The BC election has officially started yesterday. One long month of (most likely dirty) campaign leading to May 14th. As this election begins, polls and analysts would agree on one thing: the BC NDP is the big favorite to win it. Actually, one could wonder if it's even possible for the BC Liberals to win. This is the object of this post.

First, let's look at the situation assuming that the polls aren't completely wrong.

A lot of things can happen between now and the election (after all, there is this thing called a campaign), but as of right now, the odds aren’t good for the BC Liberals. Most recent polls have all shown a lead for the BC NDP around 15-20 points. The gap between the main two parties was closing in fast for a couple of months but this trend has clearly stopped recently. In term of seats, this is what the projections would look like by using the most recent polls (released yesterday) by Angus-Reid.

BC Liberals: 14 seats

BC NDP: 67.

Green: 0.

BC Conservatives: 2

Ind.: 2

The detailed projections (in pdf format) can be found here. You can also find the probability of winning for each riding). If you need the details of how I do that, just read the FAQ. As usual, if you want to make your own projections, use the simulator.

Let’s look at the probability of winning the election. People are relatively familiar with margins of error while looking at polls. However, not everybody really knows how much uncertainty can come from these polls and what it can means in terms of electoral outcomes. On top of that, our electoral system is such that knowing the percentages isn’t enough in order to predict who will win. Therefore, there is actually quite a lot of uncertainty when predicting elections.

The model tries to capture and measure the two main sources of uncertainty: the polls and the electoral system. The first one comes from the margins of errors. When a party is polled at 35%, this party could actually be at 32% or at 38% (or even further away, since margins of error apply 95% of the time). Additionally, our electoral system is such that the same province-wide percentages can lead to very different numbers of seats. So there is this additional uncertainty at the riding-level. Our model takes the polls and runs 1000 simulations, accounting for both sources of uncertainty. It can transpose province-wide percentages into riding-level ones using coefficients estimated from past elections results.

The graph below represents the probability of winning the election (defined as having won the most seats) for the BC NDP, as a function of the party’s lead in the polls. As you can see, as soon as the BC NDP is polled 10-points above the BC Liberals, it’s pretty much game over.

Remember, what it means is that when polled 10-points ahead of the Liberals, the BC NDP is projected to win the most ridings in all 1000 simulations, if the election was held today. Even in the case where the NDP would perform significantly lower than the polls (and the Liberals significantly better), even in the case where the NDP would be “unlucky” in the sense that its vote would be inefficient in getting seats, so even in this worst case scenario, Adrian Dix would still get the most MLAs.

Remember as well, these 1000 scenarios account for the natural statistical variation of polls. Actually, it goes beyond the normal margins of error. Specifically, with the vote intentions given above, there is one scenario where the NDP would be as low as 40%. In another one, the Liberals could get as much as 32.6% of the vote, almost 5-points above the poll. Add to this the uncertainty of the riding level (the second sampling if you prefer), and you realize that the model does account for a lot of uncertainty.

With that said, we are still assuming that the informaiton from the polls isn't completely invalid. In other words: we are assuming that what happened in Alberta will not happen here. Let me remind you of how wrong the polls were. One just needs to look at this picture (from wikipedia) to realize how bad the pollsters did.

I don't want to go over the reasons of this failure. Some pollsters even don't seem to acknowledge the mistake and are saying that people really changed their minds in the last minute. I mean really? around 25% of people switch during the last night? lol This is ridiculous. Sure the last minute poll by Forum did better, but I'm not sure this is really an achievement. It could well be luck. The last minute poll in Quebec by Forum was quite off.

Looking at this graph, the average for the Wildrose alliance was around 40% (let's be hard on this party and accounts for the slight decreasing trend) and 35% for the Conservatives. So at best, we are talking of an underestimation of 9-points for the PC and an overestimation of 5 for the Wildrose. This is beyond what my simulations could predict. I'd need to assume an incredibly large sample size to even have some scenarios as crazy as this one.

So the short answer is no, my model doesn't account for that much uncertainty. And quite honestly, I'm not sure it should. What happened in Alberta was a unique failure, something we haven't really seen before or since. Polls are less accurate now than before (for various reasons), but they are still reliable in average. So, during this campaign, I'll sometimes run a scenario where an Alberta-like failure would occur. If you really think polls are wrong, you can always use the simulator.

So, is the election already over? No, of course not. But as long as the polls will show the NDP with such a big lead, there won't be much suspense regarding the outcome of the election. The silver lining for Christy Clark and the BC Liberals is that the current electoral system seems to favor them. Indeed, look at the first graph. The NDP needs a 3-points lead to have more than 50% chances to win. In other words, the Liberals don't need to pass the NDP in the polls, they just need to get closer to have a chance.

Throughout this campaign, I'll also try to keep you entertain and look at various things. For instance, can the Green win a seat? Can the Conservatives win seats as well? How much damage can they do to the Liberals? etc etc.

The Liberals have a new leader, one that got elected even more easily than expected. Justin Trudeau is currently seen as the savior of the LPC and many hope he will bring this party back to power.Looking at his leadership run and the recent polls, Liberals might indeed be right to have high hopes for the next election. The object of this post is to look at the potential "Trudeau effect" and try to quantify it.

1. Justin Trudeau's performance in his own riding.

Before looing at the potentiel for the party, let's look at his results in his riding of Papineau. He ran there in 2008 after Pierre Pettigrew lost to the Bloc in what was one of the great victories for the Bloc in the 2006 election (taking a riding on the Island of Montreal is never easy). He successfully reconquered this seat for the Liberals and kept it in 2012 despite the rise of the NDP. The original win in 2008 wasn't easy and if you look at the numbers, Trudeau increase the Liberal share of votes by 2-3 percentage points, the same average as for the LPC in the province in general (people are quick to forget tht Dion actually managed to increase the support for the Liberals in Quebec). I understand the Bloc probably ran a tough campaign then (hey, they really wanted to keep this riding and they really, and I mean really wanted to prevent the son of the former PM Pierre-Elliot Trudeauto win). Thinsg are better for Justin Trudeau in 2011 where he seemed to have got a boost or bonus. Indeed, he managed to keep his seat by losing only about 3-points, way less than the average for the Liberals. It could be beause of an incumbency effect, but data shows it was more of a specific effect. Advanced econometrics methods show the same thing: no effect in 2008 (when the Liberals got some votes from the Conservatives, province-wide), but a large (between 3-4 points) and significant effect in 2011 when the Liberals lost votes to the NDP.

What can we learn from this? Mostly that Trudeau can  be especially good at fighting a rising NDP. While most of the island (and the province) was turning orange, Justin managed to fight the orange wave quite well

2. The recent polls.

All along the Liberal leadership campaign, we've got polls. Some were even as specific as to ask the vote intentions twice: with and without Trudeau as the leader of the Liberals. I won't try to list all the polls of the last 6 months, but we can look at these two: Legermarketing (March 30th) and Leger (December 8th 2012, so at the beginning of the race). For the former, let's ignore the ridiculous numbers (both with and without Trudeau) of the Atlantic. If we look at Quebec and Ontario, we see that Trudeau as leader would greatly benefit the Liberals. In Quebec, we're talking of a net gain of 4-points, at the expense mostly of the Bloc. Right there, if you follow politics, that shoud be a red herring. To me, it doesn't make any sense that Justin Trudeau would manage to convince Bloc supporters to switch to the Liberals. Especially when the Bloc is already quite low and therefore, the Bloc voters are more likely the "die hard" ones. In Ontario, the LPC would gain around 10-points, mostly from the NDP. In the latter poll (the one from late 2012), we see a boost for the Liberals, taken from the NDP. That makes sense. In Ontario, similar boost, taken equally from the CPC and NDP.

What I'm trying to show here is that the "Trudeau effect" isn't that obvious in the polls and hasn't been very consistent, at least not in terms of which party would lose votes. Generally however, it seems, the NDP would be more affected by a Trudeau-led Liberal party. Angus-Reid polls show the same: NPD down, CPC barelly affected.

Other polls have been released and the Liberals have been quite volatile. They could be very high in most Forum polls, but very low and a distant third in most polls from Angus-Reid. In both cases, Trudeau as leader would help. The volatility is definitely too important and reminds us to be use caution while looking at polls, especially outside of an election period.

What is also weird is that people were clearly expecting Trudeau to win this race, from months. So over the months, polls shouldn't show such a big Trudeau effect since people should be factoring the fact that Justin Trudeau would be the leader, no matter if the question asked for it specifically. In uebec, because people were pretty sure (and rightfully so) that Phillipe Couillard would win the Liberal leadershop (provincially), we didn't see any real boost for this party after the leadership. Which makes sense. No such consisteny at the federal level.

At the end, even if we do observe such a boost (and we most likely will in the next couple of polls, we always do when there is a new leader), it'll likely be at the expense of the NDP. While it's great for the Liberals to climb back, that leaves Harper and the Conservatives ahead. It's almost like LPC and NDP will simply split the vote differently among them. The effect could be particularly visible in Quebec where some scenarios actualy allow the Bloc to become the first party (in term of seats) again, simply because Liberals and Neo-Democrats are splitting the same vote. Both Trudeau and Mulcair have said no to any deal or coalition. We'll see in 2015 if they were right.

The real key battle will obviously be (as usual) Ontario and it'll be interested to see if Trudeau can really get some of the Conservatives vote back. First in the polls, later during the actual election.

With the most recent polls showing no sign of a decline from the BC NDP, the upcoming BC election is becoming less and less uncertain. Let's face it, unless something major happens, the BC NDP will win and will get a majority.

Still, it doesn't mean that nothing interesting can happen. For instance, a legitimate question is whether the Green party can get MLAs. This party is indeed polling higher than its results of 2009, especially in Victoria (and Vancouver Island in general). On top of that, the candidacy of Andrew J. Weaver in Oak-Bay Gordon-Head is promising. However, in order for him (or another Green candidate) to actually win a riding, there is still a long way. Let's look at it more closely.

Using the latest Angus-Reid poll, the model doesn't currently project a win for the Green party. However, for the first time since I introduced the simulations and probabilities, the Green have actually a chance in the riding of West-Vancouver Sea-toSky. Indeed, the model would give this party a 1.4% chance of winning. Not high, but not zero. As for Andrew J. Weaver, unfortunately for him, out of 1000 simulations (taking into account the margins of error of the polls as well as the electoral system), he's not projected to win a single time. His maximum would be 26%. A nice increase compared to the result of 2009 (9.1%), but not enough to win since the NDP is never projected below 36%. Remember, these numbers are like the best case /worst case scenario for, respectively, the Green and BC NDP.

But these projections don't include any special effect, boost or bonus. The model doesn't currently give Andrew J. Weaver any special treatment. But we know this isn't right. High profiles candidates can perform significantly better than others. During the last federal election, I spent a lot of time trying to estimate the Elizabeth May effect, based on her past performance. Even though I gave her a bonus as high as 25-points, I still fell short of the actual boost she enjoyed. But it shows you what it would take for him to win his riding: a big boost. In the best case scenario, he would only need 10-points. This is quite achievable. Elizabeth May is in a clss of her own, but other high profile candidates have managed to pull off such results, more recently the small party of Quebec Solidaire in Quebec. However, 10-points is in the best case scenario. In a more realistic one, the boost would likely need to be more around 15-20 points. We enter Elizabeth May territory there. Not impossible, but quite rare in Canadian politics. Believe me, a candidate can already be happy to get an additional 5% most of the time.

What is going against the chances of the Green is also the fact that they are mostly facing the NDP. Indeed, all the ridings that the green could win are projected to go NDP (and/or have currently a NDP incumbent). This is really bad news for the Green as the BC NDP is polled incredibly high everywhere, including in Victoria and Van Island. In most ridings, Adrian Dix's party is even projected at more than 50%, meaning that even if the Green candidates could rally votes from all the other parties, they would still fall short. In other words: not only do the Green candidate need to get a boost, they would need it to come from the BC NDP, at least partially. What could help the Green though is the fact that the BC NDP is polled so high provincially, that most people will assume it'll win the election (and a mjority) for sure (and they'd be right). Therefore, there is less risk in splitting the vote and therefore voting Green.

In conclusion, the Green might have a shot in a couple of ridings, mostly on Vancouver Island. But the odds aren't really in their favor. After all, provincially, the Green are "only" polled around 3-points above their 2009 results. The model already converts this 3-points increase into a bigger one on Vancouver Island (based on past election results and swings), but it's far from being enough to overcome a 30-40-points deficits in most ridings. Of course, upsets and surprises are totally possible and don't think that I hate the Green or anything, If you know me and my blog, you now how much I like it when more parties get seats and I'd actually be happy to see the Green party represented in Victoria. But I also look at the data and probabilities. And what I see is that the Green party will need to increase more if they are to really have a shot. So I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's difficult and unlikely. And I'm showing you the kind of boost a green candidate such as Andrew J. Weaver will need.

Phillippe Couillard a donc remporté la course à la chefferie du PLQ dès le premier tour. Cette course n'a pas  déchaîné de passions et n'a généré somme toute que peu d'intérêt médiatique. Il faut dire que Couillard a pris la tête dès le début et ne l'a jamais abandonnée ou même semblé être inquiété.

Avec un nouveau chef à la tête de l'opposition officielle, Pauline Marois va surement devoir commencer à sérieusement préparer la prochaine campagne. Après tout, elle est à la tête d'un gouvernement minoritaire. à l'inverse de la situation à Ottawa où il fallait les trois partis d'opposition pour faire tomber le gouvernement, à Québec, ça n'en prend "que" deux. Les chances sont ainsi un peu plus grandes. Cependant, la bonne nouvelle pour Marois est que le PLQ et la CAQ (ex-ADQ) semblent s'échanger des votes depuis des années. Ce que cela signifie, c'est que si les sondages sont favorables au PLQ, ils seront alors défavorables à la CAQ (et vice versa). Ainsi, il n'est pas si sûr que l'on se retrouvera si rapidement dans une situation où tant le PLQ que la CAQ seront prêt à faire tomber le gouvernement.

Les sondages récents montrent en règle général que le PQ et le PLQ seraient à égalité, très proches de leurs résultats de la dernière élection. Quant à CAQ, cela dépend du sondage. Mais en gros, la situation actuelle est très proche de la situation au soir de la dernière élection. Cela est assez remarquable pour le PLQ car ce parti n'avait techniquement pas de chef. Cependant, la plupart des électeurs devaient intégrer le fait que Phillippe Couilard serait le chef depuis quelques semaines au moins. Je ne serais pas surpris de voir le PLQ en tête dans le prochain sondage, profitant de l'effet "nouveauté".

Regardons le plus récent sondage de Léger fait juste avant le congrès du PLQ. Ce dernier est à 30%, tout comme le PQ, alors que la CAQ est loin derrière à 19%. Cependant, selon moi, les chiffres de ce sondage se doivent d'être ajustés. Les verts sont à 5%, soit 4 points au-dessus de leur résultat de septembre 2012. Aussi, les "autres" représenteraient 3%? Aucune chance. Les "autres" partis ne représentent jamais plus de 2-3% lors des élections. Et maintenant, avec la présence d'un 6e parti avec ON, ce chiffre était même tombé sous les 1% en 2012. Ainsi, si je devais faire des projections avec ce sondages, je réduirais les "autres" à 1%. Je mettrais aussi les verts à 2%, un score probablement sur-évalué selon moi mais on ne sait jamais. Ces 2+3 points, je les distribuerais entre les trois grands partis. Une répartition proportionnelle aurait du bons sens, mais afin de refléter l'effet "lune de miel" avec Couillard, j'allouerais les points ainsi:

PLQ=30%+3%=33%

PQ= 30%+1%=31%

CAQ=19%+1%=20%

Une répartition presque proportionnelle, avec un petit avantage au PLQ (une répartition purement proportionnelle donnerait +2 au PQ et PLQ, et +1 à la CAQ).

En utilisant ces chiffres ajustés et ceux du sondages, j'arriverais aux projections suivantes (vous pouvez toujours voir par vous-même en utilisant le simulateur bien sûr):

PLQ: 55 sièges.

PQ: 59.

CAQ: 8.

QS: 2.

ON: 1.

Le PQ serait donc donné gagnant malgré ses deux points de retard. Cependant, regardons cela en termes de probabilités. Les projections détaillées sont disponibles ici.

Ainsi, le Parti Québécois auraient 67% de chances de remporter l'élection. Le PLQ, malgré une avance de 2 points, n'aurait que 33% de chances. La chute de la CAQ profite davantage au PQ ici. Et bien sûr, n'oublions pas la concentration du vote libéral, une concentration fort évidente lorsque ce parti est aux environs des 30%.

Les chances d'une majorité seraient de 17% pour le PQ et de 4.7% pour le PLQ. Ainsi, nous aurions pas mal d'incertitude. Non seulement les deux principaux partis pourraient remporter l'élection, mais tous les deux pourraient décrocher une majorité en théorie!

Bien sûr, tout cela n'est basé que sur un sondage dont j'ai modifié bien des chiffres. Néanmoins, je pense que cela nous donne une bonne représentation de la situation actuelle.

A little bit after the provincial budget comes the new poll from Angus-Reid showing that the the BC NDP is still comfortable ahead. Actually, the trend of the past few months where the BC Liberals were climbing back up seems over. With a 16-points lead, the BC NDP is all but sure to win the election as well as a majority.

If you look at the detailed projections, and the probabilities of winning each riding in particular, you'll see that the BC NDP is currently projected to win 45 seats with 100% probability. What this emans is that even in the worst case scenario, Adrian Dix would still have 44 MLA along himself and therefore a majority.

Let's take a moment to talk about these ridings where one party is projected to win 100% of the time. Remember, these probabilities come from 1000 simulations where I randomize the voting intentions, taking into account the margins of error. Basically, since the Liberals are polled at 31%, I sample them around 31%. In the best case scenario, this party would get 35.5% of the vote. This is actually outside of the margin of error. It's a possible scenario but a very unlikely one. For the NDP, the worst case scenario would see this party get only 41.7% of the vote. As you can imagine (and as you can test in the simulator), the projections are quite different whether the NDP is at 47% and the Liberals at 31%, or if these two parties are at 41.7% and 35.5 respectively. On top of that, I also add a random term for each party in each riding. This term, of mean 0 and varying between -3% and 3%, is there to account for the fact that knowing the percentages doesn't provide the full information. In other words, it's a random error term for the electoral system.

So when a riding is projected for one party with probability of 100%, it means that out of the 1000 simulation, a party is projected to win this particular riding every single time. It means that even by varying the parties by as much as 5-6 points provincially, even by having the additional random term, that only one party finished first. This is quite significant as the min and max for each party in each riding are actually quite different. It's not like the simulations have a party varying between 42% and 44% in a given riding. No, the typical maximum variation is more around 15 points.

In the best case scenario, the Liberals would get 36 seats, while the worst case scenario for the NDP is 47 (the 45 seats at 100% plus two others). In clear: unless the polls are incredibly wrong, there is absolutely no race in BC. It might change during the next 3 months, especially during the campaign, but for now, projecting BC is quite easy.

For the two smaller parties (Green and Conservatives), the chances of electing even a single MLA are very slim. The BC Conservatives are projected to win at best one seat. As for the Green, the model, as well as the simulations, don't currently project a possible win anywhere. For both parties, the main problem is really that they are too far behind the main two parties.

Au cours des deux dernières semaines, nous avons eu droit à deux sondages au Québec. L'un de Légermarketing montrant le PQ légèrement en avance sur le PLQ, alors que la CAQ tomberait à 20%. L'autre est de Crop et montre une égalité parfaite à 30% entre PLQ et PQ, et la CAQ en bien meilleure posture à 27%.

Les deux sondages n'ont pas été fait en même temps, mais vu la grande variation de la CAQ, il est improbable qu'ils aient tous les deux raison. Possiblement, les deux ont tort. Mais oublions l'écart pour la CAQ et concentrons-nous sur le PQ et PLQ.

À première vue, il n'y a pas de différences majeures. Le PQ varie de 33% à 30%, alors que le PLQ oscille entre 30% et 31%. Pourtant, selon que j'utilise l'un ou l'autre de ces sondages, les probabilités de remporter l'élection pour le parti de Pauline Marois seraient fort différentes.

Pour rappel, voici les étapes du modèles. Je prends un sondage (ou une moyenne de sondages), cela me donne les pourcentages (je pourrais les corriger dans le cas où j'estimerais que les sondages seraient biaisés, mais pour l'instant, ce n'est pas le cas). Ainsi, si je prends le sondage Léger, j'ai le PQ à 33%, le PLQ à 31%, la CAQ à 20%, QS à 8%, ON à 3% et les verts à 3%. À partir de ces pourcentages, je vais tirer 1000 simulations. L'idée est de tenir compte des marges d'erreurs. En effet, quand le PQ est sondé à 33%, statistiquement, ce parti pourrait être à 30% ou 36%. Ainsi, je simule 1000 fois de cette distribution. Cela fait en sorte que dans le pire scénario, le PLQ ne récolterait que 26.7% des voix par exemple. Dans le meilleur, 36.4%. Une variation importante. Bien sûr, ne vous détrompez pas, la plupart des simulations vont avoir le PLQ aux alentours de 31%, la moyenne.

Une fois que j'ai ces 1000 simulations pour chaque parti, j'utilise le modèle de projections des sièges. En gros, je fais 1000 projections si vous préférez. Afin de tenir compte du fait que le modèle ferait des erreurs même en ayant les bons pourcentages, j'inclus un autre terme d'erreur pour chaque parti dans chaque comté. Ce terme a une moyenne nulle mais varie entre -3% et 3% selon une distribution normale. Ce que cela signifie en clair, c'est que deux scénarios utilisant les mêmes pourcentages provinciaux ne vont pas me donner les mêmes projections, sièges pour sièges.

Ainsi, en utilisant le sondage Léger, j'arrive à la conclusion que le PQ aurait 98% de chances de remporter l'élection, contre seulement 2% au PLQ. Cela peut paraître surprenant puisque le PQ n'est sondé que 2 points au-dessus du PLQ. Mais il faut également tenir compte de l'avantage du PQ avec le mode de scrutin. En effet, sur mes 1000 simulations, il y a environ 200 cas où le PLQ obtiendrait davantage de voix que le PQ. Ceci est normal en raison des marges d'erreurs. Or, sur ces 208 cas exactement, le PLQ ne remporterait davantage de sièges que... 14 fois! Il faut en effet que le PLQ ait environ 2 points d'avance sur le PQ pour empêcher ce dernier de remporter le plus de sièges.Cela est du entièrement au fait que le vote libéral reste trop concentré dans quelques régions clés. Vous pouvez le voir vous-même en utilisant le simulateur. Si vous mettez le PLQ à 32% et le PQ à 30%, ce dernier est quand même projeté gagnant.

Regardons maintenant les mêmes simulations mais avec le sondage Crop. En utilisant seulement ce sondage, le PQ n'aurait maintenant plus que 68% de gagner l'élection. Le PLQ serait à 37%. Je sais, je sais, ces pourcentages ne somment pas à 100% mais c'est parce qu'il y a plusieurs cas d'égalité (63 cas pour être exact). Mais en gros, en étant à égalité à 30% dans les sondages, le PQ aurait 2 chances sur 3 de gagner l'élection. À noter que la CAQ est projetée gagnante dans 1 cas de figure. Sur 1000 simulations, le PLQ obtiendrait davantage de votes 500 fois (ce qui est normal statistiquement) et remporterait l'élection (ou serait à égalité) environ 380 fois. Encore une fois, on voit qu'à pourcentages égaux, le PQ part avec un avantage.

On parle souvent de la zone payante en termes de sièges. Je crois me souvenir que lors de la dernière élection Québécoise, j'avais estimé que chaque point au-dessus de 25% rapportait environ 4 sièges. Mais une autre façon de voir la zone payante est de voir à quel point 1 ou 2 points peuvent influencer vos chances de gagner. Dans le cas présent, le PQ augmente significativement ses chances de conserver le pouvoir. Alternativement, on peut quantifier ici l'avantage du PQ en raison du système électoral et de la concentration du vote libéral.

If you follow this site (and politics in general) outside of electoral periods, you might have noticed that polls can be quite volatile. One good example is the Liberal Party of Canada that keeps varying from the low 20's to the low 30's depending on the poll/methodology/Justin trudeau mentionned/etc.

The situation is similar in BC. The election is about 3 months away. In politics, this is an eternity. And since our campaigns don't last 1 year, unlike in the United States, we don't have a lot of coverage and polls at the moment. However, the few we have are hard to interpret. Let's take a look.

We got our "regular" (in the sense that they have been releasing a poll every month or so for the last year) by Angus-Reid. We also got one from Justason (never heard of them before, I admit it), as well as one from Mustel. And finally, the most recent one from Ekos. Beside being not conducted at the same time, these polls vary by methodologies (online samples vs phone calls, sample size, questions asked, etc) and results. They all agree on having the BC NDP first with a comfortable lead over the Liberals, but that's pretty much it. Adrian Dix and his party vary from 48% in the Justason poll to 39% in the Ekos one. The lead can be as big as 22 points, or as small as 10 points.

Hopefully, this kind of volatility will be reduced the closer we get to election day. But I wouldn't necessarily count on it as the volatility probably comes primarily from the differences in methdologies. If it was purely coming from the natural statistical variation, we could solve this by averaging the polls. But recent electons in this country have shown that it can lead to large mistakes.

Use the simulator to see how much difference it makes to have a 10-points or a 22-points lead. You'll see that it can be huge in terms of seats. And let's not forget the "small" parties, especially the Conservatives. For them, being at 10 or 15% can make the difference between 0 and 5 seats, depending on how efficient (i.e: regionally concentrated) the vote could be.

As you may know, I do run simulations to calculate probbilities. Basically, I average the polls and I sample a 1000 times to reflect the natural statistical variation due to polls (i.e: the margin of error). I also account for the effect of the electoral system. As a general rule of thumb, the BC Liberals and Christy Clark have a chance as long as they are less than 10 points behind in the polls. More than this and the BC NDP has a 100% chance of winning. It becomes really interesting if the Liberals can come within 5-6 points of the NDP. There, the chances of winning are "real" (i.e: not like 0.1%, but as high as 5-10%).