ERIC Votes … Election Predictions, Results and Analysis

Current predictions are showing the potential of the UK Conservatives to take 370 seats with 41.22% of the vote; Labour in second place, though significantly lower than 2 years ago with 187 seats and 29.57% of the vote; the Scottish Nationalists are the third largest party with 48 seats and 3.35% of the overall vote (roughly 40% in Scotland); the Liberal Democrats get just under 15% of the vote at 14.86% and 23 seats.

While I am predicting a tightening of the polls, probably a 7 point margin and 345 seats for the Conservatives (not too different than today’s widely anticipated MRP poll showing 359 seats for the Conservatives to 211 for Labour); if the current polling of a 12 point margin holds, and the Conservatives do win 370 seats, that would be their best showing in 32 years, while Labour, below 200 seats, would not have had a worse result since 1935.

The MRP poll does bear special mention since it accurately predicted the Conservative loss of majority in 2017; almost the only poll to do so, some time in advance of the vote. The methodology, including much more extensive interviewing (50,000 interviews instead of the couple of thousand or so for most other polls) samples on a number of factors that can help with constituency projections (the most widely cited examples include high income finance workers voting leave and university students voting remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.)

The problem with the poll so far out in advance of the election, in addition to the attention it receives for it’s predictive abilities, is that the MRP poll may in turn influence voting behavior. Tony Blair once said that he didn’t think the UK was a landslide country, and the statistics bear this out, with few elections since 1945 having a margin of more than 10 points between the victor and the second place party. People on the Conservative side may become less motivated to vote if they believe their party will win big (although the additional stakes with Brexit will likely make any potential decline in turnout negligible.) Alternatively, Labour and Liberal Democrats may coalesce around the party more apt to beat the Conservatives in a given riding, and there may be a foreboding sense of their part that they have to at least cut Johnson’s majority down to size. That sense of foreboding could also motivate many Labour voters to simply not show up, especially as Jeremy Corbyn continues to deal with rifts in his party.

Ultimately, however, while polls suggestive of a large win can cut both ways, both for the leading party as well as the trailing one, the fact that the Conservatives have already been in power for 9 years, the existence of a core opposition to Conservative policies such as austerity and the relatively rare occurrences of landslides suggest that some tightening is more likely than not. In addition to Brexit, the state of the National Health Service (NHS) is also figuring as a major campaign issue, with Corbyn accusing Conservative policy as providing for the privatization of the decade’s old publicly funded health insurance program through any prospective post-Brexit trade agreements with the United States. Those sections of the electorate more concerned with the NHS could effectively put a floor under Labour support.

This isn’t to say that the Conservatives are at this point in danger of losing the election, however. As witness the polls showing spikes in support at various times for the Brexit Party and Liberal Democrats in the last parliament, there does appear to be a general malaise with inaction on Brexit and the uncertainty that brings. For many, that may mean the Conservatives by default – Johnson’s approval ratings are, while not stratospheric, on the whole much stronger than Corbyn’s; Labour has done their fair share of struggling in the campaign (most recently on charges of not doing enough to combat antisemitism); the Liberal Democrats, while up from 2017 on an unequivocal Remain stance, are not going moving past 15% in the polls.

While Corbyn is seen as an effective campaigner (to some extent, at least), his subterranean net approval ratings ranging from negative 35 to negative 60, in contrast with Johnson’s negative 10 to positive 5, is likely sufficient by itself, barring some major unforeseen event, to keep Corbyn out of Number 10. Arguably another Labour leader other than Corbyn could have given Johnson’s Conservatives a much stronger challenge in their bid for a fourth term, although a different leader would still need to navigate the various divisions in the party (i.e. between the moderate Blair and Brown Labour supporters and those of the Corbyn and his Momentum movement; between those who are solid remainers and the Euro-skeptics, etc.)

In addition, while the map above shows Labour hanging on in the predominantly large urban areas, less evident is the migration of many blue collar workers in the heavy pro-Brexit (and Labour-voting) areas towards the Conservatives, which appears to be in line with the emergence of the overall Conservative populist movement in many democracies today.

Thus in conclusion, the race is the Conservatives’ to lose. Labour may close the gap, but internal divisions and an unpopular leader (with the country at large) suggest it will not be enough. Both Conservative and Labour parties have experienced significant fractures during the Brexit vote, the win for Labour in losing is that they may possibly be forced to deal with those fractures first. A Conservative win may ultimately be hard to top in the next election in 2023/2024 – not only will they still have fractures that they may or may not deal with, but any disruption or Brexit shocks will likely be laid at their feet, especially with a majority larger than any they have had in the last seven elections.

Next post will deal with Northern Ireland, then Scotland/Wales, and finally all three major parties.

Although the polls up to today’s runoff election are showing the Governor’s race as a dead heat, within the margin of error, I predict that the incumbent Democratic Governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, will win in a closely fought race. To a large extent the race is not just Republican versus Democrat, but there is also a national versus local dynamic (the GOP favouring the former, the Democrats emphasizing the latter); as well as a potential urban versus rural divide. The more traditional Louisiana divisions between the northern and southern sections of the state (the more Republican Protestant as opposed to the Catholic Democrat sections, respectively) will, similar to recent election cycles, not be the main point of divergence between the two candidates. That said, Governor Edwards has two paths forward to victory, both heavily dependent on urban votes, but one more reliant on politically marginal parishes in the north, the other, more likely scenario seeing a stronger showing in the south.

The first map shows the 2015 Governor’s race. A number of observers believe that the relatively unpopularity of the Republican finalist, David Vitter, heavily contributed to Governor Edwards’ win, with a 16% + vote swing between the jungle primary (where all candidates are on the same primary ballot for all voters) and the runoff election (where the top two candidates from the primary advance if no one receives 50% support in the first vote.) Governor Edwards received at least some support in each major geographic region of the state, even as it was concentrated in the more urban and southern areas of the state.

In the U.S. Presidential race in 2016, the following year, Democratic support was nearly 20 points lower than Governor Edward’s level of support. As can be seen on the map, Democratic support was reduced to urban strongholds in New Orleans, Shreveport and Baton Rouge; majority African-American parishes and a few remaining parishes around the lower Mississippi River valley.

One of the advantage of a jungle primary is voters effectively choose their candidates in the primary, which likely leads to a clearer discernment of final votes than a conventional primary, where people can vote in one party’s primary and vote for another party in the general. As can be seen, the Democrats are clearly stronger in Governor’s race this year than the Presidential election, which suggests that a number of Louisiana voters are considering the gubernatorial race independent of national considerations. Particularly pivotal are some of the ‘Florida’ parishes north of New Orleans, the environs around Baton Rouge as well as some of the delta/coastal parishes closer to New Orleans. The primary breakdown was nearly 52% for the Republicans and just over 47% for the Democrats (one independent also ran receiving less than a percentage point).

The other important factor is the actual breakdown of support between the candidates – Republican candidate (and businessman) Eddie Rispone won 27% over Republican Congressman Ralph Abraham’s 24%. Abraham, as the above map shows, did well in his 5th Congressional district, which comprises the north eastern and central portions of the state, including a number of ‘Florida’ parishes north of New Orleans. While no one expects a repeat of 2015, where then Senator David Vitter, hit with a prostitution scandal, had a great deal of difficulty securing the support of Republicans who did not support him in first round of voting, it would only take a small portion of the Abraham supporters to either back Edwards and/or abstain from voting in the runoff to secure Edwards’ lock on a second term. (Senator Vitter only won 40% of all Republican votes in the first round of voting in 2015, or 23% of the entire vote share, with one of his GOP first round opponents openly endorsing the Democrat in the runoff, while the other one opting not to endorse anyone. In the runoff Vitter ended up with only 44% of the vote, despite his party having won 60% overall vote share in the first round. This roughly translates to Vitter getting barely over half (!) of the Republican votes in the first round who did not vote for him initially.)

The fact that the combined Abraham/Rispone vote may be much more cohesive than the Vitter/GOP field in 2015, much higher than 50% but maybe not at 100% (that is, 100% of Abraham supporters vote for Rispone), makes the final two maps particularly insightful. If over 92% of Abraham supporters opt to vote Rispone, (which is certainly plausible) then Edwards will be saved by turnout from the heavily urban, largely southern parishes (all runoff elections in the past 40+ years have had a higher turnout in Louisiana). If Risponse gets less than 92% of Abraham supports, however, Governor Edwards is that much more likely assured of a win. Thus we will show the less likely scenario of what an Edwards victory may look like, showing more blue in north – not necessarily in Abraham’s 5th district but in the areas where Abraham votes would be very critical in determining whether particular parishes are coloured red or blue. (Note this map’s modelling is independent of a delta/south eastern increased turnout.)

The more likely path to Edward’s victory is through places like Jefferson Parish in the south, (ref. #13 on map) – a parish that may have at one point served as a genesis of sorts of the modern Louisiana GOP, but with population growth, demographic shifts and a decline in suburban GOP support, have trended more Democratic in recent elections. Jefferson actually is the second most populous parish in Louisiana after East Baton Rouge, and has almost 100,000 more people than Orleans (New Orleans), which suffered a marked decline after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Thus my final prediction of a 51-49% win for Governor Edwards assumes a high level of cohesion of the Abraham/Rispone vote (roughly 95%) from the first round. In addition to Jefferson, a number of other coastal/delta parishes in the ‘Florida’ and New Orleans regions are expected to turn a light shade of blue, sufficient enough for Governor Edwards to keep his job.

Three final thoughts:

• If Governor Edwards does win, it would be slightly ironic that the critical factor may not have been localizing the race so much as the Democrats’ keeping the race sufficiently local for the crossover voters; while the GOP’s aim to nationalize the race might have backfired for a certain number of voters, motivating a more urban/south eastern turnout in favour of the Democrats
• The quest to understand a key interest of mine, namely any potential revitalization of the old yellow dog/blue dog rural southern Democrat vote, remains elusive … Alabama in 2017 and Tennessee in 2018 decisively showed Democratic growth to be more urban/suburban rather than rural vote recapture, using that as a basis for Kentucky earlier this month I predicted that incumbent Republican governor Matt Bevin would be saved by the erstwhile Democratic eastern coal counties staying red, enough of them surprisingly flipped and gave the Democrat Andy Beshear a 5,000 vote margin for the win … so for Louisiana I am going slightly more nuanced than to predict in binary terms if Democrats can or can not recapture their former rural constituencies, and I am splitting the difference by regions, ironically along lines similar to the older divisions of southern and northern
• In all my predictions of elections in the US, UK and Canada, between Newfoundland and Labrador, Northern Ireland and Louisiana, these have to be some of the more complex regions where locality and history make a very decisive difference in predicting an outcome … if it truly can be predicted … perhaps Louisiana is less complex and byzantine than when it was described by A.J. Liebling decades ago (see recent article in New York Times) it goes without saying that I do not presume to know anywhere near all of the local dynamics, personalities and histories, but rather I use this as a broad basis point to move ahead in furthering my understanding of these truly fascinating regions. If Louisiana is not as complex in it’s conglomerations of political allegiances, it certainly is no less interesting today.

A number of polls at the beginning of the campaign showed some fairly divergent poll results, with as much as a 16 point Tory lead over Labour and as little as a 7 point lead.  A week into the campaign has shown a more consistent lead of around 12 points in numerous polls, not overly different than the first projections shown on ericvotes, which continues to base projections on a final narrowing of the margin to 9-10 percentage points.  Thus with perhaps a few modifications, changes in shading and a about a dozen change of seats, the projected electoral map is essentially unchanged, with a respectable Conservative majority of 354 total seats projected.

What is perhaps more critical are the swings in the underlying dynamic – in 2017 the two main parties had the highest combined total vote share in some time at 82.4%.  With noted gains with both the new Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats, that combined vote share for the Tories and Labour is likely to collapse below 70% and may end up in the mid-60s on election day.

Polls vary to some extent in terms of who is gaining support from whom, but in comparing 2017 versus 2019 voting intentions, a few trends are very apparent:

• Labour is struggling more than the other two parties in retaining their levels of support, with as much as a forty percent of their 2017 vote indicating gravitation towards other parties.  Roughly 5% of that support  is going to the Brexit Party , comparable to the same level of support going to the Greens and minor parties.  As much as 10% of their support is headed towards the Conservatives (which might be the most significant swing in the campaign – if it holds, giving the Tories a 20-30 seat majority); more support, perhaps 12-15% is headed towards the Remain supporting Liberal Democrats, although this may not be as decisive if, in a given constituency, the initial Liberal Democrat support and/or the 2017 Labour support was too small to overtake Conservative leads.  This is especially the case in southern parts of the country where the Liberal Democrats are projected to outpace their national gain in vote share.

• The Conservatives are looking at retaining 3 out of 4 of their 2017 voters, while they lose 10% of their vote to the Brexit Party, they off set this with a smaller gain from Labour, (6-8%) and run 2-3% greater than even with the Liberal Democrats in terms of vote swapping, for an overall net decrease of around 3-5% of national vote share.

• The Liberal Democrats, oddly enough, while making significant gains to over 15% of the national vote share, (more than double from 2017), they are actually retaining the same 3 out of 4 voters as their Conservative counterparts.  I suspect that some of this is attributable to vote swapping, or some Liberal Democrats less than enthusiastic for an unequivocal Remain stance.  As noted above, they are 2-3% points worse for vote swapping in relation to the Conservatives, but that might end up at being even or 2-3% to the better in the Southwestern and London regions of the country (which might be the second most significant swing in the campaign, and the one that keeps the Conservatives closer to 350 than 400 seats).  Labour, according to recent surveys, is bleeding more support to the Liberal Democrats than any other party.  It remains to be seen if that is sufficient to put more LD tan/orange on the map, given that both Liberal Democrat and Labour support in large parts of the southern England were low to begin with, especially outside of London and the Southwest.  The swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats might be more limited in the industrial north and Western Midlands of England, given that the Remain Liberal Democrats are more out of step with the stronger Leave sentiment in those regions.  The reduced likelihood for LD gains from Labour in the northern/heavier Leave regions is also a key component in limiting overall Tory gains, keeping Labour closer to 200 rather than 150-160 seats.

• The Scottish Nationalists are likely to gain in seats and vote share north of the English border.  While they and the Liberal Democrats share essentially the same Remain message, their hand is strengthened both with established incumbencies in a majority of Scottish seats, in addition to the pro-independence stance that has gain further traction in the wake of 2016’s Leave vote.  The main causality of any resurgence of the SNP will be the Conservatives, simply because they have the seats to lose, whereas Labour and the Liberal Democrats are scarcely on the board.

This finally leads us to the Brexit Party, which didn’t even exist in 2017 but seems to pick up where the UK Independence Party (UKIP) left off, it’s resurgence attributed to intense discontent over the government’s attempt to execute leaving the European Union and a commitment to seeing the project through.  While they did actually lead some polls in the aftermath of some of the (Theresa) May government’s failures on securing a deal, the more unequivocal position of the Boris Johnson Conservatives have dampened support for the party, which, being led by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, appears set to gain a tenth of the vote share in next month’s vote.

This will likely not lead to any seats, although it may very well limit both Tory gains and Labour loses.  I will expound on both those points in that order.

Firstly, the main basis that I would predict no seats is the fact that UKIP, in 2015 with it’s highest vote share ever, at 12.6%, gained exactly one seat, that of a Conservative incumbent in Clacton who previously quit the party and retained the seat in a subsequent by-election as a UKIP candidate.  As the graphic below shows, Brexit/UKIP candidates are likely to do strongest in the East, at the mouth of the Thames and in the north, northwest. This largely corresponds to the Brexit vote share, having done well in the eastern and northern sections, although the West Midlands region, with the highest share of Brexit votes, only has a couple of seats in the Birmingham area, less than what one might expect. 

There is not a perfect correlation between referendum votes for Leave and UKIP/Brexit support.  A number of the highest UKIP vote constituencies in 2015 did not make the top 10 in the 2016 referendum, and in some cases barely made even the top 100.  It further is apparent that the ratio between UKIP votes and referendum Leave votes and UKIP votes (which we are essentially extrapolating into potential levels of Brexit Party support) is relatively low, averaging just under 1 in 3 for Labour held constituencies (that is, out of 3 Leave votes in 2016, only 1 of those votes backed UKIP the year before), with Conservative-held constituencies only slightly more favourable for UKIP at 2:5 (of 5 Leave voters in 2016, 2 backed UKIP the year previously).  The magic ratio, for any constituency that voted at least 66% for Leave, is around 2:3 for UKIP 2015/Leave 2016 for the Brexit Party to be in serious contention in any given constituency.  There simply is no evidence that is happening, and support would need to be closer towards 20% nationally for the Brexit Party (given a broad distribution of support between England and Wales) before they even are looking at more than a handful of seats.

The other point to consider is who is losing the most with the Brexit Party’s resurgence (even as it has now appeared to have fallen back into the high single digits), and those signs point more to the Conservatives than Labour.  Indeed the most current opinion surveys show that roughly by a 2 to 1 difference, with roughly 10 percent of the 2017 Conservative vote share versus 5 percent of Labour’s for that same year, the Brexit Party is gaining more at the Tories’ expense, even in the Labour held northern constituencies which made a decisive difference in the 2016 referendum vote.  The more obvious point of reference would be to determine which party lost the most vote share to UKIP in 2015, but that is complicated by the fact that the Liberal Democrats suffered huge loses that year, and most of the beneficiaries were not UKIP but Conservatives, Labour and Scottish Nationalists.  Thus a retroactive ‘who gained the most with UKIP’s collapse’ is more instructive – where the overall result of some 170 constituencies (where they still ran candidates and had significant losses over 2017) shows that the Conservatives and Labour gained about evenly, the key Labour-held Brexit strongpoints in the industrial north showed that the Conservatives outpaced Labour gains with UKIP’s collapse. While it is entirely possible that some previously reliable Labour sections of support switched to UKIP in 2015 and moved to the Conservatives in 2017 (perhaps mirroring a more global movement towards right wing, blue collar populism), the fact remains that the current numbers point to more of a downside to the Tories, more of an upside for Labour with any increase in Brexit Party support over UKIP in 2017.

Finally, with the Brexit Party it should be noted that since the beginning of the election campaign the polling has trended downward for their party.  Perhaps wanting to avoid the potential economic impacts of a hard-Brexit, many believe that as the Conservatives have now committed themselves as the party delivering the change that they ultimately seek, namely a clean break from the European Union, many hardliners might be more readily persuaded to support the Tories’ new leadership under Boris Johnson rather than risk electing Labour and Liberal Democratic candidates who could, in their minds, only further delay, if not thwart, the entire Brexit enterprise in a fractious parliament much like the one after the election 2 years earlier.

In sum, the Conservatives are projected to get 354 seats with 37% of the vote; Labour 26.6% and 202 seats; the Scottish Nationalists 3.8% of the vote and 46 seats; Liberal Democrats 15.4% and 26 seats; Brexit takes 9.9% and zero seats, the other parties (Plaid Cymru, Green and Northern Ireland), 22 seats and 7.4% of the vote.

Next week will be a special focus on the Scottish and Welsh separatist and Northern Irish political parties.

Louisiana will have their own article before the date of their Governor’s runoff on November 16th, this article will look at the fairly red states of Mississippi and Kentucky as they vote for their respective Governors tomorrow, as well as the blueing state of Virginia where control of the closely divided General Assembly is on the line.

Many will try to assess the races tomorrow in terms of trying to find some portents for next year’s Presidential race, however with each of these states their partisan orientation is fairly established for next year’s race, (normal elections would see Virginia trending Democratic, the other two Republican), there may be some subtle trends below the surface that might point to dynamics that may loom larger in the year ahead. What follows is, in order of certainty, my predictions for tomorrow.

Mississippi – REPUBLICAN HOLD … the state has seen the one Democrat holding elected office, Attorney General Jim Hood, holding the current Lieutenant Governor, Republican Tate Reeves, to a single digit lead in the polls. This may or may not be enough to put Mr. Reeves over the crucial 50% mark. Mississippi is unique in having not only a majority vote requirement but also a majority of the state House Districts in order to become governor. However, unlike neighbouring Louisiana, where runoff elections are quite common, the state constitution provides that should no candidate win the necessary 50% of both votes and state House districts, that the State House will choose a winner. These ‘electoral college-like’ provisions have been controversial and have indeed only been used once, in 1999 when Democratic candidate Ronnie Musgroves won a close plurality (but not a majority) of the votes and was selected by the House on partisan lines. Twenty years ago, however, the Democrats had a strong 86-33 majority in the state House, currently the Republicans have a 74-45 majority and thus the outcome of a Reeves plurality would not be in any serious doubt.

The political dynamics of Mississippi are influenced by demographics, with whites, at 60% of the population, being heavily leaned towards the Republicans, while African Americans, at nearly 40% of the population, trend even more so towards the Democrats. Exit polls consistently show that in recent elections the racial/partisan breakdown as being typically 3 out of 4 whites backing Republicans, while 9 out of 10 African Americans back the Democrats. The end result has been that on the Presidential level, neither party’s support has fell significantly below 40% in the past 30 years, while in most years the same holds true to state wide races for Governor and Senate (except in some instances where popular incumbent Republicans have received a larger vote share). While Attorney General Hood may have some of that cross over appeal as a Democrat incumbent, it is unlikely to be enough to overpower a strong Republican advantage, even if that advantage seldom translates into a landslide.

As far as the overall result is concerned, Mississippi gubernatorial elections are generally not seen as harbingers of the following year’s national trend. At a more local level, however, some of the more affluent, more suburban counties such as Madison and Rankin in the Jackson, Mississippi area, Lamar (more rural but towards the coast) and northern DeSoto county by Memphis have trended slightly away from the Republicans in the last presidential election, even as the state trended slight more in the opposite direction. The Democrat candidate Hood carried none of these counties in his 2015 election for Attorney General, even as he won 55% of the statewide vote, however any discernible trend towards the Democrats in these counties could point to further evidence of suburban/college-educated voters’ discontent, even in the most conservative of states, with the Republican party.

VIRGINIA – likely Democrat gains in the General Assembly.

Unlike Canadian provinces, and UK national assemblies where elections are held separately, with campaigns held on clear partisan lines, state legislative politics is much harder to predict given the sheer volume of seats concurrently up for election in multiple states with very localized contests alongside races with more national import. For this reason, ericvotes currently does not make U.S. state legislature predictions.

It is another thing to argue, however, that it is futile to mention state legislative elections in a politics blog devoted to election predictions, especially as this year’s elections for Virginia’s General Assembly could be pivotal in future national trends.

At one point Virginia was a hold out among southern states as a Republican outlier, being the one southern state in 1976, for instance, that voted Republican even as the rest of the south voted for Jimmy Carter. Beginning in the late 1990s as northern Virginia continued to grow as part of the D.C. metro area, counties such as Fairfax started trending increasingly towards the Democrats, turning blue by 2004, and neighbouring Prince William following along in 2008. Since a good portion of the state’s population now resided in this part of the state, this contributed to an ongoing realignment of the state from red to blue. In 2016, Virginia was the only confederate state to vote for the Democratic Presidential ticket, completely opposite of the alignment 40 years prior.

Virginia and New Jersey each have their Governor’s election the year after the Presidential election, this year Virginia has General Assembly elections where currently the Republicans control the House of Delegates 51 to 48 and the Senate, 20 to 19. With a Democrat, Ralph Northam as Governor, even the slightest shift blue will give the Democrats a lock on the legislative and executive branches of state government, something that has not been the case in 25 years.

There promises to be closely fought races in all major population centers in the states, northern Virginia, Richmond and the Virginia Beach area, where both Democrats and Republicans are defending closely contested seats in both chambers. While many of the races may ultimately hing on local candidates and issues, the underlying dynamic is against the Republicans as President Donald Trump is not as popular in this southern state as elsewhere. This should be sufficient for the Democrats to pick up both legislative chambers.

Kentucky – Republican Hold – by a nose

I couldn’t find a closer horse race picture but that would accurately portray the race between incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin and Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear.

A mid-October Mason Dixon poll showed the race essentially tied, at 46% each. The Governor, originally from New Hampshire, is characterized as a stalwart partisan who is prone to making controversial statements, with one his detractors calling him ‘Scott Walker with Paul LePage’s mouth’. Kentucky has had a more genteel tradition of bipartisanship (at least in recent decades) with Democrats being historically very successful in Governor’s races even as the state has trended increasingly Republican. Governor Bevin is widely seen as unpopular, but has made it a point to tie himself closely with President Donald Trump, who is considerably more popular in the Bluegrass State. Bevin was seen by some educators as particularly hostile to public school teachers and their interests, and in many of the rural counties educators who might otherwise tend Republican are giving the Democrats another look. It is also worth noting that the Bevin campaign advertised a Lexington election eve rally featuring the President as far south as the Cookeville, TN radio market (where the Kentucky Governor election does not seem to have garnered a significant amount of attention, despite the frequent presence of Kentucky shoppers in the Upper Cumberland, Tennessee retail area.)

Attorney General Beshear, whose father Steve was a longtime fixture in state politics and recently served two terms as Governor himself, faces the challenge of either trying to regain traditional, more south eastern/rural sections of Democrat support or making new inroads in the more urban areas around Louisville, Lexington and south of Cincinnati. Twelve years prior when the elder Beshear handily won election over Republican incumbent Ernie Fletcher, most of the state map except for the mid-southern section near the Tennessee border was Democrat blue. Three years ago when Donald Trump won over 62% of the vote here, the only counties remaining blue where Fayette (Lexington) and Jefferson (Louisville), and many of the previous southeastern Democrat stronghold counties now had some of the darkest shades of red.

Recent electoral history in Alabama and Tennessee suggests that Democrat rural vote recapture is not a likely strategy for electoral success. While Alabama Democratic Senator Doug Jones did gain some votes in the northwestern section of the state (which were previously staunch Democratic counties) the underlying dynamic of his success was winning in any and all urban/suburban areas with no error to spare. The following year when former Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, widely liked across partisan lines, ran for U.S. Senate himself, he kept Republican margins in the urban areas, (even Republican urban areas around Knoxville and Chattanooga) very tight, but the swing in many of the rural yellow dog counties was much weaker, even despite having won a full 95 county sweep for his second term as Governor only 12 years prior.

***

Thus, in conclusion, Tuesday night will be closely watched for signs of the year to come, but absent any further rigorous analysis below the state aggregate level, it would be futile to try to predict next year’s election on the basis of two contests which historically have not helped predict the winner of the follow year’s presidential election.

My first prediction out of the gate for the December 12th U.K. General Election shows a respectable majority for the incumbent Conservatives, at 351, even as their share of the vote will likely fall to 37% due to the emergent Brexit Party. While the gap between Conservatives and Labour will narrow from a current 10% + lead, finally settling at 9.5%, this will be a recent lowpoint for Labour at 204 seats. The Scottish Nationalist Party will take third place in seats with 45, while the Liberal Democrats will take 28, Plaid Cymru at 3 and the Greens at 1. The 18 Northern Ireland seats will see the Democratic Unionist Party at 10, Sinn Fein at 5, while the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Ulster Unionists and the lone independent get a seat a piece. Much like the United Kingdom Independent Party in 2015, where the party received 12.6% of the vote but only 1 seat, the Brexit Party will have their share of the vote, projected to be roughly 10%, spread fairly evenly throughout England and Wales but where the party may very likely finish with no representation in Parliament.

Stay tuned for weekly analysis each Thursday, where I will make any needed revisions to my predictions and provide more in depth analysis of the latest election trends.

I was thinking in the back of my mind that I would open up my post on Election Day as “It’s 1972 Again!” but it appears as though unlike that election, where the Prime Minister’s father, Pierre Trudeau, eked his way back to power with a 2 seat lead over the Progressive Conservatives, that the margin today will be more discernible.

This isn’t to say that this is a an absolute certainty – the popular vote between the two leading parties is practically tied, and an estimated 62 ridings are projected to have winning margins of less than 2,000 votes (or approximately 3-5%). The Conservatives are weighed down by a less efficient vote, as the above map will testify to – very dark blue regions in the rural west, and lighter shades of red in the urban Ontario and Montreal regions.

While any of these 62 ridings could be seen as pivotal, the winning piece that would crown either Conservative leader Andrew Scheer or Trudeau as seat count leader is likely Peel Region in Ontario. This politically bell weather region has 11 seats between Brampton and Mississauga that historically have voted, and swung, in a fairly uniform manner. While former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was able to form two minority governments without next to no seats in Peel, he was aided in leading the seat count with three factors that are not likely to be in Scheer’s favour this year – a stronger showing than is projected for Scheer outside of the Greater Toronto Area in southern Ontario; Peel having less seats in the mid-2000s and a significantly stronger showing for the Liberals in Quebec this year (compared to the mid-2000s). In 2011, when Harper on his fourth try won a majority government, the fact that Peel turned uniformly blue made a decisive difference.

So, in going from coast to coast and providing a detailed breakdown of both national, provincial and riding level results, here is what I believe may happen.

Atlantic: The Liberals remain strongly ahead, although repeating their unprecedented 2015 sweep is clearly not in the cards. Their popular support levels will be much less stratospheric around the high 30s and low 40s, but they will take the lion’s share of seats. The Conservatives are expected to do well in the rural, more Anglophone areas of New Brunswick and should also pick up several seats in rural Nova Scotia. At one point I thought they might win Egmont in Prince Edward Island but currently their level of support is too low. The New Democrats have revived some of their standing in the Atlantic and are projected to take St. John’s East with longtime NDP stalwart Jack Reed. The Greens will have their second strongest showing here after British Columbia, but will not capture any seats.

Quebec: The Bloc was considered by many to be moribund, especially after the tumultuous leadership of Martine Ouellette where 7 out of 10 caucus members left to protest her leadership. Yves-Francois Blanchet has restored the party’s fortunes, and is likely to move the party past the 12 for official party status in the House of Commons to perhaps 3 times that number. Oddly enough, voter efficiency within Quebec could now hurt, rather than help the Liberals – with 3 and 4 party vote splits throughout the province the Liberals had the potential to make gains (albeit with smaller shares of the vote) – now their support has retreated largely to Montreal and the Outaouais regions where their vote is more concentrated. One of the story lines of the evening will be in the NDP, long thought to be going extinct in Quebec, will retain their toehold. I am projecting 3 winners, les trois amis as they might come to be called – Guy Caron in Rimouski; Ruth Ellen Brosseau in Berthier Maskinonge and Alexandre Boulerice in Rosemont (Montreal). The Conservatives, after months of placing a distant second in public opinion polls, might end up in fourth place after a difficult French language debate for Mr. Scheer, especially on the question of social issues. Maxime Bernier is projected to keep Beauce, narrowly, as leader of the People’s Party of Canada.

Ontario – This is where the Liberals will make it or break it, and the Liberals are showing a consistent lead of anywhere between 5 to 8 points, more than enough to keep large areas of the GTA red, and for a number of seats elsewhere (southern urban, northern). The southern part of the Golden Horseshoe will have several closely fought races – Burlington, Hamilton East Stoney Creek, St. Catherine’s and Niagara Centre – with 3 out of those 4 projected to go red. Windsor West MP Brian Masse will be aided by an NDP resurgence to beat back a strong challenge by former Liberal provincial cabinet minister Sandra Pupatello. The NDP might also expect to gain ridings such as Nickle Belt, Davenport, Parkdale High Park and Toronto Danforth. Oshawa and Sarnia will be closely fought with the Conservatives, but where both current Conservative MPs will be returned to Ottawa. Simcoe North was expected to be closely fought, with Trudeau even campaigning in Orillia, although I am showing Bruce Stanton, the Conservative MP, winning by at least 5 points. The York and Durham Regions will likely have a patchwork of blues and reds and many closely fought races, as noted earlier Peel will be uniformly red.

Prairies: The NDP are expected to do better than initially expected, winning 3 seats in Manitoba and 2 in Saskatchewan. Two of the Manitoba seats – Elmwood Transcona and Winnipeg Centre, will be extremely close fought, but where the NDP are expected to carve out wins. Saskatchewan MP Andrew Scheer’s coat tails will likely not be long enough to prevent the NDP from retaining Saskatoon West and Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River.

Alberta: If Quebec and Peel are where Trudeau wins the election, Alberta is where Scheer loses it, ironically by doing very well here. The only one of the 34 seats not projected to go blue is for the NDP in Edmonton Strathcona. Almost 2 dozen seats are expected to give the Conservatives at least 50% of their riding’s vote; 9 ridings are expected to give over 70% of their vote to the Conservative candidate. The downside is that if the popular vote is tied nationally, a lot of that vote for Scheer is racking up high margins out west, rather than flipping Peel Region in Ontario.

British Columbia: The two names that will be heard with these results are Elizabeth May and Jody Wilson-Raybould. The former, as Green Party leader, had been initally expected to do well, especially as her provincial counterparts made headway in the Maritimes and the NDP languished nationally. Now that the NDP has revived, the Green support has leveled off, and even declined, with the Greens likely to win only Ms. May’s seat of Saanich-Gulf Islands. The Greens were initially favoured in Victoria and Nanaimo-Ladysmith (represented by the other elected Green, Paul Manly), however while many of the BC ridings remain genuine four way races, and the Greens do best in British Columbia, the NDP resurgence has limited their seats to exactly what they had in 2015, namely, one. The other name of Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former Liberal Minister of Justice and Attorney General who ran into conflict with Prime Minister Trudeau over SNC-Lavalin, will be connected with her win in Vancouver Granville, facing long odds of reelection as an independent MP. If the result was much closer nationally, I had almost anticipated a news commentator noting the irony of Justin Trudeau now asking her (if re-elected) if she could help him retain power.

***

And so concludes my final election analysis, detailed tables below. In one respect this might be like 1972, and a number of other federal elections, in that a minority Liberal government turns to their NDP counterparts to help them retain power in moving ahead. Such coalition governments have never lasted more than 2 years, so if some or all of my above forecast is correct, I will conclude by forecasting another election to be held no later than the summer of 2021.

Liberals 30.88% and 141 Seats

Conservatives 31.60% and 123 Seats

NDP 18.46% and 38 Seats

Bloc Quebecois 6.96% and 33 Seats

Green 9.04 % and 1 Seat

People’s Party 2.34% and 1 Seat

plus Jody Wilson-Raybould, Independent M.P., Vancouver Granville

This past week in the Canadian election campaign has seen a discernable trend towards the NDP outside of Quebec and the Bloc making inroads in la belle province. Both Conservative and Liberal support has trended downward into the lower 30s, with both parties swapping leads in the opinion polls, mostly within the margin of error.

It is noteworthy that early voting has surged across the country, with early estimates suggesting that perhaps one quarter of all votes have already been cast. Thus, any late breaking trend will need to have that much more of a margin to appreciably alter the race, assuming that early vote results are in line with current polling. One survey suggested that early voting saw a greater share of Liberal/Conservative votes than what polls current surveys suggest, with Liberals leading in Eastern Canada and Conservatives leading out west. This contributes to the math looking slightly more favourable to the Liberals.

Today a former U.S. President broke precedent on not endorsing candidates in a Canadian election – Barack Obama endorsed the incumbent Justin Trudeau, adding that, in his view, Trudeau’s progressive leadership is necessary in the world today. It is difficult to gauge the impact of this high-profile endorsement – it might serve to direct voters fearful of a Conservative government but otherwise undecided back to the Liberal fold; others might be reminded of a perceived need for progressive leadership from Canada in a world where populism is politically more en vogue. Ultimately I calculated that the endorsement might serve to move a tenth of a percent back towards the Liberals, which would net them exactly one seat, St. John in New Brunswick.

At this point, most of the trend lines are baked in the cake and barring any late breaking trends or unforeseen developments, I do not anticipate any significant changes from my prediction of a handful of seats separating the ultimately victorious Liberals from the Conservatives. All the same, I will update these predictions one last time on the evening of Sunday, October 20th. The most likely scenario would have the Liberals supported by the NDP, and perhaps the Greens, through most of 2020 and then a subsequent election held either later next year or in the Spring of 2021.

As stated two weeks previously, 2019 is beginning to look more and more like 1972 as far as Canadian politics is concerned.

Liberals – 31.5 % and 140 Seats

Conservatives – 31.8% and 132 Seats

NDP – 17.1% and 32 Seats

Bloc – 6.82% and 29 Seats

Green – 9.75 % and 3 Seats

People’s Party of Canada – 2.3% and 1 Seat

plus Ms. Wilson-Raybould from Vancouver Granville in British Columbia.

As the country enters into week 5 of the election campaign, it appears as though a number of trend lines are emerging that might carry through to voting day.  The English language debate came and went, by most analysts’ reckoning, without a knockout punch.  It was the French debate that might have been more decisive, directly at the expense of the Conservatives, but ultimately at the expense of the Liberals.

Several polls since that debate indicated that the Bloc had made up some ground in Quebec, with two very recent polls showing the race in Quebec essentially tied between them and the Liberals.  This shift in popular support came largely at the expense of the Conservatives, who were widely seen to be the losers in French language debate. They had less to lose, however, since the most optimistic projections showed maybe a dozen or so ridings in Quebec going blue.  The Liberals have largely kept their support, maybe a few points less in some polls, but largely intact.  The problem they have is in losing any amount of Quebec support, to one main rival (i.e. the Bloc), rather than a vote split, they run into the math of voting inefficiency, which previously beset the other parties far more. Any gains from the Bloc are likely to be sufficiently disbursed around the province to put potentially 2 dozen seats into serious contention (which my model reflects); the Liberals meanwhile remain strongest in the western part of Montreal and are very dependent on voting splits elsewhere to win seats.

Ironically, the Conservatives losing support in Quebec might actually help them form a government, possibly more so than if they had held onto or expanded their support.  If Bloc gains at their expense (again, in votes, not so much in seats since they weren’t going to win that many to begin with) – that hurts the Liberals and quite possibly edges the Conservatives slightly ahead in the seat count.

It is worth noting that a lot of time remains between now and the election, and the dynamics of a tight horse race seem likely to continue during the remainder of the campaign.  A subsequent french language debate might see Trudeau successfully reverse his fortunes in tampering down any Bloc resurgence; alternatively a foreboding sense on the part of left-of-centre voters fearing a Conservative government might prompt them to coalesce behind the strongest left-of-centre candidate in marginal ridings at the eleventh hour, and push the Liberals/NDP/Greens past the 170 mark.

The road to 24 Sussex appears to run through Quebec, having the most ridings in play with fairly tight margins, it would not take too much to tip the balance towards or away from the Liberal incumbents. A strong performance by Andrew Scheer in the next French debate, hurting the Bloc, may just turn out to be Justin Trudeau’s best hope for a second term.

Conservative – 32.73% and 141 Seats

Liberal – 31.27% and 132 Seats

Bloc Quebecois – 7.2% and 33 Seats

NDP – 15.87% and 28 Seats

Green – 9.7% and 2 Seats

plus M. Bernier for the PPC in Beauce, Ms. Wilson-Raybould, IND, in Vancouver Granville

I’m still in the process of fine tuning my model, basically things have changed very little in the last week, with most polling showing a slight Conservative lead in the popular vote and a small Liberal advantage in terms of seats. This week the Liberal seat count was revised slightly downward, in trying to model the most realistic seat outcome with a 2 point popular vote deficit. I still think York Region above Toronto might have 2-3 more red ridings, which netting against maybe 1-2 seats less in the Lac St. Jean area might push the Liberals just above the 150 seat mark. Also different this week, a potential Liberal hold in Calgary, and likewise for the NDP in Rimouski. A number of ridings are truly on the knife’s edge, places such as Kenora, St. Catherine’s, Kitchener South Hespeler, Burnaby-North Seymour (all coded blue this week); these could almost as easily be shaded another colour, and influence who forms the next government. At this point, this is looking very similar to another previous election in October, this one held the day before Hallowe’en back in 1972, when another Trudeau, after having won a resounding majority 4 years prior, barely scrapped ahead in seats (2 ahead of the Progressive Conservatives) and clung to power over the next 20 months propped up by the NDP.

Liberals – 32.32% – 149 Seats

Conserv. – 34.91% – 141 Seats

NDP – 14.74% – 27 Seats

Bloc – 5.03% – 16 Seats

Green – 9.44% – 3 Seats

People’s – 2.75% – 1 Seat

Other – 0.81% – 1 Seat

The second week in the Canadian election campaign might have been overshadowed by goings-on in London and Washington. Indeed, the campaign needle did not move much in Canada, with apparently minimal fallout over the blackface/brownface revelations.

The Liberals remain the party to beat in Central Canada, which will prove critical in the overall election’s outcome. While my model had some adjustments, slightly trending more Liberal as last week I tried to factor in some fallout over the revelations against the Prime Minister, it essentially remains a locked race. At most 30-40 ridings remain in truly in play at this point, and unless the polls move markedly away from the Liberals it is likely not to change.

I keep thinking it will be a close enough race on election night that one commentator will wryly observe if Jody Wilson-Raybould (re-elected as an Independent) will rejoin the Liberals to keep them in power – that it will come down to one seat. Likely, however, the Liberals will be able to win a sufficiently large plurality and join forces with the NDP and Greens to maintain their hold on government.

My model is still needing some fine tuning, I believe, as I think York Region will end up being more bell weather and Liberal red than this map portrays, likewise I am thinking that around the Lac St. Jean region that there might be lighter shades of blue and Bloc sea-green than Liberal red.

The graph below shows that sheer voter efficiency in Central Canada is vital to the Liberals retaining their hold on power. As shown below, the overall percentage of the vote for victorious candidates shows that the Liberals have even a handful of seats won by less than 30% (many of them in Quebec); while few wins are over 60%. By contrast, the Conservatives are showing no wins with a candidate getting less than 30%, notably less MPs being elected with between 30-40% of the vote compared to the Liberals, and on the upper end around two dozen MPs being elected by over 60% of the vote. Therefore, even if the Conservatives edge the Liberals out in the popular vote, which many polls as well as my model suggest, it will be less efficient with wider, deeper blue margins in Western Canada, while the Liberals win on lighter shades of red in Central Canada.

At this point, my model overall is saying

Liberals – 33% and 159 Seats

Conservatives – 35.4% and 134 Seats

NDP – 14% and 26 Seats

Bloc Quebecois – 5.1% and 14 Seats

Greens – 9% and 3 Seats

People’s Party – 2% and 1 Seat (M. Bernier’s in Beauce)

and Ms. Wilson-Raybould, in Vancouver Granville, as an Independent M.P.