Benchmarks for tonight's byelections
Setting up LaSalle–Émard–Verdun and Elmwood–Transcona. (LIVESTREAM TONIGHT!)
It’s a big day in Canadian politics.
Parliament is returning and voters in two key byelections are going to the polls. The results of those contests in Montreal’s LaSalle–Émard–Verdun and Winnipeg’s Elmwood–Transcona could have repercussions on how the next few weeks and months unfold.
Plus, the Poll Tracker is back.
Today is really the starting pistol for the next federal election. It could be a longer, 13-month marathon if this parliament goes the distance. It could also be a lot shorter than that. If the government is not defeated on a vote of confidence this fall, it might not be able to survive a budget vote next spring. Whatever happens, we are now officially in an election year.
The byelections in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun and Elmwood–Transcona will put all four major parties to the test. The NDP is trying to hold off the Conservatives in the latter and pull off an upset in the former, where the Liberals are working to keep both the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois at bay. In this analysis, as I have done for past byelections, I am going to set some polling benchmarks for each of the parties — benchmarks against which we can judge the results. Will candidates under-perform where their parties should be, or will they beat the odds?
It’ll be an exciting night (and, with 91 candidates on the ballot in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, probably an exciting early morning, too). Join me and
for a livestream of the results starting at 9:30 PM ET / 8:30 PM CT when the polls close. We’ll chat politics and provide some live analysis of the numbers. Grab a chair, a drink (or even a cup of coffee) and join us!The other bit of news to share today is that I have decided to run the Poll Tracker for the CBC one more time. This is the fourth iteration of the Poll Tracker, going back to the 2015 campaign (as well as about a dozen provincial elections). I believe it is a useful tool to track the flow of public opinion and likely election outcomes in a systematic, objective way. It’s one of the reasons that I decided to run the polling aggregation and seat projection model again — it helps me better understand how this election is unfolding and will better-inform my own analyses here on The Writ.
As a bonus to subscribers, I will be making the seat-by-seat projections available on The Writ, with each riding across the country assigned a rating (safe, likely, lean, etc.). You’ll be able to find them here.
I’ve opted to go this route instead of publishing projected vote shares for each party for two reasons. Firstly, there is a limit to the accuracy of seat projection models, and I don’t want to give a false sense of certainty to the projections. Secondly, vote share projections are too often mistaken for and shared as riding polls.
I will be using the riding-level projections in my analyses here, however, and I will sometimes present those vote share projections in individual cases where I can place them in the proper context.
So, I hope you’ll find the Poll Tracker and my analyses based on it helpful over the next two, eight or 13 months!
Now, let’s get to the byelection benchmarks.