Conservatives slide in projection in wake of series of bad polls
Federal Projection Update for August 10, 2026.
It could be a fluke of summer polling. But, boy, did the Conservatives just get a rough hand of polls dealt their way.
Since I last updated The Writ’s Federal Vote and Seat Projection two weeks ago, the Conservatives have slid 1.6 points in the vote projection to 33.3% support, the lowest they’ve been since the projection started calculating an average after the 2025 election. If we extend the average to the Poll Tracker I ran for the CBC prior to that election, the Conservatives haven’t hit this mark since May 2023 — and not consistently since before Pierre Poilievre because leader of the party.
Accordingly, the Conservatives are down six seats in the projection and now lead in only 87 ridings across the country. Taking into account the tendency for the polls to under-estimate the Conservatives, as well as the number of close contests in the model, boosts the Conservatives to only an average of 103.2 seats, a drop of five over the last two weeks. As a result of the Conservative slide, the Liberals have increased their vote projection to 45.1%, their best score since early June, and lead in 217 ridings, also their best result in about two months.
There’s been little change for either the Bloc Québécois or the New Democrats since the last update, with the Bloc leading in 21 seats (down one) and the NDP ahead in 16 with 10.3% of the vote (unchanged for the seats, down 0.1 for the vote). The Greens are up to 2.8% in the projection, their best post-election score, but still only top out at two seats in the projection’s high range.
For fully interactive charts, tables and maps, head to The Writ’s website:
What’s behind the Conservative tumble in the polls? It’s always a little tough to know if we’re looking at real trends when they develop over the summer, but the slide in the Conservatives’ projected support is not the result of simply one or two polls.