. In most cases, you can click, tap or hover over the charts to interact with them.

Full regional breakdowns and tracking charts are available for subscribers below, as are complete riding-level projections. A full methodological explanation of how the vote and seat projection model works can be found here.

The Vote Projection is based primarily on a weighted average of all publicly-available national and regional polls. The weighted average is then used to project the outcome in all 343 ridings across the country, taking into account local candidates. Those individual riding-level projections are then weighted by the number of eligible voters in each riding and past turnout to determine the national vote projection for each party.

The Seat Projection shows the number of seats in which each party is projected to be ahead. Parties are assigned a range of likely vote share in each riding based on past polling and modelling errors and 10,000 simulations are run to assign to each party a number of ridings in which they are in contention. The High and Low ranges take into account 95% of all likely outcomes, while the Avg. Projection shows the average number of seats each party wins in these simulations, which takes into account the tendency for parties to under- or out-perform their polls.

Wondering how to interpret the Seat Projection and the Avg. Projection? While the Seat Projection is The Writ’s “official call”, the Avg. Projection is an important guide to understanding the projections, in conjunction with the high and low ranges. Seat projections are rarely right on target, so the Avg. Projection should set expectations. In other words, if the Seat Projection for a party is 25 seats but the Avg. Projection is 21.2, your expectation should be that the party will win around 25 seats, with a greater likelihood that the party under-performs that target rather than beats it.

The percentage of simulations in which each party wins a majority or a plurality of seats is shown below.

Complete riding and sub-regional projections are available for subscribers of The Writ:

A full breakdown of the methodology behind the vote and seat projection model can be found here:

The table below includes all recent federal voting intentions polls that are publicly available. You can click or tap on the name of the polling firm in the left-most column to go directly to that polling firm’s original poll release. Rows containing polls conducted in a single region are highlighted in different colours.

Vote and seat projections broken down by region and tracking charts going back to the 2025 election are available for subscribers of The Writ below 👇

Read more

Detailed projections for all 343 ridings across the country, as well as vote projections for smaller regions within each province, are available for subscribers below 👇

Read more

The Liberals are at 44.2% in the vote projection, largely unchanged from last week. But the Conservatives are up 0.5 points to 35.5%, marking their third consecutive week of growth (they are up 0.9 points over that time). The party is also up two points since the June 2 update. This movement has dropped the Liberals to a lead in 203 ridings across the country, down 10 seats over the last three weeks, while the Conservatives are up seven seats over that period to 99.

Taking into account polling error and toss-ups, the Liberals win an average of 196 seats in the projection, down 2.3 seats from last week, while the Conservatives are up two seats to 113.6. That still puts the Liberals comfortably in majority territory (where they wind up in 89% of simulations), but they were as high as 215.5 seats little more than two months ago.

The New Democrats are down 0.6 points this week to 10.3% as both the Liaison and Nanos trackers, which have been the best pollsters for the NDP of late, have the party down. But the NDP is still leading in 16 seats and wins an average of 12.1 seats in the projection.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

The Bloc Québécois is at 27.2% in Quebec, enough to deliver them an average of 20.2 seats in the projection, while the Greens are holding at around 2%. They are leading in both Saanich—Gulf Islands and Kitchener Centre in the projection, but because of the Greens’ tendency to under-perform the polls, and the fact that neither of these seats are entirely safe for the party, the Greens only win an average of 1.2 seats. This means that in most simulations they win one or the other, but often not both.

Where are the other parties poised to make their seat gains — or suffer their losses? Let’s take a quick look.

Read more

Updated July 17, 2026

A strong majority of Albertans support the province staying in Canada, with two-thirds saying they would vote to remain in the country. That increases to nearly three-quarters after the removal of undecideds.

Note to Readers: These projections are presented using Datawrapper’s interactive charts. They are best viewed on a desktop. In most cases, you can click, tap or hover over the charts to interact with them.

On October 19, Albertans will be voting on 10 referendum questions, including several on immigration and constitutional issues. But there will also be a question related to Alberta independence, though asked in a roundabout way. The wording of the question is:

“Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

With many polls likely to be published in the coming months on this issue, The Writ has launched the Alberta Referendum Poll Tracker, which will aggregate all of the polls published during this campaign. The chart below shows the current polling average, encompassing all polls, regardless of question wording, that include results on Alberta separation in general or the referendum question in particular. The chart on the left shows the current average with undecideds shown, while the chart on the right is after the removal of undecideds.

The table below includes all publicly available polls on Alberta independence conducted since the beginning of 2026. Note that the question wording is not always consistent between pollsters (Léger, for example, has included an option of Alberta joining the United States in its questionnaire, which has been grouped into the “Independence” column below). When both a generic independence question and the exact wording of the referendum question is included in a poll, the latter result is shown in this table.

You can click or tap on the name of the polling firm in the left-most column to go directly to that polling firm’s original poll release.

The method used to calculate the polling average is similar to the methodology described here for The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projections. No adjustments are made to the polls, however, to take into account any potential turnout effects.

The polling averages broken down by region, demographics and voting intentions, as well as tracking charts going back to the beginning of this year, are available for subscribers of The Writ below 👇

Regional, demographic and partisan polling averages

Read more

That dearth of data from a broad array of pollsters — since mid-June, the only other pollster to put out any new numbers was Abacus Data — should lead us to exercise caution when analyzing any new trends. With that caveat having been said, this week’s update to The Writ’s Federal Vote and Seat Projection has some numbers that we haven’t seen for months.

The Liberals lead with 44.1%, a drop of 0.5 points since last week and 0.9 points over two weeks. That’s the lowest level of support the model has awarded the Liberals since the February 17 update. The Liberal tally of 205 seats in which they lead is also the lowest since February 24, while the average projection of 198.3 seats marks the first time the Liberals have been sub-200 on this measure (which takes into account potential polling error and the number of tight races) since March 3.

Not surprisingly, when the Liberals are down (relatively speaking) the Conservatives and New Democrats tend to be up. The Conservatives’ 35% support and 98 seats are their best numbers since March 3, while the NDP registering 10.9% in the vote projection is their best score since before the 2025 election. The NDP is leading in 16 seats in the model and, on average, wins 12.8 seats. That puts them over the threshold of recognized party status with a little more confidence than we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

Is there much to make of this? That’s hard to say. We’ve seen the two tracking polls oscillate up and down for every party, with each new developing trend seemingly reversing itself after a few weeks. But let’s take a bit of a closer look to determine if there’s anything to these numbers.

Read more

The list of current and pending vacancies in the House of Commons grew to seven today, when the Liberals announced that Richard Martel, the Conservative MP for the Quebec riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, had been appointed to the Senate.

I’ll delve a little deeper into this riding and what this move means in the Weekly Writ on Thursday. But what does the projection say about the Conservatives’ chances of holding this seat — and the Liberals’ chances of flipping it?

Before getting to that, this week’s update to the Federal Vote and Seat Projection shows little change from last week (or the week before that).

The Liberals remain in a commanding position with 44.6% support, which nets them an average of 201 seats in the seat projection. The Conservatives sit at 34.9% and an average of 110.2 seats, followed by the New Democrats at 10.3% and 11 seats on average. The Bloc Québécois is up a little bit in Quebec and leads in 22 seats, winning 19.5 on average.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

The Bloc is actually an interesting potential player in the Chicoutimi—Le Fjord byelection. The party might be distracted by its efforts to hold Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton if the two byelections occur at the same time (presumably, the Liberals will want to make that happen) but it will be the third combattant in what looks like a three-cornered fight.

Read more

PROGRAMMING NOTE - With tomorrow being Canada Day, the Weekly Writ will be taking a break to admire the fireworks. The Weekly Writ will be back on July 9. A new episode of The Numbers will still land in your inbox on this coming Thursday. Have a safe and happy Canada Day! 🍁

As Canadians prepare to mark the 159th anniversary of Confederation, the Liberals have good reason to celebrate. They remain ahead in the polls, would win a large majority if an election were held today and appear to have shaken off some of their recent softness in support.

This week’s update to The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projections put the Liberals back up to 45%, a gain of 0.4 points since last week. The party is projected to be leading in 213 ridings, an increase of four, and win an average of 207.2 seats in the projection (also an increase of four).

While the Liberals were helped by the addition to the model of last week’s Léger poll that had the party at 48%, as we’ll see below this week’s two trackers were also showing the Liberals in a better position than they were a few weeks ago.

The Conservatives are treading water with 34.6%, a tiny decrease of 0.1 points from last week, but the uptick for the Liberals (particularly in the Prairies) pushed the Conservatives down four seats to 92, with their average haul, after taking into account potential polling error and the number of tight races, dropping 3.7 seats to 106.6.

After four weeks in double-digits, the New Democrats have dropped back below the 10% threshold and are projected to have 9.8% support, a sizeable slide of 0.8 points since last week. That hasn’t shifted the NDP from their projected lead in 15 seats, though their average projection has slipped 0.7 to 10.2 seats, pushing them further away from the 12 seats required for recognized party status in the House of Commons.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

The Bloc Québécois is largely unchanged from last week at 5.9% (25.9% in Quebec) and 17.5 seats on average in the projection. The Greens are up 0.3 points to 2.3% and their average seat win is up 0.2 to 1.5 in the projection. They had a few good numbers in British Columbia in particular this past week.

Since I won’t have the opportunity to delve into this week’s polls in the Weekly Writ on Thursday, I’ll do so here. But first, a quick look at how the regional portrait looks across the country — and how things have shifted since Canada Day one year ago.

Read more

There haven’t been many changes in this week’s update to The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projection, with the slow decline of the Liberals in the seat projection continuing this week (with a caveat). But while we’ve seen the Conservatives either stabilize or bounce back in most of the country, the party’s support seems to be stubbornly low in British Columbia.

Before we delve into that, here’s where things stand this week:

The Liberals sit at 44.6% in the vote projection (+0.2 since last week) and are leading in 209 ridings across the country, down two. However, their average projection — which takes into account potential polling error as well as the number of close races — is up 1.5 seats to 203.2. This means that while the Liberals might be leading in fewer ridings than last week, they are in a better position to win the seats where they are ahead than they were in last week’s projection.

The Conservatives are also up 0.2 points to 34.7% and are leading in 96 ridings (+2) and win an average of 110.3 seats in the projection (+0.4). The New Democrats have held steady at 10.6% and are still leading in 15 ridings, though their average projection has fallen 0.8 seats to 10.9.

The Bloc Québécois is down slightly in the average projection (from 18.3 to 17.3 seats), while the Greens have slipped 0.2 points nationally to 2%.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

But let’s get back to British Columbia, which seems to be an outlier from the trends — and not only for the Conservatives, who have fallen behind the Liberals here by a greater margin than anywhere else in the country except Alberta. What gives?

Read more

Nevertheless, the party remains at a very high cruising altitude.

The Liberals have dropped one percentage point in the vote projection since last week to 44.3%, giving them just under a 10-point lead over the Conservatives, who are up 0.6 points to 34.5%. This is the first time the Liberals have slipped below the 45% mark since the February 24 update of the projection.

These numbers put the Liberals ahead in 211 ridings across the country, a drop of eight, and net them an average of 201.7 seats (after taking into account the number of toss-ups and potential polling error).

The Conservatives now lead in 94 ridings, an increase of eight, and win an average of 109.9 seats (+6.4). That is the highest average seat wins for the party since early March.

The New Democrats sit at 10.6% in the vote projection, an increase of 0.6 points, and are leading in 15 ridings, unchanged from last week. They win an average of 11.7 seats in the projection, a jump of 0.7 that puts them just under the threshold of 12 required for recognized party status. Adding to the positive (relatively speaking) news for the NDP is that they have maintained double-digits in the vote projection for three consecutive weeks for the first time since before the election.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

The Bloc Québécois is largely unchanged from last week. It’s still leading in 21 seats in Quebec, but its average seat haul has dropped 0.4 points to 18.3 seats. The Greens are down 0.2 points to 2.2% and are down 0.2 seats to 1.4 on average, though they are projected to be leading in two — whether they’d really win them both is another question.

But what’s been behind most of the movement for the Liberals and the Conservatives? As usual, a lot of it comes down to Ontario.

Read more

The Liberals remain well in front of the pack, however, with 45.3% of the vote (+0.2 from last week, thanks in large part to a big 50% in last week’s Léger poll and an uptick in the Nanos tracker). They are leading in 219 seats, down one, and win an average of 208.2 seats (-1.7) in the projection model’s simulations.

The Conservatives are up 0.4 points since last week’s update to 33.9%, giving them the lead in 86 ridings (+5) and netting them an average of 103.5 seats (+4) in the projection model. Much of this increase in the seat projection is in Ontario, where the Conservatives flipped nine seats back to them as the Liberals slipped below 50% and the Conservatives got themselves back over 35% after falling below that threshold in the two previous updates. Those swings were nearly made-up for by the Liberals, however, in B.C. and Quebec.

After surging in the projection last week, the New Democrats only fell back a little this week with 10% (-0.8). They are leading in 15 seats (-1) and win an average of 11 (-1) in the projection. That has them still flirting with, but not guaranteed to win, recognized party status.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

A small uptick for the Liberals in Quebec has flipped three seats back to them from the Bloc Québécois, which drops the Bloc down to leading in 21 seats and winning 18.7 (-1.6) on average.

Good numbers for the Greens in British Columbia have boosted them to 2.4% nationally (+0.3) and their average seat haul to 1.6 (+0.3), with their high range reaching three seats for the first time since the last election.

Of course, all of these numbers are merely a reflection of where public opinion is at the moment. They are unlikely to be tested at the ballot box anytime soon — except in at least five ridings across the country where sitting MPs have indicated they will resign over the summer. We don’t know when those resignations will actually occur or when byelections will be called to fill the vacancies. But where do things stand in those five ridings right now?

Read more

Is it a blip? We’ll have to wait to find out.

The Liberals dropped one point in the vote projection to 45.1%, the lowest they’ve been since the end of February. The party now leads in 220 ridings across the country, a drop of 10 seats since last week, while their average number of seat wins has dropped 5.1 seats to 209.9.

The Conservatives and Bloc have hardly budged in the vote projection, but they’ve both jumped four seats apiece in the number of ridings in which they are projected to be leading with 81 and 24, respectively. Their average number of seat wins in the projection was up 0.9 and 1.5 seats, to 99.5 and 20.3, respectively. This reflects how a few toss-up ridings in which they were trailing last week have flipped over, but since they already had a decent chance of winning them their average number of seat wins hasn’t shifted so dramatically.

Not so for the New Democrats. The party is up 1.5 points nationally to 10.8%, the first time the NDP has hit double-digits since mid-January. The party is leading in 16 ridings, a gain of two since last week, but more importantly wins an average of 12.0 seats in the model. That’s a jump of 2.6 seats from last week and puts them in a position to regain recognized party status — even after taking into account the party’s tendency to under-perform the polls and the number of close contests the NDP is involved in.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

What’s behind this jump for the New Democrats? A big part of it is the five-point jump in NDP support in this week’s Liaison Strategies poll, from 11% last week to 16% this week. The other polls added to the model in this update (from Pallas and Nanos) have the party in the more-usual 11% to 13% range, but the real test for the NDP will be whether their apparent bump into the low-to-mid-teens is replicated in the next set of polls from Abacus Data and Léger, which have routinely had the New Democrats stuck in single-digits.

I’ll delve more deeply into the polling numbers in the Weekly Writ newsletter on Thursday. Perhaps we’ll already have some more numbers to help us understand what may or may not be happening to the NDP. Stay tuned!

It’s a referendum that could prove to be the country’s most impactful vote since the referendum on Quebec independence in 1995. And, just like that referendum (and the one before it in 1980), it might be just as effective at putting the issue of separation to bed.

With the referendum now confirmed, many polls on the question will undoubtedly be published over the next five months. We’ve already seen over the last year that polls can differ quite significantly on this issue. To try to simplify matters for readers (and to give you a one-stop-shop for polls on the Alberta referendum), I’ve launched The Writ’s Alberta Referendum Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all the recent Alberta independence polls that have been published and all those that will be published between now and October 19.

In the first update, the “Remain” side is leading comfortably with just under 63% support, with support for independence (or the beginning of the process toward independence) sitting at just 30%. After the removal of undecideds, support for remaining in Canada hits two-thirds.

The Poll Tracker will be updated regularly as new polls are published. All polls on Alberta independence are included, but questions that use the actual wording of the referendum take precedence over questions that more refer to separation more generally. Hopefully, as we approach the actual vote, pollsters will have transitioned to asking the referendum question (or how people intend to vote in the referendum).

The provincewide averages, as well as the database of polls (with links to the original releases), will be publicly available on The Writ. Paid subscribers will get to go a little deeper, and will have access to the tracking charts and regional, demographic and partisan polling averages. If you aren’t already a subscriber and would like to get access to all the numbers (as well as the federal Vote and Seat Projections), now’s the time to take the plunge!

Subscribe now

This referendum campaign is one that will have reverberations that we will certainly feel across the country for the next few months, and possibly for the next few years (and, maybe, decades). If the polls continue to show that the “Remain” side should win, that doesn’t mean there won’t still be repercussions in Canadian politics. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will have to wade into this campaign, while Alberta Premier Danielle Smith appears to be gambling not only the unity of the country on this referendum, but potentially her own leadership of the divided United Conservative Party, too. As the polls suggest, Smith’s position on the side of Canada in this referendum seems to put her at odds with most of her party’s own supporters.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

So, this will be an ongoing story and I hope the Alberta Referendum Poll Tracker will help you navigate the deluge of polling numbers we can expect.

Speaking of which, the Vote and Seat Projections were also updated today. They continue to show the Liberals with a big, growing seat advantage over the Conservatives.

I’ll delve more deeply into the federal polls published over the last week in Thursday’s Weekly Writ, but the biggest driver of the Liberals’ dominance in the seat projection is Ontario. The three new polls added to the model all had the Liberals above 50% in Ontario, which is absolutely crushing for the Conservatives.

While the 230 Liberal seats and 77 Conservative seats look rather extreme in this projection, the Avg. Projection, which takes into account the number of toss-ups at stake as well as the tendency of parties to beat or under-perform their polls, still has the Liberals at (a comparatively modest) 215 seats against 99 for the Conservatives.

I’m increasingly leaning on the Avg. Projection rather than the Seat Projection in the model, as I feel it might be the more accurate reflection of likely outcomes. Yes, the Liberals are leading in 230 seats in the model, but so many of them are by tiny margins that it isn’t all that plausible they’d win all of them. I’ll keep mulling this over.

The Liberals are projected to be leading in 227 ridings across the country, a gain of three since last week and they highest the party has been in the model — not by a lot, mind you, as the party hit 226 seats in the April 21 update. But a new high is a new high.

This was partially due to new detailed regional polling out of Quebec from Synopsis Recherche which, among other things, tipped the Liberals into being favoured in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, Alexandre Boulerice’s soon-to-be vacated seat. It’s worth emphasizing that much of the Liberals’ gains are in precarious territory, as reflected by the average of 213.9 seat wins in the model’s simulations, which is actually a drop of 1.6 seats since last week. The Liberals have moved ahead in more ridings than ever, but so many of them are projected to be marginal toss-ups that, inevitably, the Liberals can’t be expected to win them all.

The Conservatives continue to struggle with 33.8% in the vote projection, a drop of 0.2 points (following a drop of 0.5 points last week). This puts them tied for their lowest-ever vote share in the projection. Leading in only 82 seats puts them at their lowest point as well.

The New Democrats stand at 14 seats in the projection (winning nine on average) while the Bloc Québécois has slid behind in three seats, pushing them down to just 18. That also matches the party’s average number of wins.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

The trend lines have simply been holding pretty stable for the Liberals — though perhaps there has been a sign of softening in some of the latest polls (more on that later this week in the Weekly Writ). But, for now, the regional numbers are still looking remarkably good for the party. Let’s take a look at them.

Read more

Poilievre often references the number of votes his party received in the last election as a proof-point of the strength of his leadership and the importance of his Conservative opposition.

With the caveat that the Conservatives did not, in fact, receive 8.3 million votes in the last election (they received 8,113,484, which would normally be rounded off to 8.1 million, or maybe 8.2 million if one is being very generous, but not 8.3 million, a mistake that Poilievre has made before) Poilievre is not wrong that his opposition mandate comes from the millions of Canadians who voted for him in 2025.

But the rhetorical strength of that mandate is somewhat diminished when, today, the Conservatives no longer seem to have the support of 8.1 million Canadians (or, for that matter, 8.3 million).

According to The Writ’s latest update to the Vote and Seat Projection, the Conservatives currently sit at 34% support, a drop of 7.3 percentage points since the last election. That would suggest that, if an election were held today and if turnout was a constant, the Conservatives would receive roughly 6.7 million votes, a drop of just over 1.4 million in little more than a year.

We’ll delve into where these losses have occurred in a moment, but first here is where the projection stands this week:

There’s been little change since last week, with the Liberals up marginally to 46.3% and leading in 224 ridings. The projection awards them 215.5 seats on average (which takes into account potential polling and modelling errors), an increase of 4.1 seats since last week. The average Conservative seat haul has dropped 3.6 seats to 99.8. The New Democrats have ticked up a small amount to 9.1% of the vote and win an average of 8.3 seats, while the Bloc is largely unchanged.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

But let’s take a deeper look at the Conservatives, where their losses have been steepest and why it’s a bit of a stretch to lean on the party’s results from more than a year ago.

Read more

It suggests that the holding pattern in voting intentions that we’ve seen for the last two months is continuing unabated.

The Liberals lead in the projection with 46.2% of the vote, up 0.5 points from last week. If we round to the nearest full percentage, the Liberals have been holding at 46% in the projection since the March 3 update. The Conservatives are also up 0.5 points to 34.5%, while the New Democrats have dropped 0.6 points to 8.8%.

The Liberals are leading in 221 ridings in the projection. Taking into account potential polling and modelling errors, the Liberals are projected to win an average of 211.4 seats. Compared to last week, the Liberals are leading in three more seats but their average number of projected wins is up 1.4 — a reflection of how the Liberals have moved ahead in several toss-up seats that might not go their way in an actual election.

The Conservatives are leading in 86 seats, unchanged from last week, and win an average of 103.4, up only marginally. The NDP has lost the lead in three seats in the projection and is down 1.2 seats on average to just 7.9. The Bloc Québécois is holding steady with 19.4 projected seat wins (while they lead in 22).

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

I’ve had some questions about the difference between the “Seat Projection” and the “Avg. Projection”. Let me try to explain.

The model swings the results of the last election in each individual riding according to where the polls are today. Riding-level factors — such as the presence of an incumbent — are then taken into account. The Seat Projection shows the number of ridings in which each party is leading according to these calculations. This is, in other words, an estimation of how many seats each party would win if both the polls and the modelling was 100% accurate.

Of course, we know that 100% accuracy is impossible. Even if the polls were entirely correct, the model will make some riding-level errors because it is based on the assumption that all ridings will behave in a similar fashion. But some ridings will behave slightly differently than others — a party’s gain in Quebec might be more dramatic in some regions than in others even if, on average, it all comes out in the wash.

Then there is the error that we should expect in the polls. The polls will always be off by at least a little bit, but we don’t know in which direction. Will they over-estimate the Liberals and/or under-estimate the Conservatives, or vice-versa? The Seat Projection is agnostic on this, assuming that it is equally likely that the polls will be off in one direction or another for each party.

The Avg. Projection, however, is not agnostic about this. Using the past five elections as a guide, it assumes, for instance, that the Conservatives will beat their polls most of the time. For that reason, the Conservatives will be considered in contention to win more seats in which they trail than will the other parties. The Avg. Projection looks at all those seats where multiple parties are in contention, and assigns them randomly to one party or another in 10,000 simulations.

So, let’s apply this to this week’s projection. The Liberals lead in 221 seats and the Conservatives lead in 86 seats. But the Liberals are leading in more closely-contested seats than are the Conservatives. And, with the Conservative tendency to beat their polls, it seems likely that some of those toss-ups in which the Liberals lead will fall the Conservative way. Similarly, it is more likely that the Conservatives will hold more of the toss-ups in which they lead than would the Liberals.

As a result, the Liberals are projected to win an average of 211.4 seats, with the Conservatives winning 103.4 seats. In other words, the Liberals are expected to lose more of the closely-contested seats in which they are in contention than they win, while the Conservatives are expected to win more of those closely-contested seats than lose.

The model doesn’t “know” which seats these are, as this process is abstracted. But you can see which seats are the most likely to go either way in the Riding Projections. The “Toss” seats are the most uncertain — and it’s worthwhile to search them out. The Liberals, for instance, are projected to be leading in nine seats in Alberta, which would be quite a haul. But four of them are classified “Toss”. Based on historical precedent, that means they could be tough to actually win in practice, especially considering the Conservatives’ tendency to over-perform their polls by significant margins in Alberta. Two other Liberal seats in Alberta are “Edge” seats, the next-most uncertain classification.

So, even if the Liberals are projected to be leading in nine seats in Alberta, the real-world of an election might deliver them far fewer than that. This is what the Avg. Projection reflects.

Turns out, elections can be unpredictable, messy things, even in the best of times!

Since then, the Liberals have cobbled together a majority through floor-crossers and byelections, the Conservatives have seemingly lost their mojo and the New Democrats have replaced their leader. The odds of another election happening in the short or medium term has dropped significantly, even if the Liberals would easily secure an even bigger majority if they went to the polls today.

The Writ’s federal Vote and Seat Projection has the Liberals leading in 218 ridings and winning an average of 210 seats, a big gain from the 169 seats the party won a year ago. The Liberals have slipped back a little since last week, dropping 0.6 points to 45.7% and sliding in the seat projection, but that nevertheless keeps them in a very strong position.

The Conservatives have hardly budged at 34%, putting them 11.7 points behind the Liberals in the projection. The party is leading in 86 seats and wins an average of 103.2 seats in the projection, an increase of three and 3.6, respectively, since last week. That represents a big loss of seats compared to the 144 the Conservatives won a year ago.

The Bloc Québécois, at 6.3% nationally (27.8% in Quebec), is about where they were a year ago. They are leading in 22 seats and win an average of 19.6 seats in the projection, suggesting little change from April 2025.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

While it pales in comparison to the number of seat gains the Liberals would make, the biggest proportional gain since a year ago goes to the New Democrats. The party sits at 9.4% (+0.6 since last week), is leading in 15 seats (+5) and projected to win an average of 9.1 seats (+1.3). This puts recognized party status (12 seats) in reach of the NDP, but the party’s expected over-estimation in the polls suggests it might not be as easy as it appears — the NDP is leading in too many toss-ups for all of them to go its way.

The last week of polling has been pretty good for the New Democrats, relatively speaking, but there is also good reason for the NDP not to get too carried away with some of the numbers.

Read more

There’s been reporting on the fears within the Conservative caucus that Pierre Poilievre’s poor polling numbers have put their seats in danger. It’s undoubtedly been one of the factors contributing to the loss of four MPs to the Liberals through floor-crossing, with perhaps more to come. But some MPs are in greater need of a bounce back by the party (and have more reason to be tempted by the life raft of the Liberal benches). Who are they?

As it stands, the Conservatives would likely see their holdings in the House drop significantly if an election were held today. This week’s update to The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projection puts the party ahead in just 83 seats, representing a decrease of 57 seats from the 140 the Conservatives currently hold. Even the party’s Avg. Projection, which takes into account the likelihood that the Conservatives would outperform their polls, would still have the party losing 40 seats.

There’s been little change in the projection since last week. The Liberal lead now stands at 12.4 points in the vote projection (46.3% to 33.9%), with the NDP stuck at 8.8%. The Liberals are projected to be leading in 226 seats, a gain of three since last week that has come equally from the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois (22) and NDP (10).

That things have not deteriorated further for the Conservatives might be a silver lining for the party — but for a lot of MPs, that just means that the party is currently bottoming out at levels that put their own seats on the chopping block.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

Let’s get to those seats that are most at risk. The Riding Projections classify seats from Safe to Toss. There are a lot of Conservative seats projected to be Liberal Tosses, but those could go either way. Instead, let’s focus on the Conservatives who are in most need of a comeback for their party and are in the greatest danger of losing — even if they beat their polls.

Read more

That being the case, I figured I should update the Vote and Seat Projection Model a day early. Not only will this give us a chance to take a look at what the model says we should expect in the two Toronto ridings of Scarborough Southwest and University—Rosedale and the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, it’ll also give us a baseline against which to judge the results.

Before diving into the numbers, let me take this opportunity to invite you to tune in to our coverage of the byelection results, starting as soon as the polls close at 8:30 PM ET tonight on YouTube!

We’re expecting a bit of a late night. We should be able to get through the two Toronto ridings fairly quickly before turning our attentions to Terrebonne, where a special write-in ballot will delay the count in what is expected to be a closely-contested seat. We might have to stick around until every vote is counted!

By then, though, we should already know if the Liberals get their majority government if the two Toronto seats are called relatively early. But, if the Liberals can take it, Terrebonne will provide them more cushion. Conversely, if the Bloc can win it back, then they will deal Mark Carney his first real setback since the April 2025 election.

Before getting to the byelections, here’s where the latest projection puts things nationally:

The Liberals have slipped 0.4 points in the vote projection and two seats in the seat projection since last week, but otherwise are holding steady with 45.9% of the vote and 223 seats. The Conservatives are up a small 0.3 points to 34.1%, but are unchanged at 84 seats. The Bloc is up one seat to 23, while the NDP is also up one seat to 11 and sits at 8.8% of the vote. That share of the vote is virtually unchanged from last week — and this is after the inclusion of a few polls conducted after Avi Lewis become NDP leader. In short, we’re seeing no Lewis bump just yet.

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

That’s the big picture. What about the three ridings holding byelections today? Below are the results from the last general election, when the Liberals’ Bill Blair won in Scarborough Southwest and Chrystia Freeland prevailed in University—Rosedale. In Terrebonne, Tatiana Auguste defeated the Bloc’s Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné by a single vote, a result that was overturned by the Supreme Court due to an error made by Elections Canada that could’ve impacted the result.

How do these three seats look today, and what benchmarks can we set to help us judge the results?

Read more

While there hasn’t been a significant amount of movement over the last week in the polls, what has occurred has pushed the Liberals above the 220-seat threshold in the projection. They are now projected to be leading in 225 seats in the model, up 10 seats from last week. Most of those gains have taken place in one province: Ontario.

But there’s a caveat.

The Conservatives have dropped down nine to just 84 seats, their lowest level in the projection to date since the last election. The Bloc is unchanged at 22 seats while the NDP is up one to 10.

In the vote projection, the Liberals have ticked up 0.5 points to 46.3%, followed by the Conservatives at 33.8% (-0.3) and the New Democrats at 8.9% (-0.3).

For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:

But the key number to look at in this week’s update is the Avg. Projection, which takes into account expected over- or under-performance of each party in an actual election. While the Liberals have jumped 10 seats in the number of ridings in which they are projected to be leading, their average projection has only increased by 2.9 seats to 212.1 seats, while the Conservatives have slipped only 2.8 in the average projection to 102.2 seats. What gives?

Read more