Today is election
day in Prince Edward Island, which means my second and final
projection of the campaign. Unfortunately since my last projection,
there has only been one public poll released, and it is now over one
week old. The poll, conducted by Corporate Research Associates (CRA)
was published on April 24. It showed the governing Liberals in the
lead with 44%, nine points ahead of the opposition Progressive
Conservatives who were at 35%. The poll showed a narrowing of the
race from numbers published a few days earlier by Abingdon Research.
The CRA poll also showed the NDP at 15% and the Greens at 6%.
The CRA poll was
commissioned by Charlottetown's The Guardian newspaper,
which did not publish any tables. However, the corresponding article
in The Guardian mentioned
that the Liberals were well out in front in Kings County (58% to
31%), the traditionally more Tory-friendly part of the province. In
Queens County, which contains half of the province's population, the
race was much closer. The Liberals led there 39% to 37%. Numbers from
Prince County were not published, but we can extrapolate from the
other two county results that the Liberals lead there 43% to 35%.
While
there has been no province-wide polling conducted in the last week of
the campaign, we did get to see a riding poll from Kellys
Cross-Cumberland, where Green
Party leader Peter Bevan-Baker is running.
The Greens
commissioned Oraclepoll Research to poll the riding, and the numbers
showed that Bevan-Baker was in the lead, with 38% of the vote, to
Liberal incumbent Valerie Docherty's 34%. If the Greens do with the
riding, it would be only the second time in PEI history where a party
other than the Liberals or Tories won a seat.
Both
the CRA poll and the Oralacle Research poll in Kellys
Cross-Cumberland have been used to form my final projection. But due
to the lack of polling and PEI's quirky nature, I had to adjust the
numbers in a few ridings, specifically three ridings that are open
seats where the Tories are running strong candidates, and
a fourth where a floor-crosser is running for re-election.
The three open seats with
strong Tory candidacies are
Charlottetown-Brighton where PC leader Rob Lantz is running,
Borden-Kinkora and Rustico-Emerald. In the latter two ridings, the
Tory candidates also ran in the 2011 election where
they increased the PC share
of the vote considerably over the provincial average, despite both
losing to Liberal incumbents. Now, those Liberal incumbents are not
running again, meaning the PC candidates will probably get even more
of a boost in the polls.
I also gave a boost to Hal
Perry, the Liberal incumbent in Tignish-Palmer Road. Perry was
elected as a Tory in 2011, but crossed
the floor to the Liberals. I assume he will retain the 6% swing he
got for the Tories from
his personal popularity.
There
are so many different local factors that will effect the races in
each of Prince Edward Island's 27
electoral districts. These
factors will make any
prediction or projection of today's election very difficult, if
any accuracy is to be had. It
is hard to speculate which ridings will swing which way; we can only
make assumptions based on known candidacy strengths. Last election,
some ridings swung strongly Liberal, while others strongly PC. While
many of these swings can be explained in hindsight,
it would have been near impossible to accurately speculate on those
swings before the election. Who would have predicted the Liberals to
get a 24% two-party swing in their favour in Evangeline-Miscouhe,
while the Tories got a 12% swing in Stratford-Kinlock and an 11%
swing in Rustico-Emerald? Overall, between 2007 and 2011 there was
only an overall
average swing
of 0.2% across
the entire province, yet the Tories gained
four seats from the Liberals, and the Liberals gained one back.
.png) |
| The 2007 to 2011 trend map shows how local factors are a more important indicator of how a riding will vote. |
If the huge Liberal numbers in Kings County turn out to be true, then they should be able to win the two Tory seats in the county: Souris-Elmira and Georgetown-St. Peters. The only other Liberal gain I am projecting is in the riding of Tignish-Palmer Road, where the Liberal incumbent was elected as a Tory in 2011. With the PCs doing well in Queens County, my model shows them gaining four seats there from the Liberals: Tracadie-Hillsborough Park, Charlottetown-Brighton, West Royalty-Springvale and Rustico-Emerald. Additionally, my model shows the Tories picking up Borden-Kinkora (in Prince County) from the Liberals. Finally, my model shows the Greens winning their first ever seat in Kellys Cross-Cumberland. In total, this gives the Liberals 19 seats, the Tories 7 and the Greens 1. Despite polling in third, the NDP would be shutout, although they have an outside shot at a couple of Charlottetown seats.
Here
are the projected results for each riding. Ridings are shaded by how
they voted in 2012:
Polls
close at 7pm Atlantic Time (6pm Eastern).
