I think for the first time since I'm doing projections on this site, we have a new Angus-Reid poll (with a massive sample size, online though) giving a majority to the Tories when used in my model. While the overall votes intentions are somewhat similar to other recent polls, the big difference is the big lead the CPC enjoys in Ontario (43% vs 30% for the Liberals). Moreover, the Tories could get an even bigger majority by winning a lotof close races.This poll also has the merit to provide estimates for every province, even the four Atlantic ones. This is nice information but not really helpful for my model since this one works at the regional level for the Atlantic or the Prairies (because usually we never have polls for PEI for instance). I'm still a little bit skeptical of some of the numbers in Atlantic Canada. For instance, the NDP would be 10 points below its results last election. That's a huge drop. Also, please remember that I'm assuming that all the "weird" efffects of the 2008 campaing (the ABC, St-John East for NDP, Cumberland for the Tories, etc) are either gone or halfway gone (for ABC for instance). It does affect the number of seats, especially for the Conservatives.
Overall this poll is just more bad news for the Liberals. And I now think that Harper must be thinking of the best way to not pass his budget. It's not that easy, because he needs an issue that would force all three opposition parties to vote against and take him down, but this issue has to be defendable during a campaing. If you ask me, coming back with abolishing public funding to political parties is probably the best way for Harper. Not only would all parties have to take him down, but this policy is not impopular if you look at the polls.
Here are the riding by riding projections.
