2013 Elections in Canada

[DC Al Fine]

I like Dexter too,  it's sad that Nova Scotians hate him so much.

Its not at all clear to me why Dexter is unpopular in NS. He seems like a decent avuncular guy and I don't see any major scandals or miscues on his part...Nova Scotia is a poor province with a difficult fiscal situation - but i don't see how Dexter isn't a styep in the rioght direction - esp. after the absurd reign of Rodnery McDonald.

Dexter has had to make some difficult unpopular decisions.

I tend to agree here even though I'm a PC voter. There's a fairly large chunk of left leaning voters who aren't attached to either left of centre party. When one of those parties makes cuts, they switch to the other one. That's why the NDP picked up 6 seats in NS in 1997 and why the Liberals are doing so well now.

[DC Al Fine]

Have you spotted a mistake?

No, just wondering what happened to the NDP vote there. The one in Dartmouth can be explained (popular local councillor running for the Libs)

What happened?  Home turf for the provincial Lib leader.

Hatman, NS politics are notoriously "person over party". The Liberal leader is in the valley and the other Liberal MLA's in the area are personally popular so it's certainly possible for them to have gained there in 09.

[DC Al Fine]

I guess that explains the PC swing in that one riding (Hants West?)

Yup. It's great/frustrating depending on whether you have the popular incumbent.

[DC Al Fine]

However, I *will* grant you that the Tories have historically had a stronger ground game all around

Though we shouldn't forget that there's a tendency to exaggerate the importance of such things.

Our Tories won 18 seats by 3% or less and have a majority of 11. It can be very important.

[DC Al Fine]

EKOS-ON: 33 OLP, 29 PC, 26 NDP.

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/02/15/wynnes-win-breaths-new-life-into-ontario-grits-poll/

That's not much of a honeymoon bump.

[DC Al Fine]

'Tis EKOS. But yeah, they should be doing better- again we come back to the urban problem.

I remember after the 2011 election, Graves was saying "It's surprising that we have undershot Tory support" as if they hadn't undershot the Tories in every election since the merger

[DC Al Fine]

They didn't. In the 2008 election Ekos final poll projected CPC support almost exactly where it was when the votes were counted. In 2004 and 2006 they actually OVER estimated Conservative support.

Everyone overstated Tory support in 2004. There is a poster in our office bragging about how well we (EKOS) did in that election. Unfortunately we haven't been the best poster recently, but there are much worse polling firms out there.

COMPASS comes to mind?

[DC Al Fine]

Nova Scotia will probably be going to the polls this fall to pass judgement on their rookie NDP government.  There will be one fewer seat in the Legislature after a contentious redistribution process, where the government overruled the initial report of the independent electoral boundaries commission.

Here's a map of the Metro Halifax area that shows the results of the 2009 provincial election by polling division overlaid by the new electoral district boundaries.

All that orange is quite beautiful. I suppose this map will look quite different after the election- but not as bad as other parts of the province.

Has anyone calculated what the seat distribution would have been in Nova Scotia 2009 if it had been fought on these new boundaries?

I think Elections Nova Scotia did this.

Elections NS redid their site last month and the notional results were taken down in the shuffle

Only thing that really changed was that the Inverness by-election would have been won by the Liberals instead of the Tories had it taken place with the new ridings.