The Week in Polls: Wall and Pallister lead, Liberals strong in Quebec, Notley's approval down

The next election on the calendar is in Saskatchewan. The province will vote on April 4, and the campaign itself should officially start in the first week of March. Accordingly, I've launched the vote and seat projections for Saskatchewan.

They show a big advantage for Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party. They are projected to win 44 to 52 seats at the likely ranges, with the New Democrats taking between nine and 17 seats.

These new numbers are driven by the latest numbers from Mainstreet Research. Its poll published earlier this week pegged the Saskatchewan Party to have 56% support among decided and leaning voters, compared to 32% for the NDP. The Liberals and Greens trailed with just 8% and 4%, respectively.

Wall leads in every part of the province, though the NDP is in a better position to compete for seats in Regina and Saskatoon.

PCs continue to hold lead in Manitoba

Another new poll from Mainstreet in neighbouring Manitoba also shows little change in voting intentions as the next election approaches. Manitobans go to the polls on April 19.

The survey from Mainstreet found the PCs leading with 51% among decided and leaning voters, followed by the New Democrats at 21% and the Liberals at 20%. There was very little change from Mainstreet's previous survey from January.

With a 20-point lead in Winnipeg, the PCs seem to be in little danger. 

I will be launching the vote and seat projections for Manitoba soon.

Federal, provincial Liberals lead in CROP Quebec poll

Following on the heels of last week's poll from Léger, CROP is out with new numbers for the province. Like Léger, they also show both Philippe Couillard's and Justin Trudeau's Liberals in a good position in the province.

CROP federal poll in Quebec

Trudeau's Liberals led in the province with 48% support, followed at a distance by the New Democrats at 24%, the Bloc Québécois at 16%, and the Conservatives at just 9%.

Among francophones, the Liberals were down to 41% support, with the NDP and Bloc up to 28% and 19%, respectively.

The Liberals led in every part of the province, though their margin over the NDP in and around Quebec City was just two points.

CROP provincial poll in Quebec

At the provincial level, Couillard's Liberals were ahead in the poll with 36%, followed by the Parti Québécois at 31%, the Coalition Avenir Québec at 18%, and Québec Solidaire at 12%.

Compared to last month, this represents a swing of four points from QS to the PQ.

Among francophones, the PQ was up slightly to 36%, while the Liberals were at 26%, the CAQ at 21%, and QS at 13%.

The Liberals were well ahead on the island of Montreal, but only narrowly in front of the PQ in the Montreal suburbs and the regions of Quebec. The CAQ led in Quebec City.

Trudeau still favoured as PM, Ambrose trends up

The weekly Nanos numbers on who Canadians prefer as prime minister continue to give Justin Trudeau a huge lead. But Rona Ambrose is inching forward.

Trudeau led in the poll with 51%, with Ambrose at 15% and Tom Mulcair at 11%.

Though Ambrose's numbers continue to head in a positive direction, the change from month-to-month has not been statistically significant.

Trump leads South Carolina, Clinton narrowly favoured in Nevada

The latest forecasts from FiveThirtyEight.com suggest that Donald Trump will win the South Carolina Republican primary quite easily tomorrow. He leads with 31% in FiveThirtyEight's "polls-plus" forecast, followed by Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio at 19% apiece.

Jeb Bush stands at 12%, John Kasich at 10%, and Ben Carson at 7%. 

Compared to when we last checked in last week, the movement in FiveThirtyEight's forecast has been towards Kasich (+5) and away from Rubio (-4).

There have been few polls out for the Democratic caucus in Nevada, but FiveThirtyEight forecasts Hillary Clinton to take 53%, with Bernie Sanders capturing around 46%.

My CBC articles this week

• The Pollcast: Is Brad Wall unbeatable? - In the latest episode of the podcast, I talk about the upcoming provincial election in Saskatchewan with the Regina Leader-Post's Murray Mandryk.
• Facing re-election, Brad Wall and Greg Selinger are Canada's most and least popular premiers - My look at the latest quarterly premier approval ratings from the Angus Reid Institute. Along with the high/low numbers for Wall and Selinger, Alberta's Rachel Notley as taken a tumble in her approval ratings.
• Tom Mulcair's electoral record a bad omen for future NDP leadership - I took a close look at how other leaders have fared after suffering a defeat at the polls. It is tough to make a successful comeback, and the New Democrats haven't often retained leaders who suffered losses in elections.
• Why Energy East is a delicate Liberal balancing act for Justin Trudeau - The ridings through which the proposed pipeline will pass suggests some internal tensions within the Liberal caucus could flare up.

What do Trump, Clinton, Pallister, Couillard, and Trudeau have in common?

They are all leading in the polls!

- We'll start with the next election around the corner, the Democratic and Republican caucuses being held in Iowa on Monday. Hillary Clinton narrowly leads Bernie Sanders in the polls for the Democrats, while Donald Trump is narrowly ahead of Ted Cruz for the GOP. I wrote about the state of the race for the CBC here.

- In Manitoba, which votes in April, a new poll shows the Liberals are dropping in support, with the Progressive Conservatives taking advantage. The NDP still trails at a distance, tied with the Liberals. The poll is from Mainstreet Research and I also wrote about it for the CBC here.

- A poll by CROP conducted in Quebec flew under the radar, as the polling firm posted the results quietly to its website. Provincially, it shows the Liberals leading with the Parti Québécois dropping back. Both the CAQ and Québec Solidaire were up. Federally, the Liberals were way ahead of the other parties.

- And the latest federal numbers from EKOS show the Liberals enjoying a wide lead nationwide, with 47% support against 25% for the Conservatives and 16% for the NDP.

Quebec back in the NDP fold?

Adding (with an exclamation mark) to the narrative of a major NDP surge, the latest poll from CROP for La Presse showed the New Democrats up 11 points in Quebec, the biggest one-month shift in voting intentions recorded by CROP in over two years.

That increase took place since CROP's last poll of April 15-20, and propelled the NDP into the lead with 42% support.

The Liberals slipped four points to 25%, while the Conservatives dropped four points to 15%. The Bloc Québécois was down even further, by five points to 13%, and the Greens were up two points to 5%.

Undecideds numbered 10% of the entire sample, with an additional 7% that either gave no response to this question or said they would not vote.

The last time that CROP recorded a shift larger than this 11-point jump was between March and April 2013, when Justin Trudeau became Liberal leader (the party doubled its support from 19% to 38% at the time). And while CROP has generally had the NDP a little higher than other polling firms, it hasn't had the New Democrats this high in Quebec since June 2012 - in fact, no one has.

The Liberal score seems well within the norm for polls lately. The Conservatives at 15% and the Bloc at 13% is lower than what we've seen in most recent polls, but CROP has often had these two parties lower than the consensus (and the Bloc at 13% on several occasions).

Nevertheless, these numbers are remarkable. If repeated on election day, the New Democrats would likely win between 57 and 62 seats. The Liberals would take between 11 and 15, the Conservatives between four and six, and the Bloc would be shut out.

The shift in voting intentions has occurred primarily among francophones. The NDP is up 13 points among these voters to 47%, their best score since April 2012. The last time the party was consistently polling around that level was in the fall of 2011.

The Liberals were down slightly to 20%, while the Bloc was down seven points to just 15%. That is their lowest score since the 2011 election. The Conservatives were also down, putting them in a tie with the Bloc among francophones.

The Liberals also tumbled among non-francophones from 58% to just 46%. The party has not polled this low among non-francophones under Justin Trudeau. But no one party is taking advantage, with the NDP at 24%, the Conservatives at 14%, and the Greens at 9%. The Liberals would still likely sweep the majority-non-francophone ridings at these levels of support.

The NDP was up a little in and around Montreal, but overall the numbers were relatively stable. On the island, the NDP was narrowly ahead with 38% to 35% for the Liberals and 13% for the Bloc. Around Montreal, the NDP's lead was larger: 41% to 29% for the Liberals and 12% for the Conservatives.

There was more interesting movement in the rest of the province. The Conservatives lost the lead in Quebec City for the first time since November, with 34% support. By comparison, in the last four polls the party had been consistently growing, from 37% to 38%, to 41%, and finally to 42% in April. This may be a sign that the Tory surge in Quebec has abated. The New Democrats were in front instead, with 39%. The Liberals were at 18%.

The Liberals dropped significantly in the regions of Quebec, falling to just 18% support. The NDP moved dramatically into the lead with 46%, while the Bloc only managed 16% support in this region (where both of its current MPs are located). But the drop for the Liberals is what is noteworthy - it is their worst result since April 2012. To put it into context, the Liberals averaged 36% in the 'regions of Quebec' in earlier CROP polls conducted in 2014 and 2015.

On who would make the best prime minister, Thomas Mulcair was first with 37%. That was up 11 points from last month, and his best result since before Justin Trudeau was added to the list. At 16%, this is Trudeau's lowest score as leader in a CROP poll. Stephen Harper's 14% was typical.

If these numbers hold, the New Democrats would be very well placed to supplant the Liberals as the most viable alternative to the Conservatives in the rest of the country. A dozen seats or so for the Liberals in Quebec would be disastrous for their national ambitions.

But we should not get ahead of ourselves. Polling in Quebec is suddenly looking a little volatile. Yes, the NDP's 42% is not dissimilar from the 36% EKOS gave the party in its May 6-12 poll, or the 38% Forum awarded the NDP in its May 12-13 poll. But the most recent EKOS survey pegged the NDP at just 29% in Quebec. The sample was smaller, at under half of CROP's, but even so the respective margins of error (theoretical or otherwise) do not bridge the gap. Quebec is a province to watch closely yet again.

Uptick in Alberta for Mulcair's NDP?

The federal projection has been updated, incorporating the latest polling data from EKOS Research, Léger, and CROP. The overall results have not shifted much, though the Conservative seat count has dipped to the benefit of the Liberals. You can see all the details here.

An interesting development does seem to be underway in Alberta, however, where the New Democrats are polling at their highest level in a year. Is the NDP on the upswing in the province for real?

First, let's briefly go over the new polls added to the model.

In EKOS's poll for iPolitics, the Liberals moved ahead with a gain of 1.6 points since the previous week to 32.1%. The Conservatives dropped 2.7 points to 30.2%, while the NDP was up 1.5 points to 21.2%.

Only the Conservative decrease was outside the margin of error, though the Liberal bump does end a losing streak for the party. Overall, however, the poll is well within EKOS's usual range.

The Léger poll reported by CTV Montreal showed a similarly close race, with the Liberals at 35%, the Conservatives at 34%, and the NDP at 20%. Compared to Léger's previous poll of Jan. 30 to Feb. 2, the Liberals held firm, the Tories were up two, and the NDP was unchanged. Suffice to say, those shifts would not be outside the margin of error of similarly sized probabilistic samples.

Finally, the poll by CROP for La Presse gave the New Democrats the lead in Quebec with 30%, unchanged from CROP's previous two surveys in the province. The Liberals dropped four points to 29%, while the Conservatives were up two points to 18% and the Bloc Québécois was up one point to 18%.

None of these shifts would be statistically significant. Noteworthy, however, is that the Liberals have dropped in two consecutive surveys (from 37%) while the Conservatives have increased their support over that time (from 13%). Also note that the results from CROP are broadly in agreement with those from Léger for the province.

Alberta turning a little orange

The longest and largest streak (both in real terms and proportionately) in the country currently belongs to the New Democrats in Alberta. Their numbers have been increasing over five consecutive weeks in the province, from 11.9% at the beginning of February to 16.3% in today's update. That is a gain worth 4.4 points, or an increase of more than one-third since that low ebb.

This upswing for the NDP in Alberta has coincided with a period of Conservative decline, as the party has slipped 4.2 points over the last five weeks from 54.7% to 50.5%.

(The third-longest streak at the moment is in Quebec, where the Liberals have fallen over four consecutive weeks from 30.3% to 27.7%.)

This jump for the NDP has pushed the party to two seats in the projection (Edmonton Strathcona and Edmonton Griesbach, though the latter is by a very slim margin). It has also put the New Democrats in play in Lethbridge.

The shift has been registered in most polls. In the two newest surveys, Léger has the NDP up five points in the province and EKOS has them up almost 10 points since the poll it conducted at the same time as Léger's last outing. Over the last eight polls, the NDP has managed between 13% and 19%. In the previous eight, that range was from 10% to 17%.

Whether or not the increase has come directly from the Conservatives is harder to determine. In those same most recent eight polls, the Conservatives have ranged between 49% and 54%. In the previous eight, that range was 47% to 61%. That suggests the Tories' numbers have just become more volatile, rather than necessarily dropping in the face of NDP gains.

The reality is rarely ever linear, and in this instance we may be seeing voters heading in every direction, the net result being an NDP uptick.

But why would this be taking place? We cannot definitively chalk it up to an improved performance by Thomas Mulcair, whose personal numbers in Alberta show no such clear trend line as those of his party.

We instead might be seeing a bit of cross-pollination between the provincial and federal scenes. Talk in Alberta is about the possibility of the New Democrats, under new leader Rachel Notley, taking over from Wildrose as the Official Opposition after the next election. The better press for the provincial NDP may be having a positive impact on the federal party.

The real question, as is always the case, is whether or not these numbers will prove to be sustainable or a mere flash in the pan. In the grand scheme of things, it does not have much impact on the national portrait. But with the race looking as close as it is, even losing an extra seat or two to the NDP in Alberta can have an important effect on the Conservatives' electoral calculations.

So are the Conservatives gaining in Quebec or not?

The poll that many of us were waiting for finally arrived yesterday, as La Presse published the latest numbers from Quebec-based pollster CROP. The poll would settle once and for all the question we've been asking for weeks: are the Conservatives really making inroads in Quebec?

The answer the poll provided was: maybe, but certainly not to the same extent as we've seen in other surveys. But that is a boring answer. The answer a lot of people saw in this instead was: "welp, so much for that idea."

I think that is a very simplistic way to look at the results of this poll. I'll get into that in more detail below, but first let's just take a look at the overall numbers.

CROP was last in the field between Dec. 10-15. They have not recorded any statistically significant shifts in support since then (at least, if these samples were probabilistic).

The Liberals dropped four points to 33% in Quebec, while the New Democrats were unchanged at 30%.

The Bloc Québécois was also steady, at 17%. The Conservatives picked up three points to hit 16%, and the Greens were unchanged at 4%.

The Liberals have been wobbling back and forth in CROP's polling for some time, as shown in the last six polls from the company: 38%, 34%, 37%, 32%, 37%, 33%. This recent drop would seem to fit into that oscillation.

But what about the Conservatives?

The increase of three points is within the margin of error (or would be, of similarly sized probabilistic samples), so it could just be a statistical fluke. I think, however, that with the gains we have seen in other polls it stands to reason that it isn't a statistical fluke. In CROP's previous 10 polls, for instance, the Conservatives averaged just 13%.

And the Tories made gains throughout the province. They were up among francophones and non-francophones, made a significant increase on the island of Montreal, and inched upwards in Quebec City and the regions of Quebec. Only in the 'couronne', where they fell by a single point, did the party take a step backwards. And 15% of respondents picked Stephen Harper as the preferred person to be prime minister, his best result in a CROP poll since at least June 2013.

Nevertheless, that 16% is well below the current aggregate of 21%, and the 23% to 26% we've seen in the last two polls by EKOS. That would seem to settle it, then, yes? Much ado about nothing in Quebec. A large sample poll from a Quebec-based company showing a marginal increase is a very strong argument against Conservative gains in the province.

But I don't think we should stop there. A lot of people have accepted this CROP poll as the be-all-and-end-all of polling Quebec. I think that is a bit much. CROP is a good pollster. But they are far from the decisive and conclusive voice.

Consider that CROP hasn't been tested all that much in recent elections. In the 2011 federal election, the final CROP poll exited the field on April 20, almost two weeks before Election Day. In the 2014 provincial election, CROP was out of the field on March 16, more than three weeks before Election Day. In recent contests, only in 2012 did CROP put out a late campaign poll. But it was one conducted over the telephone, which tells us little about the accuracy of their online panel.

Much is also made of the large sample size. In this poll, CROP gathered the opinions of 884 decided voters. A standard national poll would have less than 250 responses from the province.

But the last three Forum and EKOS polls that have shown the Conservative gains in Quebec sampled a total of 1,037 decided voters. So sample size is not the issue. The reliability of the sample is another question entirely, however. Whether it be some 900 panelists or some 1,000 Quebecers willing to take an automated telephone survey, if the sample itself is of poor quality it doesn't matter how many people are interviewed.

And this brings up another interesting question. Is there a methodological difference in the results? Since the beginning of 2015, the Conservatives have averaged 23% support in Quebec in six IVR polls. In four online polls, they have averaged just 17%. Could this be a sort of 'shy Tory' effect in Quebec, an issue Joël-Denis Bellavance mentioned last week on CTV's PowerPlay? Is there a reason that online panels would be influenced by that while IVR polls would not be? In 2012, the closest thing to that would have been a 'shy Charest' effect, and the online polls did post lower Liberal numbers than Forum's IVR surveys.

All of this is not to say that CROP's results should be discounted - far from it. But it should make you ponder whether one poll really has such a monopoly on the truth. Instead, each poll adds to what we know, and CROP gives us a very good piece of information. It tells us Forum and EKOS have probably been too high for the Tories. But CROP might still be too low. Methodological influences and house effects can be very important.

Take, for example, the last time CROP was in the field in December. At around the same time, six other polls had been conducted. Look at the differences between the consensus of those six polls (the average) and CROP's findings:

There was little real difference that couldn't be explained by normal sampling error for the New Democrats, Bloc Québécois, and Greens. CROP was high on the Liberals, however, and low on the Conservatives.

Does this mean the exact same thing could be happening with this latest poll? Not necessarily. And does it mean that CROP is wrong while the others are right? Again, no. What it does mean is that each pollster has what is called a 'house effect', a methodological bias caused by any number of sources: mode of contact, the people sampled, the questions asked, the weightings applied, etc.

This is the benefit of using an aggregate of polls. It can iron out these differences, and get us closer to what might be the truth. CROP's polls are very valuable for their large samples, regional breakdowns, and local knowledge. But that doesn't mean other polls are clueless - in fact, the non-Quebec-based pollsters did very well in Quebec in 2011.

The regional breakdown

Let's get back to the poll itself.

The New Democrats held on to the lead among francophones with 32%, narrowly ahead of the Liberals at 29%. The Bloc was at 20%, while the Conservatives were at 15%. Note, though, that for the NDP they are polling quite a bit lower than the 35% to 39% recorded by CROP in polls done between June and November of last year.

Among non-francophones, the Liberals had a 13-point drop to 49%, with the NDP steady at 19% and the Conservatives at 18%. The Bloc made a big jump of 10 points to 10%, suggesting that in this case we may be looking at a statistical anomaly since it seems unlikely that about 1 in 6 non-francophones surveyed in December decided to de-camp from the Liberals and head to the Bloc.

The Liberals led in and around Montreal, with 34% on the island and 44% around it. The New Democrats were not far behind in Montreal with 31%, though they dropped eight points to 24% in the 'couronne'. The Conservatives placed third on the island of Montreal with a jump of 11 points to 18%, but were in fourth behind the Bloc (20%) with 9% in the suburbs.

The Conservatives held the lead in Quebec City, though, with 38% support. That was virtually unchanged from December, and the Tories have not polled so highly here in two consecutive CROP surveys since the beginning of 2012. The NDP was at 33%, while the Liberals were down to 16% support.

In the rest of the province, the NDP was narrowly ahead with 31% as the Liberals dropped to 30%. The Bloc was steady at 20%, while the Conservatives were at 14%.

On who would make the best prime minister, Thomas Mulcair was in front with 25%. Justin Trudeau experienced a big tumble, dropping five points to 23%. As mentioned, Harper was up to 15%, a three-point increase.

If we ignored what other surveys have been saying, how would we look at this poll? For the most part, we'd consider it par for the course. These are the sorts of numbers CROP has been putting out for months. A close race between the NDP and Liberals, but with the NDP ahead among francophones. The Conservatives up slightly, which we'd consider just a wobble, but good numbers in Quebec City. The Bloc continuing to flounder.

Overall, we'd probably consider it a decent poll for all three federalist parties. The Liberals still lead, and look well-positioned for gains in and around Montreal (the drop they experienced on the island was due to those odd results among non-francophones, which are sure to be reset with the next poll). The NDP still leads among francophones, and so should retain the bulk of their seats. The Conservatives could make big gains in Quebec City.

But in light of other polls, we can look at this in two ways. The first is to consider that the Conservatives may not be making the gains other polls have suggested they are, and that their hopes need to be tempered. The second is to see in this the same trends that other polls have recorded, and that Quebec will indeed be a battleground for all three national parties. As usual, time will tell.

NDP moves ahead in back-and-forth Quebec race

Yesterday was a good day for the New Democrats in Quebec. Maria Mourani, a former Bloc MP, announced that she was joining the NDP (at least on the membership rolls, if not in caucus) and a new poll published by La Presse put the party and Thomas Mulcair in front in the province. But is this part of a positive trend for the NDP leader, or just another wobble back and forth?

CROP was last in the field on October 16-20. Since that poll, the NDP has picked up four points to move into the lead in Quebec with 34% support. The Liberals dropped five points, the only shift outside the margin of error of similarly sized probabilistic samples, to 32%.

The Conservatives placed third in the poll, up one point to 16%, putting the Bloc Québécois in fourth with 14% (unchanged). The Greens had 4% support.

Of the entire sample, 10% was undecided and another 5% would not vote or did not respond to this question.

Note that support for Others (which would include Forces et Démocratie) was at 0%, as it always is in CROP's polling.

Is this slip by the Liberals a sign of trouble for the party? That is always a possibility, of course, but in CROP's polling we've seen the Liberals and NDP trade the lead back and forth for all of 2014.

There is little discernible trend in these numbers. The Liberals and NDP have been neck-and-neck throughout the year. But CROP did record the same sort of bump for the Liberals in the summer that other polls did, so it would seem that the party may be coming off that high to more usual levels of support.

A negative trend for the Bloc Québécois after Mario Beaulieu became leader in June, however, is readily apparent. The Conservatives are on the upswing, but that is from a very low point. They are still generally were they have been in the province since the last election.

The New Democrats increased their lead among election-deciding francophones, stretching it to 12 points with 39% support to 27% for the Liberals. The party has not trailed among francophones in any poll since February. The Bloc was at 17%, while the Conservatives were at 13%.

Among non-francophones, the Liberals tumbled 17 points to 49%, the lowest score they have managed among this group since before Justin Trudeau took over the party. The sample size is small, however, and would normally carry a margin of error of about eight points. Nevertheless, it may be something to keep an eye on. 

The Conservatives were up to 29% among non-francophones, which might potentially put them in the running in a riding or two on the West Island. The NDP was third with 17%, followed by the Greens at 5% support.

The New Democrats were ahead on the island of Montreal as a whole with 42%, followed by the Liberals, who were down 15 points to 25%. The Bloc was at 16% and the Conservatives at 15% (coupled with their strong non-francophone numbers, this suggests they are doing very badly among island-dwelling francophones).

Off the island of Montreal but within the metropolitan region, the Liberals were narrowly ahead with 32% to 31% for the NDP. The Bloc had 19% support here, its highest in Quebec, while the Conservatives were up seven points to 16%.

In and around Quebec City, the NDP was in front with 40% support, followed by the Conservatives at 23% (their lowest since the spring) and the Liberals at 18% (their lowest since February 2013). The Bloc had 13% support in the provincial capital.

And in the rest of Quebec, the Liberals were ahead with 38% support to 31% for the NDP, 16% for the Conservatives, and just 10% for the Bloc Québécois. Considering the 'RoQ' is where all of the Bloc's current or former MPs were elected (save Mourani) in 2011, that spells a lot of trouble for the party.

Indeed, with these numbers the Bloc would be shut out entirely. The New Democrats would ride their advantage among francophones to around 49 seats, with the Liberals capturing 21 and the Conservatives taking eight.

It makes for a good poll for the NDP. Mulcair was ahead on who Quebecers preferred for Prime Minister with 29%, a gain of seven points since last month. Trudeau was down six points to 22%, while Stephen Harper had 13% support. As these numbers do not exclude undecideds or people who say 'none of the above', we can say that Mulcair and Harper appear to be about as popular as their own parties. Trudeau, however, scored five points lower than the Liberals before undecideds were excluded.

One interesting tidbit from the CROP poll was the breakdown of federal support by who Quebecers support at the provincial level. With these numbers, we see that Philippe Couillard's Liberal supporters primarily intend to vote for the federal Liberals (48%) and the Conservatives (31%). The Parti Québécois's supporters are split between the Bloc (44%) and the NDP (31%), while supporters of the Coalition Avenir Québec would vote for either the NDP (45%) or the Liberals (30%).

That the Bloc cannot even draw a majority of PQ voters to its banner is another nail in its coffin.

But we can also reverse these numbers to see where each of the federal parties draw their support from.

Quebecers who vote for the Bloc Québécois are primarily PQ supporters (about 70% by my own calculations), with a smattering of CAQ voters (14%). That makes for a rather simple coalition of nationalists.

The Liberals and Conservatives are a little less monochromatic. About 57% of the federal Liberals' base comes from the provincial Liberals, while another 25% comes from the CAQ. But these two parties generally see eye-to-eye on things (the CAQ has even accused the PLQ of borrowing liberally from its platform). The Conservatives have a similar breakdown, 66% of their voters being supporters of the PLQ and 19% of the CAQ.

The New Democrats have a much trickier coalition to keep together. Their largest block of supporters are drawn from the CAQ, at 35%. The PQ and Québec Solidaire each provide about 21% of the NDP's support base, while 19% are provincial Liberals.

There are many ways to divvy these NDP voters up. On the national divide, about 42% of them are sovereigntists (PQ+QS) and 77% of them are nationalist (adding the CAQ to that total). Put another way, 54% are federalist (CAQ+PLQ). The sovereigntist/federalist split also aligns with how the party's supporters are divided between centre-right and centre-left.

This makes for a potentially divisive coalition of voters. It is obvious why QS would support the NDP (the party has always been more of a left-wing party than it is a sovereigntist one), and the PQ and NDP have similar social democratic roots. But the NDP is also federalist, so that makes them an option for centre-left provincial Liberals, while the party is somewhat populist and an 'alternative' to the traditional two party system, which might attract CAQ voters.

On the other hand, that the NDP is federalist could push QS and PQ voters away in the spotlight of an election campaign, while it is further from the CAQ and PLQ on the left-right spectrum than either the Conservatives or the federal Liberals. It makes for a difficult balancing act for Thomas Mulcair.

But he seems to be mostly pulling it off. The old sovereigntist/federalist divide in Quebec is fading away, as voters move from one party to another. And even the left/right politics of the province are being turned on its head, as labour-busting Pierre-Karl Péladeau emerges as the saviour of the centre-left PQ. It makes for a complicated political landscape in the province. Perhaps that is why Mulcair, a veteran of the provincial scene, has managed it. So far.

Breaking down the Quebec vote

Ever since the controversial Mario Beaulieu became its leader in June, the Bloc Québécois has been drifting further into irrelevance. What kind of opportunity has this opened up for the other parties in Quebec?

To read the rest of the article on the CBC website, click here.

But let's go over the data quickly, first paying attention to the new Angus Reid Global poll released this morning.  Nationwide, it puts the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives by six points, finally putting Angus Reid in line with the consensus of other pollsters. I briefly analysed the poll here.

The Quebec results are of particular interest, as they break the deadlock between Léger and CROP. Léger gave the Liberals a 10-point lead in the province, while CROP gave the NDP the edge by two points. Angus Reid comes down on Léger's side, putting the Liberals ahead by six points.

As you can see, they tally among eligible voters for Angus Reid is quite close to Léger's. On the other hand, Angus Reid's estimation of likely voters puts it closer to CROP. But we saw in the Ontario election how likely voter models can come up short and are still in an experimental phase.

Angus Reid was also in agreement with CROP and Léger on preferences for prime minister: Thomas Mulcair was ahead of Justin Trudeau in all three polls.

Though CROP may be a little more bullish on the NDP in Quebec than other polls would consider appropriate, the poll does have some value for its regional breakdowns.

If we consider the NDP a little too high, we can still derive a lot of information from the CROP survey. It would still suggest an NDP lead among francophones, as Léger has it (albeit by a narrow margin). It would still put the NDP and Liberals in a close race throughout the province, though with the Liberals likely having the edge in each region instead of the NDP.

Otherwise, everything looks as it should be. The Bloc is stronger in the Montreal suburbs than in Montreal itself, and is polling best in the regions of the province. The 3% score in Quebec City is probably too low, but CROP has been putting the Bloc in single-digits in the capital for three consecutive polls now. The Parti Québécois is also polling badly in the region, where the Conservatives put up their best numbers.

Quebec will undoubtedly be the most interesting battleground of 2015, though its importance will still take a backseat to Ontario. But much is riding on what happens in Quebec. While the identity of the government will not be decided here (it won't be an election where either the NDP or Liberals would be in the running for government - it will have to be one or the other vs. the Conservatives), the province could decide the kind of government that is formed: majority or minority. And in the latter case, the number of seats it gives to either the Liberals or NDP could indeed make the difference between a Conservative (though likely short-lived) minority or one formed by either of the opposition parties. When was the last time the vote in Quebec will have mattered so much in a federal election?

Bloc falls in Quebec as Liberals move ahead

After a long drought of polls, two new ones were released yesterday. One, by Forum Research for the Toronto Star, I looked at for The Huffington Post Canada. The other, by CROP for La Presse, is the one we'll focus on here. And it is an interesting one.

The latest missive from CROP pegs Liberal support to stand at 38% in Quebec, up six points from CROP's last poll of June 12-16. That has moved them into first place, ahead of the New Democrats who were down three points to 32%.

The Bloc Québécois, in the midst of internal turmoil as Jean-François Fortin leaves the party and Claude Patry confirms he will not run for re-election in 2015, dropped five points to just 13%.

Though Nanos Research has had the Bloc below 13% on several occasions over the last few years, this is the lowest a Quebec-based polling firm has put the Bloc in recent memory. In all likelihood, this is the lowest the party has ever been since it was founded in 1990. What is the opposite of a honeymoon? Whatever it is, that is what new leader Mario Beaulieu is experiencing.

The poll asked Quebecers whether they felt the Bloc was still pertinent, and 65% of them said it wasn't. But worse is that 44% of sovereigntists agreed. Considering that Beaulieu has opted to focus on independence above all else, that is a crushing rebuke from the very people he is supposed to be firing up. More respondents said they would consider voting for the Bloc if it reverted to its traditional role of defending Quebec's interests.

The Bloc's drop of five points is outside the margin of error (or would be if this was a probabilistic sample) and is part of a recent trend of Bloc weakness. Of the eight polls conducted since Beaulieu won the leadership race, the party has been pegged under 20% in all but one of them. Prior to that, we have to go back 23 polls (to January) to find seven that has the party that low.

Perhaps most embarrassingly for the Bloc, which has run in the past on being able to 'block' the Conservatives, the party was just one point up on the Tories in Quebec. They were at 12%, up two points, while the Greens were at 5%, up one.

The Bloc's support among francophones dropped dramatically, down six points to just 17%. The Liberals were the beneficiaries, up 10 points to 34%. That helped them close the gap on the New Democrats, who were in front at 36%.

Among non-francophones, the Liberals led with 53%, followed by the NDP at 18% and the Conservatives at 16%. That was double their standing in June, however. The Greens were also up big, by nine points to 14%.

On the island of Montreal, the race was tied at 37% apiece for the Liberals and NDP, representing a 14-point gain for the latter. The Conservatives were third at 11%.

In the suburbs around the island, the race was also close: 33% for the Liberals vs. 32% for the NDP. The Bloc was third here with 16%.

The Liberals made a big jump in Quebec City, gaining 14 points to lead with 33%. The Conservatives dropped to 30%, while the NDP was down 15 points to 22% in the provincial capital.

And in the rest of the province, the Liberals were ahead with 44% to 32% for the NDP and 15% for the Bloc.

In terms of seats, the province-wide model gives the New Democrats 46, with 27 going to the Liberals and five to the Conservatives (the Bloc Québécois would be shutout). But, as I've discussed before, province-wide models in Quebec may not do the job well as the Liberals have gained support disproportionately outside of Montreal. Taking that into account, there are another eight seats that could fall to them instead of the NDP, narrowing the gap to 38 seats for the NDP and 35 for the Liberals.

On who would make the best prime minister, Justin Trudeau saw a four-point jump to lead with 31%, followed by Thomas Mulcair at 26%. That was a drop of five points. Stephen Harper was at 10%, while Beaulieu tied Elizabeth May at just 2%. By comparison, André Bellavance averaged 3.4% during his interim tenure, and Daniel Paillé averaged 4.3%. Back between 2007 and 2009, Gilles Duceppe averaged just under 20% in polls by Nanos.

The question that will only be answered in the coming weeks and months is whether this is a blip for the Bloc or the first sign that the party will not be able to hold on to any seats in 2015, which would be the final nail in the party's coffin. The Bloc was not en route to a triumphant return under Paillé, but he did have enough support to hold his seats and perhaps win a handful more due to vote splits. Under Beaulieu, it seems that the Bloc may not be able to hold onto the majority of its seats even before the election begins. One would expect the NDP, the party that benefited from the Bloc's downfall in 2011, to take advantage. But CROP, at this stage, gives the nod to the Liberals. Will that hold?

About the CAQ poll...

Starve the beast long enough, and it will eat anything.

There hasn't been a public media poll released in the Quebec campaign since March 25, and that poll was out of the field on March 23. In other words, the last information we have about the state of the race is now nine days old. A lot has happened since then. The information is terribly out of date, and may no longer reflect the actual situation.

Note: A Forum poll was released at the same time as I wrote this. So, there's that.

So when the Coalition Avenier Québec leaked a poll, that they ordered from CROP, to the media, it was jumped on with desperation. The poll first appeared on the website of The Globe and Mail, and the frenzy started with articles in La Presse, Le Devoir and Le Journal de Montréal and by the Canadian Press.

ThreeHundredEight.com does not use internal polls, and so the poll leaked by the CAQ will not be included in the model. This is not about reliability, as the CAQ apparently does not have its own pollster and instead ordered a survey from CROP. That is a reliable firm, and the report I have seen is indeed a normal CROP report. (Were the poll released by the exclusive pollster of a political party, I wouldn't consider the results at all.) There is nothing untoward in the wording or order of the questions. CROP was asked for a proper poll, and by all appearances they provided it.

Of course, the CAQ did not provide all of the results to the media. A cursory look at the PDF shows that roughly 16 pages out of about 50 pages are missing, containing about eight of the roughly two dozen questions asked. Now why could that be?

This is the problem with internal polls. If the poll had been bad for the CAQ, we would never have seen it. This might be the first poll ordered by the CAQ in this campaign (they aren't flush with money, after all) but we don't know if that is the case or not. Did the CAQ get some worse polls earlier in the campaign and keep the results to itself? Will the CAQ release any new polls it might order if the results are less favourable? That we have to ask these questions shows just why internal polls are problematic.

That the leaked report is a scan rather than the actual PDF tells the story - those 16 pages had to be removed somehow. But why? Were the results on those 16 pages unfavourable to the CAQ? Were the questions asked politically embarrassing? Did those questions reveal strategy or concerns that the CAQ has? Likely it is a mix of all three, but for our purposes the first is the most important.

It is hard to analyse a poll that is only partially released, with all the good results for the CAQ still in it and all the bad results hidden from view. The poll certainly has plenty of good news for the CAQ, but it likely also has plenty of bad news. So, while we can say that there are some positive signs for the party based on this leaked poll, we do not know if there are also some very negative signs for the party as well. If this was a normal poll and all of the information was available, my analysis might end up being that despite some good news for the CAQ, overall the party still has no chance.

I don't want to spend too much time on the numbers themselves, as I would then be playing the CAQ's game. But some of the results are interesting.

The headlines focused on francophone support (the poll was only of francophones, implying the CAQ has given up on non-francophones), and showed the Parti Québécois at 36%, the Liberals at 29%, and the CAQ at 24%. That represents a big drop for the PQ and a big gain for the CAQ. It also implies that overall support would be roughly 40% for the Liberals, 30% for the PQ, and 20% for the CAQ (interestingly, that is about what the just-released Forum poll shows). Majority territory for Philippe Couillard.

Yet the poll shows a majority (52%) expect the next government to be a minority, with just 32% thinking that it will be a majority government.

The poll also showed that Pauline Marois and Couillard have relatively mixed numbers in terms of whether francophones have a good or bad opinion of them, while François Legault and Françoise David have very positive scores. But in an interesting reveal of the CAQ's curiosity, they polled two other figures as well: Pierre Karl Péladeau (49% good opinion, 40% bad) and Jacques Duchesneau (33% good, 36% bad). Why did the CAQ poll about Duchesneau, who isn't running for them anymore? To get an indication of Péladeau's relative worth? To see whether Duchesneau's loss has hurt the party?

The most interesting result - and in this we really do see the CAQ's thinking - is on support for the charter and a referendum. The CAQ had CROP ask whether voters were for both, for one and against the other, or against both.

The result: 21% of francophones said they were both for the charter and for a referendum. But 47% said they were for the charter and against a referendum. This is the CAQ's butter zone. Another 3% said they were against the charter but for a referendum (no one is trying to appeal to these rare voters, except possibly Québec Solidaire), while 29% said they were against both (the Liberal clientele).

The poll also showed the power of perception. While 51% of those who watched the debate on TVA last week thought Legault won it, 41% who did not watch it also thought that Legault had won it, based on post-debate coverage. 

So what to make of this poll? Some of the entrails are interesting, but it is skewed too much by reporting bias (only the results the CAQ deemed positive for them were released). Let's wait until we see the next public poll by CROP or Léger before reaching any conclusions.

Liberals lead in Quebec as CAQ collapses

For the first time this year, the Liberals have led in Quebec in a poll by either CROP or Léger. This particular survey, by CROP for La Presse, gives the Liberals a three-point edge over the Parti Québécois. But the PQ is holding steady - it is rather the Coalition Avenir Québec that is losing French-speaking voters to Philippe Couillard's Liberals.

The Liberals now lead in the vote projection, with 38.3% support to 36.3% for the PQ. Assuming normal polling error, the Liberals would be expected to get between 37% and 42% of the vote, compared to between 35% and 40% for the PQ. The CAQ continues to drop, now down to 13.4% (or between 12% and 14%) while Québec Solidaire continues to grow. They are now pegged at 9.6% (or between 9% and 10%).

But despite the Liberals' advantage in the popular vote, the PQ's enduring edge among francophones gives the party the edge in seats, with 62 to 57 for the Liberals. But that now puts the PQ in minority territory, though their likely seat range (56 to 70) straddles the line exactly. The Liberal range, at 50 to 66 seats, also puts them over the majority mark of 63 seats, though they are less likely to win a majority government than the PQ.

If those numbers look unusual, consider the results of the 1998 election. The Liberals won the popular vote by 0.7 points, but lost the election by 28 seats. Here, the margin is five seats with a two point advantage. And 1998 is increasingly looking like a good reference: Mario Dumont's ADQ took 12% of the vote in that election, a number that the CAQ could easily find itself with on Apr. 7 (there was no party like Québec Solidaire in 1998, however. Its closest forerunner took just 0.6% of the vote).

How much of an advantage do the Liberals need province wide in order to win a majority government? This depends greatly on the distribution of vote within Quebec and the amount of support the CAQ captures. But consider that in 2008, when the Liberals won a slim majority government of 66 seats, they beat out the PQ by 6.9 points with the ADQ at 16%. Roughly speaking, then, the Liberals can probably expect to win a majority government of their own when their lead grows to more than three or four points.

CROP and Léger have been juggling a few sponsors in this campaign. Léger first reported for Le Journal de Montréal and then this past weekend for Le Devoir and The Globe and Mail. CROP now has reported for both Radio-Canada and, this time, La Presse.

Compared to CROP's previous poll for Radio-Canada, conducted Mar. 5-8, the Liberals have picked up three points to lead with 39%. The PQ has held steady at 36%, while the CAQ has dropped four points to 13%. QS was up two points to 10%.

That drop for the CAQ was outside the margin of error, at least the margin that would normally apply to a probabilistic sample. Neither Léger nor CROP has ever had the CAQ at 13% before going back to the founding of the party.

The CAQ dropped most significantly among francophones, falling six points to just 14%. The Liberals were the ones who took advantage, picking up five points to reach 30% among this important demographic. The PQ hardly budged, leading with 43%, while QS was at 11%.

Among non-francophones, the Liberals fell eight points to 71%, with the CAQ holding steady at 10% and the PQ increasing to 9%. QS appears to have picked up the support the Liberals shed among these voters, increasing five points to 8%.

The Liberals lead on the island of Montreal with 44%, followed by the PQ at 34% and the CAQ and QS at 10% apiece (QS needs to be higher to be able to win a third seat). In the suburbs around Montreal, the Liberals increased to 39% while the PQ picked up eight points to hit 37% in the region. The CAQ saw its support cut in half, falling to 13%. QS was fourth with 9% in the region.

The Liberals also led in Quebec City, with 36% to 27% for the PQ and 23% for the CAQ. This generally confirms the two polls we have recently seen in the region from Léger. QS was up five points to 12%, oddly enough their best result in the province.

The PQ led in the regions of Quebec, with 38% to 36% for the Liberals. The CAQ had just 13%, followed by QS at 11%.

On who would make the best premier, Couillard moved ahead for the first time in any poll since December, with 27% to 26% for Pauline Marois. The two leaders traded a single point, though, and have been around this level for some time. François Legault was at 14% and Françoise David was at 7% on this question.

The CAQ has been in steady decline since the campaign began, the exact opposite of what occurred in 2012. The Liberals have taken full advantage, while the PQ's vote has been quite steady. If the CAQ continues to drop, the PQ could be in real trouble. But the dynamics in this campaign have been interestingly intertwined. Supporters of the CAQ went to the Liberals, seemingly to block a PQ victory. If a Liberal victory starts to look likely, will supporters of QS (and maybe some from the CAQ) start to move to the PQ?

Much ado about nothing in Quebec polling

"Qui dit vrai?" asked one headline. It was a sentiment I saw repeated several times on Twitter, and a whole slew of newspaper articles emerged to highlight or question the 'contradictory' polls that emerged from CROP/La Presse and Léger/Le Devoir over the past week. The fact of the matter is that these polls are not really contradictory at all, and certainly not enough to precipitate such urgent questions.

Pollsters themselves carry some of the blame for the growing cleavage between them and the public on matters of trust, due to the corner-cutting methodologies and unimpressive disclosure standards of some of them. But the media has played a role in shaking that trust, by reporting numbers in a manner that leave readers perplexed, confused, and ready to give up on polls entirely.

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After the Léger/Le Devoir poll came out on Saturday, CTV picked up the story with the headline "Liberals lead in new poll; support for sovereignty waning". Their interpretation of the trendline in support for sovereignty was erroneous, as we will see, but it clearly implied that the Parti Québécois was not doing very well. It was an interpretation repeated elsewhere, and the headline was easily shared on social media. Narrative established.

After the CROP/La Presse poll came out on Wednesday, CTV was back on the story with the headline "Poll shows growing support for the Parti Quebecois". They accordingly had a picture of a happy Pauline Marois to counter the sad picture of her they had in their previous story. Narrative contradicted.

Let's deal with the first problem in how these two polls were interpreted, and one that is the most problematic since it was the most easily avoidable.

Léger reported that support for sovereignty stood at 33%, with 51% against and 16% undecided. CROP reported that support for sovereignty stood at 44%, with 56% against.

Notice anything different with those two sets of numbers? No, it is not the 11-point spread between support for sovereignty in the two polls. It is that Léger included the undecideds in their report, and CROP did not. CROP was following standard reporting practice, or at least what has been the standard for years in Quebec. Léger opted not to portion out the undecideds, something which they almost always do. It is odd that they chose not to this time, and probably should have known that as a result they would cause an unnecessary firestorm. One article even went so far as to suggest CROP was doing something unusual in excluding the undecideds.

When CTV reported that support for sovereignty was waning, it was this 33% number that they were focusing on. Yes, if support among decided voters was at 33% that would certainly be a sign that support for independence was on the wane. But if reported normally with the exclusion of undecideds, that 33% would have turned into 39%. That is well within the norm, and even at the higher end of the usual 35% to 40% support that Quebec sovereignty has registered in recent years. Worse, that 39% is one point higher than the last time Léger reported on this issue in May 2013. The headline attached to the poll was not just wrong in its interpretation, it was factually wrong, at least if you're comparing apples to apples.

In addition, the comparison of the 44% in the CROP poll to the 39% in the Léger poll as somehow contradictory is wrong as well.

Both of these polls are online surveys and both firms are correct to say that a probabilistic margin of error cannot be applied. That doesn't mean, though, that the polls don't have a margin of error of some sort. Ipsos-Reid, for example, applies a 'margin of credibility interval' to their online polls, a practice that probably captures correctly how to measure these things but which, it must be said, still raises some eyebrows in some corners of the industry. Nevertheless, these polls do have a margin of error of some kind, and if we apply the standard margin of error that would apply to a probabilistic sample of this size (Ipsos's credibility interval is usually comparable to a probabilistic margin of error), we see that the two latest polls from CROP and Léger overlap at around 41% to 42% support for sovereignty.

(If, as Michel David of Le Devoir contends, the sample was skewed and support should instead have been 37% in the CROP poll, then the overlap is even greater, at between 36% and 40% support.)

Update (Dec. 14): David published a correction notice today, noting that CROP did indeed weigh their decided sample correctly. Also, an editorial in the Montreal Gazette repeats the error of comparing the 33% number in Léger's poll to the 44% in CROP's, and then goes so far as to give their readers a lesson in statistics.

The chart above shows just how much in common the CROP and Léger polls have had on this question, especially when you consider the amount of error that has to apply to these polls. And the idea that support for sovereignty is on the uptick is certainly consistent with these trendlines. The likelihood that this is a blip, and that CROP will report a drop in support next time, is also strong - and the trendlines will still be in agreement with one another. Broadly speaking, things are remaining stable on this front and both Léger and CROP are telling the same general story.

Now to the question of whether these polls are contradictory in terms of voting intentions. Léger reported 37% for the PLQ and 32% for the PQ, a widening gap from their previous poll. CROP reported a 35% tie between the two parties, a tightening gap. How can this be?!

It be. The change in support in these two polls from their previous survey are within any sort of reasonable margin of error (if not a probabilistic one). So for it to be reported that the PQ was dropping in support in the Léger poll or that the PQ has experienced a "considerable change in support" in the CROP poll is not entirely accurate. If the parties were seeing their support change by four or five points, then yes, there would be something there. A wobble within three points is not worth a headline.

Let's first look at CROP's polling, going back to March, and applying a reasonable interval for the margin of error. As you can see in the chart above, support for the Liberals and PQ has not wavered to any considerable degree from one poll to the next for some time.

For the Liberals, support of between 37% and 38% falls within the error band of CROP's polling going all the way back to April. For the PQ, a band of between 32% and 33% falls within the last four polls done by the firm. There is not much here to go on in terms of a trend - the PQ and Liberals have been wobbling back and forth since at least September. The only real trend worth considering is the gain of the PQ between May and October.

For Léger, the bands are even wider over their last four polls, denoting even more stability: 34% to 39% for the Liberals and between 31% and 35% for the PQ. More importantly, those bands overlap with the bands recorded by CROP since the summer. A band of between 35% and 36% has also been consistently recorded for the Liberals going back to the spring in Léger's polling. It is impossible to look at their numbers and see anything but relative stability.

It should be pointed out as well that results that fall on the outside edges of a normal margin of error are not as likely as results that fall closer to the actual reported number. When looking at the bands above, then, the emphasis should not be on the extremes (i.e. 36% to 37% is probably a better range for the Liberals in Léger's polling than the wider 34% to 39%).

To go on about how these two polls are contradictory, how one is showing a wide lead for the Liberals and failing support for the PQ and their option while the other shows the PQ making huge strides and sovereignty just around the corner, is to make it seem like there is a contradiction and thus that the polls cannot be trusted, when that is not the case whatsoever. Léger and CROP did their polling on different days and the two firms use different methodologies (each do their polls online, but they have different panels and recruiting methods), also contributing to some of the minor differences.

That is all that readers really need to know to explain the contradiction, and they can be told with confidence that things remain relatively stable and close between the Liberals and PQ (particularly since the PQ can pull more seats out of fewer votes due to their advantage among francophones) and that support for sovereignty is probably holding at about the same levels that it has wobbled within for years. Léger and CROP are good pollsters that do good work and are transparent about their methods and samples, particularly with their clients. There is no need to portray their findings in this dismissive way. Save the scoffs for polling firms that deserve it.

PLQ should win by-elections, as Montreal vote holds steady

Voters in the Quebec provincial ridings of Viau and Outremont will be heading to the polls on Monday to fill the seats vacated by Emmanuel Dubourg (recently elected federal Liberal MP for Bourassa) and Raymond Bachand (who placed third and last in the PLQ leadership race). Both ridings should stay within the provincial Liberal fold, but it does give us an opportunity to look at voting intentions on the island of Montreal.

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The by-election in Viau looks unlikely to have any surprises. David Heurtel of the Liberals should easily take a riding won by Dubourg with 47.3% of the vote in a very bad election year for the party in 2012. In fact, 2012 was the only time that the Liberals did not capture a majority of the vote in Viau. Tania Longpré of the Parti Québécois, Jamilla Leboeuf of the Coalition Avenir Québec, and Geneviève Fortier-Moreau of Québec Solidaire will fight it out for second place.

The PQ has the inside track on that title, as the party took 23.7% of the vote here in 2012, compared to 12.4% for the CAQ and 11.5% for QS. In addition, as we will see below, the PQ's vote on the island of Montreal has been holding steady - if not increasing. Fortier-Moreau, however, is the only return candidate from that election year on a long ballot (nine candidates are running, the others being from Option Nationale, the Greens, the Conservatives, the UCQ and the Équipe Autonomiste).

But Outremont might be of more interest. Philippe Couillard is the Liberal candidate, as he tries to get into the National Assembly to lead his party. With an election expected in the early spring, Couillard might best be able to count in weeks the time he will be Outremont's representative.

On paper, there is the potential for a Couillard defeat. Why? Both the PQ and the CAQ have opted not to put up candidates of their own, in order to facilitate Couillard's entry into the National Assembly. Québec Solidaire is awarding the Liberals no such courtesy, and have the best shot of pulling off an upset if they can gather almost every vote that is against the Liberals.

In 2012, Bachand took 41.5% of the vote in Outremont, followed by the PQ's Roxanne Gendron at 23.2% and Québec Solidaire's Édith Laperle at 18%. Laperle is running again, and if she can capture the PQ's share of the vote she could take as much as 41.2%. Throw in a few CAQ voters not willing to back Couillard and supporters of ON who might be tempted to back the best horse, and you have the ingredients for a QS upset.

But the ingredients are very thin, and not just because Laperle needs every PQ vote as well as a few more votes in order to topple Couillard.

The chart above shows support on the island of Montreal as recorded by CROP since the last election. In that election, the Liberals won the island with 44.9% of the vote, compared to 23.8% for the Parti Québécois, 15.4% for the CAQ, and 12% for Québec Solidaire.

There have been wobbles back and forth since then, but the latest polls suggests that the PQ and the PLQ have both picked up a little support on the island of Montreal, coming from both the CAQ and QS. The most recent poll gave the Liberals 49% support on the island, followed by the PQ at 30%, the CAQ at 12%, and QS at 9%.

If we stretch that back to August, in order to get a stronger sample of around 900 decided voters, we get a clearer picture of support on the island (numbers for all parties have been relatively stable since then, so averaging out these four polls is not unreasonable). In that larger sample, we get the Liberals at 48.5%, the PQ at 29.8%, the CAQ at 9.8%, and QS at 9%.

This means that since the last election, the Liberals have gained roughly four points and the PQ six, with QS down three points and the CAQ down more than five.

If we apply this swing to Outremont, we see that fewer votes are available to Laperle. The proportional swing model would now give the Liberals 45% in Outremont, against 29% for the PQ, 14% for QS, and 9% for the CAQ. Whereas before the combined vote of the PQ and QS was almost equal to that of the Liberals, the two parties now fall two points short of Couillard. And that is without taking into account the boost Couillard is undoubtedly going to get as party leader. Laperle would now need more than a third of the CAQ's vote, an ideological leap that may be too wide to reasonably expect.

In Viau, applying the swing would give Heurtel 51% to 30% for the PQ and 9% for Québec Solidaire.

That Québec Solidaire has apparently dropped in support on the island of Montreal is something to consider when looking at their province-wide support. They have bettered the 6% they took in 2012 in the last seven polls, and the current aggregation has them at 9%. But all of those gains have apparently come off of the island of Montreal, where Québec Solidaire has no concentration of support and little prospect of winning new seats. It is hard to see how QS could win a third or fourth seat on the island of Montreal if their support actually drops - especially considering that we can probably expect Françoise David's share to increase in her riding next time (note that almost 1 in 3 ballots cast for QS on the island in 2012 was either for her or Amir Khadir).

It is also worth noting that the fact the PQ has gained support on the island of Montreal goes against the conventional wisdom that the debate over the secular charter is between urbane Montrealers and bumpkins in the rest of the province. Instead, and polling data has explicitly backed this up, it appears that Montreal francophones are no less likely to support the charter than their counterparts in the rest of the province (some polls suggest they are even more likely to support it). The divide is most certainly regional because of the multicultural population of Montreal vs. the rest of the province, but that is primarily due to the linguistic differences between the regions. This makes the charter good politics for the PQ, because it would appear that they are unlikely to lose the few seats they have in Montreal, while gaining new ones elsewhere.

But for now, the Liberals are the ones who will be gaining seats: Viau and Outremont on Monday.

Federal Liberals up among francophones

A new survey by CROP for La Presse was released yesterday, showing that the Parti Québécois's string of improving poll numbers has been stopped in its tracks and that the provincial scene has settled down. The poll also showed that the federal Liberals have moved into a definitive lead over the New Democrats in Quebec after running neck-and-neck in CROP's polling during September and October.

CROP was last in the field Oct. 17-21, and had put the Liberals and NDP in a tie at 31%. But since that poll, the Liberals have jumped five points to 36% in the province, against a drop of three points for the NDP to 28%. The Bloc Québécois was down two points to 16% while the Conservatives were down a point to 13%. The Greens were up a point to 7%.

Of the entire sample, 10% were undecided and another 7% did not respond to this particular question.

While the movement of the other parties would be within the margin of error of a probabilistic poll, the gain of the Liberals would be statistically significant. It puts them closer to where they were during the April to August period, while the New Democrats have been stuck between 27% and 33% in CROP's polling for the last seven months.

The Liberals' gain seems to have occurred primarily due to an increase in support from francophones. With a significant gain of six points, the Liberals tied the NDP at 31% among this demographic. That put the two parties well ahead of the Bloc at 19% and the Conservatives at 11%. The Liberals had 57% support among non-francophones, followed by the Conservatives at 19% and the NDP at 14%.

Regionally, the strongest Liberal lead was in the suburbs around Montreal, where the party had 41% support against 24% for the NDP and 16% for the Bloc. On the island itself, the margin was narrower with the Liberals at 34%, the NDP at 26%, and the Conservatives at 17%.

The Liberals and New Democrats were almost tied in the regions of Quebec, with 35% support for the Liberals and 33% for the NDP. The Bloc was third in this part of the province with 17%.

The closest race of all is in Quebec City, however, where the Conservatives were narrowly in front with 29% support. The NDP was up to 28% while the Liberals had fallen to 25% in the provincial capital.

On who would make the best prime minister, Justin Trudeau was unchanged at 26%, while Thomas Mulcair and Stephen Harper each dropped a point to 24% and 10%, respectively. These numbers generally line-up with the voting intentions numbers before removing the undecideds.

Using the regional results from the CROP poll, the model gives the Liberals 42 seats in Quebec against 32 for the New Democrats and four for the Conservatives. The Liberals spread their seats throughout the province but more than half of them are won in the region of Montreal. The New Democrats win most of their seats in the rest of Quebec.

Provincially, the race is far closer. Though the PQ has opted not to call an election this fall, the province is still on a pre-election footing as most believe that the Liberals and Coalition Avenir Québec will team up to defeat the government on the next budget, or the PQ will engineer its own defeat over a vote on the charter. In either case, the election is likely to occur in the spring.

CROP suggests that things have been holding steady, with no significant shifts in support since their Oct. 17-21 poll.

The Liberals remained in the lead with 37%, down one point, while the PQ was down two points to 32% (where they were in the 2012 election). The CAQ was up two points to 17%, as was Québec Solidaire, to 10%. Option Nationale was down two points to 2% and support for other parties was also at 2%.

Of the entire sample, 11% was undecided and another 6% did not answer the voting intentions question. That is virtually unchanged from October.

Satisfaction with the PQ government dropped three points to 32%, its lowest level since June. Similarly, the PQ dropped for the first time in CROP's polling after four consecutive recorded increases, from 24% to 34%, over the last few months. Their 'momentum' seems to have hit its ceiling.

The PQ led among francophones with 39%, followed by the Liberals at 27% and the CAQ at 19%. Among non-francophones, the Liberals had 84% support to 8% for the CAQ and 4% for Québec Solidaire.

The Liberals held wide leads on the island of Montreal (49% to 30% for the PQ and 12% for the CAQ) and in the surrounding suburbs. There, the party was up 12 points to 44%, while the PQ was down 14 points to 27%. The CAQ was third with 18%, while QS was up six points to 10%.

In Quebec City, the Liberals dropped to 36% and the PQ was up 11 points to 32%, followed by the CAQ at 25%. In the rest of Quebec, the PQ led with 37% to 26% for the Liberals and 19% for the CAQ. That represented a seven-point gain for the CAQ.

With CROP's regional numbers, the Liberals would likely win 60 seats, with 57 going to the Parti Québécois, seven to the CAQ, and just one to Québec Solidaire (at 9% on the island of Montreal, the party is down three points while the PQ is up six over the 2012 election).

The Liberals win more than half of their seats in the Montreal area, but also win the majority of seats in Quebec City and put up strong numbers in the regions. The PQ wins almost two-thirds of their seats in the regions, but are competitive in the suburbs and win the usual suspects on the island. The CAQ is pushed out of the suburbs to their base in the Quebec City and central Quebec.

A three-seat margin in the projection is virtually meaningless, and the Liberals missing the majority threshold by three seats is also too close to conclude definitively who would be more likely to win, and what form the government would take. I'd reckon a roughly 58% chance that the PLQ would emerge with more seats in this scenario, little better than a coin-flip.

But the steady support for the Liberals masks an increase for Philippe Couillard. On who would make the best premier, Couillard was up four points to 26%. Pauline Marois was down two points to 21%, while François Legault was unchanged at 13%. Interestingly, unlike the federal numbers these leadership numbers suggest that Couillard and Marois are less popular than their own parties to a considerable degree (Couillard scored five points less than his party when undecideds were included, Marois scored six points less). In the spring, Couillard was scoring only two or three points less than his party.

It will be interesting to see how Couillard's numbers will move in the next month. This poll was taken at around the same time as Fatima Houda-Pepin, a Liberal MNA of Morroccan descent, expressed her disagreement with part of her party's position on reasonable accommodations. It doesn't seem to have hurt either the PLQ or Couillard, but the poll was taken before the last few days when Couillard back-pedaled and reversed himself on the charter to some degree. If anything, it has at least taken the focus off the PQ for a week or two.

This could have an effect on Couillard's numbers in several different ways. It could make him seem like a weak leader who has little control over his caucus. It could disappoint those who are firmly against the charter (though they have few other options on the ballot). On the other hand, it could make him look flexible, and it could attract support from francophones who have mixed feelings about the charter but who are not entirely opposed to the concept. Considering all these possibilities, it could also very well balance out. We will have to see where the Liberals sit in polling by Léger and CROP in the coming weeks.