Due to a technical glitch on ericvotes.com, we couldn’t update the website with Manitoba predictions, however we did post our pre-election predictions to facebook:
4/6 September 10th … Manitoba General … Pallister wins re-election as NDP gain a few urban seats … PCs 43% and 33 seats; NDP 34% and 21 seats; Liberals 14% and 3 seats; Greens 7 % and no seats; First, Forward and Communists, others, etc. 2% total and no seats
5/6 … Manitoba … Liberal seats include Burrows; River Heights and St. Boniface
NDP seats … Assiniboia, Brandon East, Concordia, Elmwood, Flin Flon, Fort Gary, Fort Richmond, Fort Rouge, Keewatinook, McPhillips, Notre Dame, Point Douglas, St. James, St. Johns, St. Vital, The Maples, The Pas-Kameesak, Thompson, Tyndall Park, Union Station, Wolseley
6/6 Manitoba … PC majority seats include Agassiz, Borderland, Brandon West, Dauphin, Dawson Trail, Fort Whyte, Interlake-Gimli, Kildonan-River East, Kirkfield Park, La Verendyre, Lac du Bonnet, Lagimodiere, Lakeside, Midland, Morden-Winkler, Portage La Prairie, Radisson, Red River North, Riding Mountain, Riel, Roblin, Rossmere, Seine River, Selkirk, Southdale, Springfield-Ritchot, Spruce Woods, Steinbach, Swan River, Transcona, Turtle Mountain, Tuxedo, Waverley
The end result was close, a total of 50/57 seats predicted correctly. The popular vote was a bit wider of the mark, with the PCs winning nearly 50% of the vote, compared to the 43% I had predicted.
Predictions were somewhat complicated by the fact that there was a redrawing of the ridings, with several new ridings in the Winnipeg area where, lacking a transposition of votes from the 2016 election, it was difficult to plug such new ridings as McPhillips in a standard swing model.
The end result was not a surprise – the governing PCs retained a strong majority although they lost some ground in Winnipeg et environs. Manitoba has historically returned majority governments for at least another term, with the one noted exception being Sterling Lyon’s one term PC majority government, 1977-81, essentially dividing the NDP Premierships of Edward Schreyer and Howard Pawley. It was further worth noting that this election was held one day prior to the writs being dropped for the Canadian election, with the federal climate suggesting a chill on Trudeaumania 2.0, some retrenchment in federal NDP support, along with a slight shift towards the Greens, while the Conservatives continued a strong hold on the rural areas. While Manitoba does not always align provincial and federal voting patterns (despite the federal Liberals often winning the popular vote in recent elections, their provincial counterparts have not held power, independent of the Progressives, in nearly a century), in this instance the general direction of the province towards retaining the PCs might translate into some margin gains for the Conservatives at the federal level.