Election prediction

[Jason]

Since we're almost at the end (thank god!), anybody want to predict:

1. How many seats will be won by each party?
2. How long it will take before we know who, if anyone, has a majority?

Their are nail-biters not just in particular ridings, but possible in entire provinces, of who wins the most seats. That, and the mail-in ballots, of which there are over a million, won't be counted until Tuesday. I don't mean just after midnight; I mean the next day. Ballots from Canadians expatriates, including military personnel, can actually be counted before the election, I believe it was at the last advanced polling. But results won't be included until election night.

We have quite an interesting system, at least to me, even if it's unfair as far as I'm concerned. Speaking of which, Trudeau is now saying that he'll look at electoral reform again as long as it's not proportional representation. I don't believe him as far as I can throw him anymore than I believe he will actually follow through as with childcare. The Liberals have been promising that since 1988. Sorry, Liberals, but I'm just being honest.

I'll be helping with GOTV tomorrow.

[fox]

My prediction is that we'll end up almost the same as it was. Liberals will get the most seats but be 15-25 short of a majority. Conservatives will again get around 120. The NDP will make out the best relative to their previous showing; up to 35 or 40. The Bloc will stay about the same, and the Greens will go down, getting only 1 or 2 seats in B.C. The PPC probably won't get a seat; if they do it will be Bernier's. Regardless, the PPC will be the big winner, as their popular vote will be 6-8% and they will now have to be considered more than a fringe party. This will leave the Conservatives in a worse state, and they will have to decide in the near future whether to move further right again to absorb the PPC or to stick where they appear to be by their platform, opening them up to more people in the middle of the political spectrum, but leaking more to the PPC on the right.

[Jason]

Thanks for responding. In regards to my second question - when do you think we will know if there's a majority or even who ends up winning the most seats?

Here's my prediction. I'm going to predict exact seat totals kind of like a betting pool (or a puddle for us since nobody else is participating).

Liberal        156 (-1)
Conservative   125 (+4)
NDP             35 (+11)
Bloc            24 (-8)
Green            1 (-1)
PPC              1 (+1)

Like you, I don't think much will change. The Conservatives will be up slighting by taking some extra seats in Quebec due to Liberal/Bloc vote splits.

The NDP will gain the most taking seats from the Liberals because of the Liberal/Conservative vote splitting in some Toronto ridings.

The Bloc will fall quite a bit because of increased Conservative support pulling away from a few seats in the usual area (East shore, I believe) and I think the NDP will gain 2 more seats in Quebec (they still have one).

The Greens have 2 seats right now but will lose 1 because the infighting will cause their new MP to lose likely to the Liberals. Elizabeth May will hold her seat, their leader won't get hers and she'll resign or be fired.

The PPC will get the seat won by their fearless unvaccinated, anti-mask, anti-lockdown yahoo, I mean, leader. As for how long he lives to hold it with his poor health choices; we'll see.

While the Conservatives would be happy to get back that PPC vote there's a real cost there in terms of losing public support of moderates if they did it. And I'm not sure the PPC will want to join them. The PPC voters aren't just disgruntled former Conservatives, they're Trumpists and conspiracy nuts mixed in with some freedom drum-bangers. And they'll be cocky after the increase in popular support even if it doesn't mean much. I think their leader will get bored after a while anyway. He only created the party because he couldn't win the Conservative leadership. So, it will take another election before the two parties will even consider joining, and then only if the Liberals have a majority after that election.

Forgot to add that if the NDP winners bigger than I've said, and I really hope they do, those additional seats will come from BC seats. It's a 3-way split in popular vote between the big 3 there.

[Jason]

Well, shiiiiiit.

[Jason]

I don't know how many of you were fans of the TV show Seinfeld. In one episode, the main characters are pitching a show to NBC that would be "about nothing". That comment couldn't describe this election better. And like TV shows that bomb, the election cost a lot of money, to achieve nothing. Some seats were won and lost but everyone is back at the starting gates with almost exactly the same seat totals. And it only cost over $300 million.

And Trudeau sees this as a stamp of approval from Canadians for his plan! He reminds me of Joe Clarke when he received a minority and said he'd govern as if he had a majority. Had the Conservative vote been more efficient, we would have had a Conservative win as they had the higher popular vote. And it would have been because Trudeau had to have his majority, one which he didn't need to do his program. But parties, especially governing ones, don't like to work with others. Sigh.

Be interesting to see if the mail-in ballots change anything (there are over a million), perhaps a few close seats. Not enough to change this election about nothing.

[Jason]

The PPC may no longer be considered a fringe party but they're still an extremist one. They have attracted a lot of scary supporters and a stamp of approval from white nationalists. I'd much rather have a Conservative government than have the vote split by these guys so that the Liberals win. It's very concerning. I doubt the Conservatives will want to touch this party with a 6-foot poll lest they catch this disease.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/federal-election-2021/what-the-rise-of-the-ppc-says-about-canada-in-2021-1.5596859

[fox]

The question the article raises but cannot answer is what proportion of those that voted PPC are there solely over the Covid vaccination/lockdown issue. I know of people that are centrists or even leftists that are anti-vax but not anti-immigration or anti-government. I don't know any that are anti-lockdown, but I get that people with that view include those hurt economically by the lockdowns and others that just feel that freedoms have been too much curtailed. If and when Covid is no longer a pandemic, some proportion of the PPC voters will go back to the political affiliations that they came from. Hopefully it's a lot of them, and the PPC will go back to being a party with little popular support.

[Jason]

I agree that they don't know. But the connections are a bit concerning including the guy who through the gravel at the PM who was a PPC riding president.

And their platform was endorsed by white supremacist organizations although she didn't say specifically which ones. I'm guessing they don't want to platform them.

She tweeted out an email she received from an American who said he hoped she'd be sexually assaulted, hung from a tree and she should kill herself. And she said there were similar emails like that from others. It was right after the PPC leader posted a tweet telling his followers to play dirty with journalists that criticized the party and posting their emails. His account was suspended and he later removed the tweet.

I can honestly say that any PPC supporters I've run across (online) have been vehement in their support for the party calling Trudeau a traitor, etc. When you know this information and you're a PPC supporter, are you not tacitly showing your approval for those kinds of people? I don't see their leader condemning people like that and he's using dog whistle language. So there are definitely attachments to white supremacy. Don't think it can't happen here. We have lots of racists in Canada. Like you, I hope they will disappear after the pandemic. But I doubt it.

[fox]

I'm not expecting racists or the PPC to disappear once Covid is no longer a pandemic, but I am expecting support for the PPC to decline. How much is what's hard to say.

[Jason]

Yeah, that's what I mean by disappearing. Back to the 1-2% they deserve. I also think that Bernier is pretty much the party. If he leaves, who knows?

[fox]

There was a very interesting caller on Cross-Country Checkup this afternoon. A guy who voted PPC because he was "grumpy, not Trumpy" (his words). He voted for Trudeau last time, but was not happy with any of the candidates this time, so it was a protest vote. Who knows how many others voted "protest" for the PPC? I guess we'll find out in the next election.

Another interesting Cross-Country Checkup caller was a Liberal candidate from Barrhead, Alberta. She lost of course, but argued that the election changed a lot. She was happy to see Liberal candidates winning or nearly winning in the province; meant a lot to her even though she got slaughtered. I agree with her. Even if seat numbers changed little, geographic representation did, and that's important.

[Jason]

Another interesting Cross-Country Checkup caller was a Liberal candidate from Barrhead, Alberta. She lost of course, but argued that the election changed a lot. She was happy to see Liberal candidates winning or nearly winning in the province; meant a lot to her even though she got slaughtered. I agree with her. Even if seat numbers changed little, geographic representation did, and that's important.

That's true. There was only one seat that wasn't Conservative in Alberta (it was NDP) and now two are NDP and two are Liberal. Still 30 Conservatives many winning by over 70% but it's something. Nobody else can break into Saskatchewan which is sad especially for the NDP considering it's the birthplace of the CCF and Medicare. Had we have a system that was proportionally based, there'd be a lot more Liberals, NDP in Alberta and some in Saskatchewan.