Tories on the brink of majority…really on the brink

Posted by padams under Election 2008, Election 2008 Campaign strategy, Election 2008 Media commentary

Paul Adams

Doing seat projections from polling data can be a bit risky. Polls are estimates of public opinion, even if usually quite accurate ones. Figuring out how these figures will translate into the distribution of seats in our first-past-the-post system is a tricky and imprecise business.

However, pollsters and journalists have spent the last two weeks implicitly making seat projections every time they have spoken of the Conservatives “being in majority territory” or “on the brink of a majority”. They just never show their work.

So here is what they are talking about. Taking EKOS’ national sample of over 2000 Canadians from Monday and Tuesday, and running them through a model that takes into account both the special arithmetic of our first-past-the-post system, and the parties’ historical patterns of support, when we say the Tories are “on the brink” we really mean it.

A majority is 155 seats.

The model gives the Tories 156 seats, Liberals 82, NDP 37, BQ 33.

Paul Adams is a former political reporter with the CBC and Globe and Mail, now a member of Carleton’s journalism faculty and executive director of EKOS Research Associates.