Final 2006 Campaign Numbers

The final numbers are now available. There were polls released today by Strategic Counsel and SES. The SES included some polling done today. The SES poll continues to reflect movement to the NDP in Ontario and in the West, even while the NDP declined very slightly in the national numbers. SES as usual is slightly more favourable to the Liberals, who finish by climbing slightly while Conservatives decline a bit.

I think this trend to the NDP will offset what often seems to be a small over-counting of NDP support, probably because younger voters who tend to support the NDP disproportionately don’t turn out to vote. If the polls are indeed accurate, the trend to the NDP should prevent the usual election-day drop. Note that I am referring to a broader phenomenon here, not what happened in 2004

All the numbers still point to a Conservative minority government.

I have averaged all the closing polls, including SES and Strategic Counsel, applied them to my seat forecaster and have come up with the following results:

C – 136
L – 78
NDP – 38
BQ – 56

I also applied just the SES numbers. As they were last in the field I thought it worth citing the seat outcome from their poll:

C – 132
L – 86
NDP – 33
BQ – 57

The fact that the NDP is weaker in SES does not contradict what I said above about the trend. SES has generally reported weaker NDP support than other polls throughout the campaign.

Given what seems a clear closing trend to the NDP (and less so the Liberals) and away from the Conservatives, it is possible that the NDP could go over 40 seats, the Liberals over 80 and the Conservatives down a few seats tomorrow, when we shall see if any of this makes sense.