Here are my final predictions. (Tweaked after receiving Oct 11 poll results.)

Looks like the NDP surprise the media by picking up Central Nova (MacKay gets 36% and May finishes 3rd) and the Liberals steal Cumberland-Colchester due to the Casey/Conservative split there. The CPC’s keepers in the Atlantic are both in NB (Southwest and Fundy).

My latest pseudo-scientific best-guess is based on the Oct. 7 Nanos poll. Here it is:

Lib = 114
CPC = 102
BQ = 58
NDP = 34
Ind = 1

Thus we have a minority Liberal government with just 29% of the vote and a new Prime Minister who Canadians pick as the worst leader of the bunch.

On the plus side we have a Liberal Party ironically stuck with a leader they don’t want through at least one more election and a Conservative Party who will be on the hunt for a new leader - maybe this time one who believes in democracy and has the backbone to honour his or her commitment to conservative/libertarian principles.

We should also have an enhanced call for real electoral reform as the anomalies produced by the first past the post system are so pronounced. Consider for example how anyone could think it makes sense for the NDP to get half as many seats as the BQ although it received about twice as many votes. And what about the Liberals forming a rather comfortable minority government (if there is such a thing) despite the fact that the Conservatives received substantially more votes.

These results cause me to wonder once more why the West continually puts up with the fact that they overwhelmingly vote for the Conservatives and once again will be governed by eastern Liberals. I wonder how long it will take for western separatism to take hold when the Liberal (carbon tax), NDP (anti-oil), and BQ (anti-West) axis impose a new version of the National Energy Program. Personally I believe such an option would be a perfectly reasonable alternative to remaining an exploited colony of eastern imperialists.

This Liberal minority will have at least as long a life as the Conservative one it replaces. Why? Because all they need is the Bloc’s support and the Bloc has no where to go but down after such an excellent seat count. The Bloc will also be choosing a new leader and there are no big federal/provincial issues which the Liberals are married to that would force a confrontation with the Bloc.

I’m still not voting Conservative though. The prospect of seeing Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay defeated and replaced is simply too enticing. I vote for something, not against something, and there is nothing in Central Nova to vote for.

A poll of Nova Scotians was just released which should be more accurate than the national polls although it is a bit dated. It shows the CPC doing better than the Liberals in NS with the NDP just 1 point back of the Liberals. Coming as no surprise the Greens are far, far behind. Incorporating these into the projections I posted yesterday would mean the Tories hold Central Nova and the South Shore while picking up West Nova and even bumping off Scott Brison. Casey would probably win too so the national picture would be:

CPC = 133
Lib = 118
BQ = 45
NDP = 10
Ind = 2

Considering that Nick Nanos was dead-on in predicting the outcome of the last election I put a lot of stock in his polling numbers. The first poll results for this election are up on his site today.

As I’ve explained before, I made a spreadsheet that converts these regional poll numbers into the kinds of voter shifts that you can plug into the UBC Election Forecaster. Poll results are useless by themselves. Nationally the Conservatives could be up 10 and the NDP down 10 but if  it all took place in Alberta it would mean absolutely nothing in terms of the seat count.

Plugging the party shift numbers into the election forecaster gives the following results:

CPC = 129
Lib = 122
BQ = 45
NDP = 11
Other = 1 (Arthur in Quebec)

The interesting thing is that the collapse of the NDP leads to some gains for the Liberals but not quite enough to catch Harper.

The Conservatives get shut out in Atlantic Canada. This is based on certain assumptions about Central Nova due to the absence of a Liberal candidate. What I do there is first apply the party shifts based on comparing the latest poll to the 2006 results. Then I take the new Liberal tally and give 49% of it to the NDP, 29% of it to the Conservatives, and 22% to the Greens. The result is a 48 - 39 - 13 win for the NDP.

The other interesting thing is that with these numbers the only way Casey keeps his seat is if no one votes for the CPC candidate and he steals even more from the Liberals and NDP. I’d put that in the unlikely category. This actually surprised me as I though Casey would be able to keep it. Now I think he’s the underdog.

That’s how it all stands now. Personally I think Harper will gain enough through the campaign to widen the lead and eek out a slim majority. I even think that this will be enough for MacKay to pull it out of the fire and beat the NDP by 1 or 2 points. If May tops 15% I will be very surprised. (Anecdotally I see that the NDP is quick of the mark in New Glasgow and Stellarton with lots of lawn signs).