‘Wasted votes’? How seat projections differ from daily polling

Pollster Nik Nanos and host Michael Stittle give you everything you need to know before you speak with your friends before you vote.

Seat projections for Canada’s upcoming election can seem inconsistent with public opinion polling, which has shown the Conservatives closing the gap on the Liberals as voting day nears.

Despite some surveys showing the Liberals only leading by a few percentage points heading into the weekend, several recent projections suggest the party is poised to form a majority government.

The key to understanding that discrepancy is distinguishing between popular support and vote efficiency, said Nik Nanos, chief data scientist with Nanos Research.

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“What’s critical to remember is that in the last two federal elections, the Conservatives garnered more votes – Andrew Scheer garnered more votes than Justin Trudeau, Erin O’Toole garnered more votes than Justin Trudeau,” Nanos told CTV’s Trend Line podcast on Friday.

“However, the Liberals were able to form a government. Why? Because of the distribution of Conservative support.”

‘Wasted votes’ in the Prairies

Daily opinion polling estimates the overall percentage of Canadians intending to vote for the five major federal parties. Seat projections are different, using both polling data and historical election results to predict how races will unfold at the riding level.

More often than not, under Canada’s first-past-the-post voting system, there’s a disconnect between the two, Nanos said.

“There are parts of the country, primarily the Prairies, where the Conservatives have a 20, 25, 30 percentage-point advantage – and it’s wasted votes,” the pollster said.

“Their national number looks good, but when you try to convert it into seats, it’s very different.”

The results of last year’s U.S. election were similar. Although U.S. President Donald Trump narrowly edged out rival Kamala Harris with 49.8 per cent of the popular vote, he took the majority of the electoral college “handily,” Nanos noted.

There’s still no telling how Monday’s vote will go, of course – and even if the Conservatives lose, Nanos suggested they have much to be optimistic about, with an energized base that has been turning out for large rallies in many parts of the country.

“This looks and feels like a winning campaign,” Nanos said. “In any other election, it would be.”

A major factor this year has been the steep decline in support for the NDP and Green, something pollsters have chalked up to anxiety over the threat of Trump’s trade war.

The result has been “one of the biggest two-way races that we’ve seen in almost a generation of elections,” Nanos said.

Ridings to watch on election night

Nanos said some of the key ridings he’ll be watching on election night are in the Greater Toronto Area, including the more than a dozen spread across Mississauga, Brampton and Oakville. “They tend to swing with whoever the party is that forms a government,” Nanos told Trend Line. “That’s probably an early indicator of who has the upper hand.”

Notably, Doug Ford, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative premier, “swept all those” in February’s provincial election, Nanos said.

“We’re in a world now where those exact same voters are currently leaning towards the Liberals,” he added.

There could also be some dramatic results in British Columbia, where the Liberals and Conservatives have both been hoping to snatch seats away from the NDP – including in leader Jagmeet Singh’s own riding of Burnaby Central.

“The NDP are going to lose seats in B.C.,” Nanos said. “We don’t know how many.”

As of the latest Nanos Research polling, the Conservatives were ahead in the province with 41 per cent support, compared to 39 per cent for the Liberals and 13 per cent for the NDP.

How things will shake out in terms of seats is difficult to predict, Nanos said, due to vote-splitting in some ridings.

“Right now, the vote splits are favouring the Liberals,” he said. “But if there’s a minor change over the weekend in British Columbia, some of those ridings that the Liberals are poised to pick up at the expense of the New Democrats could actually create opportunities for the Conservatives.”

For the complete podcast, watch the video at the top of this article, or listen in the player below.