Supporters watch as results appear on the screen at the New Democratic Party of Canada election night reception in Burnaby, B.C.Tijana Martin/The Globe and Mail
Public opinion polls were successful in projecting a Liberal win and strong popular support for the Conservatives in the federal election, but some underestimated the collapse of the NDP vote.
Seat projections produced in the run-up to the vote in some instances also understated the Conservatives’ performance.
Nik Nanos, chief data scientist at Nanos Research and pollster for the Globe and Mail, said “the polls generally did quite well at predicting the support for all the parties” and a tight race between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
Nanos predicted the Liberals would gain about 43 per cent of the vote, which they garnered on the night. It also predicted that the Conservatives would gain roughly 40 per cent of the vote and they gained 41.7 per cent on election night.
Nanos predicted the NDP would gain 8 per cent of the vote, when they gained 6 per cent. It predicted the Greens would gain 2 per cent of the vote, when they gained 1.2 per cent. It predicted the Bloc Québécois would gain 6 per cent of the vote, when their actual vote was 6.9 per cent.
“New Democrats are lower than anticipated. The NDP are about to hit a historic low in popular support never seen before,” he said. “The drop in the BQ and the drop in the NDP [are] within the margin of error for the research. Our call was based on 3.4 percentage points, plus or minus 19 times out of 20.”
Quito Maggi of Mainstreet Research, whose final poll put the NDP on 6 per cent, said pollsters had in general got it right.
“Everyone was talking about the potential for an urban wave or a wave of young, angry male voters who were going to come out in record numbers for Poilievre and that didn’t materialize,” Mr. Maggi said.
Both the Liberals and Conservatives gained more than 40 per cent of the vote – the first time this had happened in a general election since 1930.
David Coletto, CEO of the polling company Abacus Data, said the NDP underperformed, but overall the polls were accurate.
“The polls generally did well tonight. We thought it be a close race and a majority or minority was not clear. Some, like Abacus, overestimated the NDP and as has happened in the past two elections, most seem to have underestimated the Conservative vote.”
He said Abacus had shown a tighter race than some other polls.
“I never saw the Liberals gain a lead larger than six points,” he added.
In their final seat projections, Nanos Research projected the Liberals would take 154 seats, the Conservatives would have 108, three for the NDP and 16 for the Bloc, with 62 too close to call.
But elsewhere, there was a disconnect between seat projections and results, with Liberal results being overestimated and Conservatives underestimated.
The final seat projections from polling aggregator 338Canada was 186 seats for the Liberals and 124 for the Conservatives. Mainstreet Research projected 177 for the Liberals and 135 for Conservatives.
With 93 per cent of polls reporting, the Liberals were elected or leading in 166 seats and the Conservatives had 146.
At the turn of the year, the Liberals were trailing behind the Conservatives at only 20 per cent in the polls. Before Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, the Conservatives lead look insurmountable at 47 per cent.
But Mr. Trudeau’s resignation led to a bump in popular support for the Liberals, followed by a further increase during the campaign to find a new Liberal leader.
But it was U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs - including his presentation of tariffs he was imposing across the world - that turned the Liberals’ fortunes around.
Barely three points separated the Liberals and Conservatives on the eve of the election, according to polling for The Globe and Mail and CTV by Nanos.
The proportion of undecided voters was only 3 per cent in the sample of 863 Canadians. The Sunday poll had a margin of error of ±3.4 percentage points 19 times out of 20.