96° 48' 35" From the Centre: The tall mountain to climb: riding by riding projection and thoughts on polls

The hill the PCs had to climb at the start of the election was big. Now with the recent polls that have come out it seems to have become a mountain.

While the PCs are polling at numbers that got them elected to majority governments in 1995 and 1990 (42% range), the collapse in Liberal numbers have boosted the NDP to even higher numbers. The two silver linings in the cloud for the PCs are the fact that their voters are slightly more committed to casting their ballots and that there is still a fairly high proportion of undecided voters (the Probe poll had 24% undecided or refusal).

Now with the poll numbers in, here are my predictions for the results on October 4th.

My methods to arrive at these predictions include a whole bunch of gut feeling, mixed in with wishful thinking tempered by a biased interpretation of poll results (i.e. these are more for fun than any serious commentary). If you want a real methodological approach to seat prediction, I refer you to to 308's predictions.

Precition notes:
1) The Liberals should win 1 seat but it won't be Dr. Gerrard or Paul Hesse. In my short time of being involved and following Manitoba politics, I've learned one thing: Do not bet against Kevin Lamoureux...So that's why I'm going with the Liberals in Tyndall Park. Now I might be wrong (I'm very often wrong but that's another discussion) but I've bet twice against Kevin in the past and got burnt. So please Kevin and Roldan do not let me down!

2) The way that's I've broken down my predictions are in three categories: confident winner, leaning but could swing and too close to call. The ridings that I think are too close to call at this point and hard to establish a clear leader are Dawson Trail, Dauphin and Seine River.

3) The one riding that to watch that is in play that I didn't think were on October 4th: Elmwood. From what I hear people are taking too kindly to Malloway coming back and the results of the federal and municipal elections puts it in play.

4) In my prediction I also assumed that the scenario where the PCs win 42 to 44% of the popular vote, the NDP come up with 39 to 41% and the Liberals between 8 and 10%. (This is where the gut feeling gets mixed in with the biased polling interpretation comes in).

5) In the end both the NPD and PC start from a solid base of 19 and 18 seats respectively wit the remaining seats leaning one way or another or being too close to call. Now I think the NDP is leading in 9 of those 20, the PCs 7, Liberals 1 and 3 being too close to call.

6) As of right now what I see happening is a 60% chance of the NDP forming a slim majority but the PCs could form government if the too close to call ridings go their way and they pick up a few upsets in the leaning seats. This election is in no way decided and every vote will count! The PCs are very much still in it and could pull through. The get out the vote becomes extremely important! So get out there and vote! (Most preferably for Vision, Change and Progress).

Riding by Riding Predictions