Quote:
Originally Posted by c.t.ner
The big question is whether the votes pan out into a majority, minority or does the seat distribution mean they end up in second place. I think they need at least 39% before we can talk about a majority for the Liberals.
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The Liberals have a path to a majority, but it will require a lot of things going their way. They should win all but maybe 5-6 seats in Atlantic Canada. They also have up to a 10 point lead in Ontario right now (depending on which poll you read). If enough NDP supporters vote strategically, they could potentially turn that province into a Liberal landslide. They could then win a majority using the same path to victory as Chretien did in the 90s: win big in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, and win
just enough support in Quebec, the prairies, and BC to put them over the top. As of today, it seems pretty unlikely they'll be able to pull this off, but momentum is definitely on their side, so who knows what will happen in a week.
The Conservatives also have a path to a majority, but it's probably even less likely than the Liberals getting one. They're going to get nearly wiped off the map in Atlantic Canada (loss of ~10 seats vs. today), so they need to make those up elsewhere. This is where the niqab strategy might come into play: they could potentially win some net new seats in Quebec because of this. They'd then have to rely on vote splitting between the Liberals and NDP to hold onto everything they currently have (and even win a few more seats) in Ontario-West. Probably not going to happen, but we'll see.
The NDP is effectively out of the race at this point. Their best strategy now is to hold onto the seats they currently have and hope for a Liberal minority government from which they can extract NDP-favourable concessions in exchange for their support. If the NDP war room had any brains and long-term thinking, their strategy would be to leave the Liberals alone and spend the rest of their campaign budget running anti-Harper ads in close swing ridings. Judging from the NDP flyer Clay linked in the other thread, though, it looks like they might be trying to take the Liberals down with them, potentially leading to more seats won by the Conservatives thanks to vote splitting. That's the nightmare scenario for all progressive Canadians who want to see Harper defeated.
If I was a betting man, I'd put the election odds (as of today anyway) like this: 10% chance for Liberal majority, 5% chance for Conservative majority, 50% chance for Liberal minority, 35% chance for Conservative minority.