2014 Quebec provincial election - Week 1 projection

March 5 projection

Today the National Assembly of Quebec was dissolved upon the announcement that Quebecers will be heading to the polls for a provincial election on April 7. This ends months of speculation about when the current minority government would finally come to an end. As you may recall, Quebecers just went to the polls back in September of 2012.

As per tradition, I will be publishing projection maps each week of the election, and perhaps even more frequently. Yesterday, Leger released its final pre-campaign poll showing the governing Parti Quebecois with a 2 point lead over the opposition Liberal Party (37-35). This may be a small lead, but it may be enough to win the elusive majority they haven't had since 1998. (This is due to the massive Liberal vote sink in West Montreal). The centre-right Coalition Avenir Quebec was third in the poll with 15 points, and the left wing Quebec Solidaire party was in fourth at 8%. This would mark a large decrease for the CAQ, as they won 27% of the vote in 2012.

Leger was nice enough to produce regional cross-tabs of their poll, divided by the Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) of Montreal and Quebec City, and a third breakdown of everything else (Rest of Quebec). To produce my numbers, I extrapolated the 2012 vote within each of the 3 regions to match the regional poll numbers.  I only made one modification; in the riding of Nicolet-Becancour, I based my projection on a simulated 2012 vote count based on regional trends. This is because the Option Nationale leader, Jean-Martin Aussant had run in the seat in 2012, and while he did not win, he had a strong vote. Since he is no longer leader of the party, it didn't make any sense to have the ON with a high projected vote total in the riding. I will likely make more modifications as the campaign goes on to effect odd results of my projection model. But since it's the beginning of the campaign, I feel it is unecessary at this point.

Without further ado, here is my projected seat count:

 According to my numbers the PQ would win a majority (67) of the 125 seats in the National Assembly. They would be able to win enough seats in the nationalist heartland of the province, and in the Montreal suburbs to win a majority of seats. This would be a gain of 13 seats for the party. The Liberals would actually gain a net of one seat, up from the 50 they won in 2012. The CAQ would be decimated to a rump of 5 seats, down from the 19 they won in 2012. The QS would win the 2 seats they currently hold.

In 2012, the CAQ had won 6 seats in the Montreal suburbs, but my projection shows them being wiped out, with all of them going to the PQ. Four of the 5 seats they'd be left with would be in the Quebec City area, with the fifth seat being in Granby. Their leader, Francois Legault would lose his seat of L'Assomption. Additionally, the CAQ would lose 8 seats in the Quebec City area, however this seat loss favours the Liberals, as my projections shows the Liberals gaining 6 of the 8, with the PQ gaining the remaining 2. The remaining 5 seats that change hands are seats that the Liberals won in 2012 but my projection has the PQ picking up.  These seats would be Papineau, Richmond, Maskinonge, and two seats in Quebec City: Jean-Talon and Jean-Lesage. The Liberals' new troubadour leader, Philippe Coullard would lose the seat he plans on running in, Roberval by a huge margin (although, I may make some adjustments there). For the record, the Liberals would still win his current riding of Outremont where he has chosen not run for re-election in. In fact, all of the Island of Montreal's seats would not change hands.

Here are my seat-by seat projections (ridings coloured by 2012 winner):