Election Writ 3/24: Just how solid is Mark Carney's lead?
The Liberals begin the campaign as the frontrunners.
It’s been a long time coming, but the federal election is now finally upon us. And, contrary to what we thought this campaign was going to look like as this election year began, it’s a real race — with the Liberals entering this first week as the favourites to win.
Welcome to the first Election Writ of this campaign. You can expect this newsletter to hit your inbox every morning from here until election day (with the possible exception of a few weekends, we’ll see!). I like to set expectations to keep myself accountable and to let you know what to expect, so my plan is to put these newsletters out in the mid-to-late morning after I’ve had time to update the Poll Tracker and digest each morning’s poll numbers.
The Election Writ will include some analysis from me on what the day’s polling numbers are showing, along with other analyses and news related to whatever is happening on the campaign trail. I’ll also spotlight a region or a set of ridings each day. Today, we’re looking at the ridings the leaders will be running in — some of them are safe, but some of them aren’t!
These spotlights will be based on the riding-level projections behind the Poll Tracker. Those projections are available to paid subscribers to The Writ and will be updated on a daily basis. My regional and riding spotlights will go into a little more detail than the seat projections do, including laying out what the model is showing the vote projections to be in the individual ridings that I’ll be discussing.
Finally, each Election Writ will also contain a little bit of political history, harking back to elections and leadership races that have taken place in the past. Plus, I’ll close with some links to some of my other appearances and anything else you might have missed from The Writ.
That’s enough preamble for now. Let’s dive into the day’s polling numbers.
The Poll Tracker has not shifted too much today as the only new polls added to the aggregate were the last two iterations of Liaison Strategies’ daily tracker. The Liberals lead by just under a percentage point but are in majority territory thanks to the better distribution of their vote.
The Liberals are projected to win 177 seats to the Conservatives’ 132 and the Bloc’s 26. Both the NDP and Greens are in single digits at six and two seats, respectively.
Until we see more polls from a broader array of polling firms, it’s premature to delve too deeply into the trendlines. We’re still gingerly entering into this campaign. But at some point in the near future, I’ll have to wade into the debate about just how resilient the NDP’s incumbents might prove to be. Today, let’s wade a little into how sticky Mark Carney’s polling surge is — and what to make of the 1984 and 1993 precedents.