September 29th 2013: New Ipsos poll shows Tories and Grits fighting for victory

The latest federal Ipsos poll shows a situation somewhat similar to the recent Abacus poll. The Conservatives are first. just ahead of the Liberals. Another poll clearly showing a decline of the Trudeau-mania we observed after Justin Trudeau became leader of the LPC. Such a decline is normal after the usual boost in the polls that follows the arrival of a new leader. The question of course is whether the decline is over or if the Liberals could fall back into third place.

Vote intentions, seat projections with confidence intervals at 95%, chances of winning.

While the Canada-wide numbers show a close race between the Conservatives of Stephen Harper and the Liberals, the seat projections clearly give an edge to the incumbent. Despite the Grits being incredible high in the Atlantic (small sample size, but Abacus had mostly the same results) and wiping most of the seats in this region, they are second or third everywhere else. As always with our electoral system, being first is usually rewarded disproportionately and this leads to a surprising safe led for the CPC. I say safe because the probabilities are clearly in favour of the current Prime Minister. With more than 90% chances of winning the most seats, the Conservatives would be the clear favorite. A majority seems out of the question though.

It clearly seems the Liberals are slightly at a disadvantage with the electoral system currently. In order to be projected winning more than 50% of the time, they would clearly need to have a clear lead in the polls. Nevertheless, accounting for the uncertainty due to the electoral system and the polls, Justin Trudeau would have around 10% chances of becoming the next PM. Not bad, but he needs to take the lead in Ontario to significantly increase his odds. And let's not forget that the current lead in the Atlantic seems overestimated, to say the least. I'd be surprise if this lead was to hold during an election.

Anyway, the detailed projections are available here. As usual, feel free to use the simulator to use your own percentages.