The higher than normal turnout at the advanced polls is impressive but it does not mean that there will be a higher turnout overall. What is does mean is that a higher number of voters had made up their minds in time to vote early than in the past. What that means to the overall result remains to be seen. However, it is nice to see that people seem to be engaged enough in this election to want to vote in such numbers a week before election day.
As expected, the debates were boring and banal. As usual, I could not sit through more than 15 minutes of the English debate before I found something more useful to do. I am always impressed with those who can sit through them and grateful for those commentators who do it professionally, without losing their damned minds. Also, as expected, who won depends on who you support. According to Liberal partisans Mark Carney crushed the others but Conservative supporters indicate that it was Pierre Poilievre who ran away with it. In the end their impact will probably be negligible.
I tend to dismiss polling in between elections for reasons I have stated in this space many times before. I tend not to dismiss them out of hand during elections because people will have the actual results of the election on which to compare their estimates. That makes the polling companies more careful in conducting their polls. So the pollsters showing the Liberals winning the election with anywhere from 173 to 192 seats is plausible but that gap is still an issue. My guess is it will coalesce at around 180-185 by April 28, assuming this is not a big polling miss and assuming a reasonable voter turnout.
I do not believe that the turnout will be any worse than in 2021. The advance polls would seem to indicate that Canadians are energized enough by the campaign that they will show up on April 28.
I also do not believe that we are seeing a polling miss. I have stated here before that all of the political parties have data analytics teams. These teams have data and statistical tools available to them that dwarf what the media pollster provide us. They have traditional polling data, they have the data they are receiving from each of the local campaigns and they have big data that is available to them through social media and the internet. They will all have top-of-the-line data analytics, including machine learning and AI, to make sense of all of that data. That will allow them to be able to provide their respective campaign teams voting estimates down to the individual ridings that would be as accurate as the national estimates we see in the media polls. As well, they will have developed predictive algorithms to help them foresee the future to a certain extent, probably a day or two in advance.
This has implications for some of the things we are seeing with the campaigns. First, the Liberals are still putting out advertizements and talking about the Trump threat because their data analytics are stating that there are enough Canadians concerned about it to make it worthwhile. It is highly likely that his threat is an important enough issue to a sufficient number of Canadians, and that the Liberals are in the best position to benefit from it, for the Liberals to keep talking about it. It could very well be the issue that will bring them the victory. Judging by how much Conservative commentators are trying to play down the Trump threat I would say that they are in agreement with the Liberal analytics team.
Second, Mark Carney has been going around the country and campaigning in Conservative and NDP held ridings since the end of the English debate. During the final stages of the election campaign, when a leader of a party campaigns in ridings that are currently held by their opponents, it usually means that their data analytics team has indicated it could be a pick up for their party. The last time I saw the Liberals do this was in 2015 and the last time I saw the Conservatives do this was in 2011. Both were majority victories for them. If the media polls are currently stating the Liberals are on track to win a majority government the actions of the national campaign would seem to back that up.
Pierre Poilievre should stay away from playing poker because his poker face is terrible. He looks miserable out there. Gone are the big rallies that he had during stage two. Now he just has staged announcements, attended by just a handful of people as props, and his facial expressions and body language are of someone who does not hold out much hope of winning. As well, the Conservative campaign trotted out Stephen Harper about two weeks ago and then released an actual advertizement featuring the former PM. In 2008 and 2011, when the Liberals trotted out Jean Chrétien half-way through the campaign, I knew that it was over for them. Having Stephen Harper appear in an advertizement is pretty much conclusive evidence that they are losing.
I stated when this election started that there would be two competing forces at play. The one is the fear of Donald Trump and what he could do to our country. The second is the desire for change that always exists for a government that has been in power more than eight years. With one week left until the election ends it would appear that the first one is driving this election. There does not appear to be a "throw the bums out" sentiment of sufficient strength to threaten the Liberals with a loss. It could manifest during the final week but I doubt it. If it was going to manifest itself in sufficient strength to give the Conservatives a chance of victory we would have been seeing signs of it from the beginning of the campaign.
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