Now here’s something you don’t see too often - a poll with only a 2.5 point margin of error 19 times out of 20 showing voter preference in the Atlantic Provinces. Mind you, the Herald story doesn’t provide all the details (typical). But the details for Nova Scotia are there with a slightly higer margin of error. Applying these figures to the UBC Election Forecaster the results in seats in NS would be:

Lib = 5 (-1)
CPC = 4 (+1)
NDP = 2 (same)

The two wild card ridings in this are the neighbouring ones of Central Nova (where no Liberal will be running) and Cumberland-Colchester (where Bill Casey is the incumbent). First Cumberland-Colchester: the UBC results show that there should be enough “blue” support there that Casey and the CPC candidate could slit the vote right down the middle and still have enough that whichever one is slightly ahead will beat the NDP and Liberals. So it might be 4 CPC seats or 3 plus an independent. Despite his political heritage Casey has voted with the opposition more often than the government since his ouster so that would really be a loss for the Conservatives.

In Central Nova, Dion is the only one expecting Liberals to vote Green. May will trail the field and the only issue is whether enough disenfranchised Liberals will vote NDP to upset Peter MacKay. According to this poll MacKay is still in the drivers seat by a still-comfortable margin.

So where is that extra CPC seat? In West Nova where the poll has Robert Thibault, lead Liberal on the House Ethics Committee, losing to the CPC candidate by 6 points.

The situation for the Conservatives in the region should improve even more with the war between Ottawa and St. John’s blowing over. Here’s hoping.