Quebec 2012 election prediction map (August 3 edition)

Current prediction map

On Wednesday, Quebec Premier Jean Charest dropped the writs for the 40^th Quebec provincial election which will be held on September 4^th. Charest called the election to deal with the student protests that have crippled the province over the last few month. He is hoping on the votes of the “silent majority” of Quebeckers who oppose the student strikes- but have not been as loud as the students.

While public opinion may not be behind the students, it is not behind Jean Charest either. Most polls show Charest's Liberals neck and neck with the Parti Quebecois (PQ) in the low-30s. The PQ is struggling in their own right, but a tied election means more seats for them, due to having their support more spread out across the province. Both parties are being challenged by a new party, the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) which at one point in late 2011 topped the polls, but are now languishing in third place at around 20%. The CAQ will be the real wild card in this election. The party is generally centre-right and are only soft separatists. The party is in many ways the successor of the ADQ which voted to merge into the CAQ at the end of 2011.

My first prediction of the campaign will just be in map form. Further detailed analysis will come in later posts, but since I'm heading off to the cottage for the weekend, I figured I should get something up before I go. When I made the map, I only used a simple uniform swing model for each region of the province using the most recent Leger poll. I do not intend to just use a uniform swing model though, as you will note I have tried to avoid in the past. Though, Quebec more than any other province is the most “uniform” in its vote swings between elections.

If you have any comments about how you think a riding will go, please email me or comment on this post explaining why you think so. Viewer feedback is key in making accurate predictions. Even though it didn't go so well for the Alberta election a few months ago.

The projected seat totals based on my first prediction map show a very close race, but with the PQ ahead. It's still anyone's game as there are 33 seats that my projection shows as having the two leading parties within 5% of each other (I will narrow this down to 3% in future predictions):

Party	Projected seat total
Parti Quebecois	48
Liberal	37
Coalition Avenir Quebec	6
Quebec Solidaire	1
Too close to call	33