27 Comments
User's avatar
Edward Peter McKinney's avatar

Thus is what angers all of us about polls and aggregators, Yet again you got it wrong. We are deeply disappointed by the result. This is a mess. I will suggest that Polls and aggregators be banned at least one week before an election. This poor performance of the polls and aggregators cannot be allowed to continue To complain we "underestimated the CPC vote" is a failure of your work! You have been using that excuse for years! I am told to stop subscribing to you and other folks who pontificate on the electorate Basically you are guessing. And your excuses about ranges hold no water Bet better but i wont be around to find our. Cancelling everything too do with you and Fournier as well as Abacus and their ilk You really only amount to noise

Expand full comment
Erin's avatar

I’m kind of surprised that someone who is subscribed to both Eric and Philippe still has such a low understanding of how polling works.

Expand full comment
Edward Peter McKinney's avatar

see my replay above

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

Sorry you feel that way, I hope I haven’t given a false sense of certainty and precision when it comes to projections. I’d like to think I gave readers a good idea of what was most likely and also what was possible.

Expand full comment
Morrey Ewing's avatar

How was percentage turnout overall and by comparison to previous years? Why is this information not available on election night?

Expand full comment
MCH's avatar

It's not available on election night because votes are still being counted and we don't know the overall turnout numbers until vote counting is done...

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

Looks like we’ll be somewhere around 67%, last I checked.

Expand full comment
Tom Haapanen's avatar

68.65%, not so bad!

Expand full comment
Adam Rich's avatar

Thanks for your analysis! I would like to hear how polling models can be adjusted to account for the errors in the next election. Polls are hard. I appreciate your work!

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

Thanks Adam!

Expand full comment
Ian Carter's avatar

I very much appreciate the long hours and hard work you guys do. Especially these last 5 weeks. Ontario was slightly off but overall excellent work. Thank you

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

Thanks!

Expand full comment
Going Forward's avatar

Really enjoyed your coverage of the unprecedented swing in the arc of this election. Interesting that the polling picked up the narrowing of the gap in the last week which proved directionally correct. I have two questions:

1. What do you think was the biggest factor in the CPC gains in the last week?

2. If the NDP loses party status with just 7 seats, does that provide an opportunity for the Liberals to offer 3 of those "independents" a role in forming a majority government?

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

1) I think the Liberal campaign was coasting off Trump and new Carney smell in the first weeks but that started to wear off. I’m curious what local dynamics were so important in the GTA and SW to swing so many seats to the Conservatives.

2) The remaining NDP MPs don’t strike me as opportunists, so I don’t think they’ll have much success trying to lure any of them over. Collectively, they hold more influence than they would be crossing the floor.

Expand full comment
Edward Peter McKinney's avatar

Oh I know They always posit that the leading entity is leading has a statistical chance of winning. I studied statistics under Dr Teitlebaum IF one has a 75 % chance if winning then the other has a chance of winning of 25% (ref: Clinton) Soo yes i understand statistics and probability What anger me about these 2 guys, after years of paying $ to them, is that they couch their errors in "well it is the margins we presented" Well that is not good enough. They also dais as did Colleto and Nikos that the Conservatives had no room to overcome the Liberal leas in Ontario. So, yes, they were all wrong and i am unsubscribing to all Canadian political podcasts from Curse of Politics to everything else. just all self serving marketing. I should be surprised. But i used to be an optimist

Expand full comment
Erin's avatar
1dEdited

Is it possible that your misunderstanding of what Eric and Phillippe do can be traced back to you studying statistics with a fake doctor?

Anyways it’s not an airport. You don’t have to announce your departure

Expand full comment
Peter B's avatar

Now I'm curious on why you're so upset about something that has a 19% chance of happening actually happened. (I really hope you didn't lose money/face/etc over this.)

"The Conservatives had no room to overcome the Liberal lea[d] in Ontario" This is factually true. LPC got 49.6%/69 seats vs CPC got 44.3%/53 seats. LPC still got more votes and seats at the end. Why they were off by a dozen seats or so should be studied by the pollsters in the near future, and why just in Ontario?

You know Eric and Philippe are poll aggregators, not fortune tellers, right? They don't do the polls themselves. They interpret the polls and give a projection on how the result may be. They can't see a set of numbers and then tell a completely different story. You're pretty much shooting the messenger here.

Expand full comment
Peter B's avatar
1dEdited

Thank you Eric for all the hard work you put in!

I do want to ask: This time the pollsters underestimated the Conservative support in Ontario. How much of it is due to the overestimation of the PC in Ontario provincial election a few months back? Can this be a result of an over-correction?

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

That’s an interesting idea! But I think the big difference in turnout between the provincial and federal elections would make it difficult to compare.

Expand full comment
Dan Fraser's avatar

Thank you for all your work! Reading your coverage has become a daily routine. 🇨🇦

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

Thanks! I’m sorry I won’t be back in your mailbox every day! Maybe make it a weekly routine!

Expand full comment
Tom Haapanen's avatar

Super coverage throughout the writ period, Éric! I enjoyed the insights throughout the campaign, including the podcasts.

Expand full comment
Wilfred Day's avatar

Drama from PP's loss? Cheryl Gallant, 64, is one of the two longest-serving current Conservative MPs. Easy to find her a sinecure.

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

Well, for me a byelection is drama.

Expand full comment
Karan's avatar

It seems like the mainstreet pollster was the most accurate in predicting popular vote and they were the only pollster that had the conservatives ahead a few times towards the end of campaign period. (also they were spot on with the ontario provincial election numbers) Do you think if there were a few more weeks in the campaign periods conservatives could of won considering the narrowering in the polls?

Also, it looks like several ridings were really close. Do you have any data on recounts changing outcomes?

Thanks a lot!

Expand full comment
Éric Grenier's avatar

I think it is possible that the Conservatives could have won had the campaign been a bit longer. The Liberal campaign seemed to be a little adrift as election day approached. Trump could've injected something new into it, but I guess we'll never know!

For recounts, it is rare for them to flip. But 12 votes in Terra Nova isn't a lot...

Expand full comment
Jawahar's avatar

First let me start by thanking you Eric and also Phillipe for the work you both do. It is never easy make projections of seats.

It looks like the Conservatives did much better on ON than what your projections said, hence the Liberals fell short of 80 seats they needed in ON

I wonder if you have any thoughts about demographics and voter intentions.

Older white => Liberal

Younger and Younger Immigrants => Conservative

Expand full comment