New Brunswick Prediction

 Lets start with the map!

As you can see on the map, I've made a few changes.

The map now includes ridings that are "outside chances". This means the amount of ridings each party can win has been expanded. This is clearest by the Green gains around Fredericton. 

One assumption I've been forced to make is that PANB is not doing as well as some polls think they are. Why is this?

Many pollsters will "prompt". That means they'll say "Who are you voting for, PC, Lib, Grn, NDP, PANB, or other". When you "prompt" you tend to get higher numbers of unpopular parties. Contrast this with someone asking "PC, Lib, Grn, or other". In the latter, you are likely to see much lower NDP and PANB numbers in your poll. The only difficulty is trying to guess if the pollsters 'should have prompted' as the small party is going to do well, or, 'should not have prompted' as the party is going to do poorly.

It is my assumption that the pollsters should not be prompting for PANB. However. I could be wrong. 

One reason PANB may be doing well in prompted polls but not in unprompted polls is that people are still not fully willing to give Higgs a majority, but are at a loss as to how to vote as a result. If this is true, then PANB will indeed take 10%+ of the vote, as, once people take a physical look at their ballot, they'll know exactly what to do. 

If, however, people are not really "considering" PANB in their minds as a viable option, then seeing it no the ballot paper will not matter. Historically, this happened a lot to the NDP in places like NB or PEI, where prompted polls will always show a higher number than the election. 

Regardless, I'll be posting updates on twitter, and those wanting the latest info from me, can find it there. 

Eye on Israel (and other updates)

 First, the updates. The new CDP in Japan will only officially be merged on the 15th, not yesterday, as I reported. I'm chalking this up to translation, as, there is little english info on the merger. Also, I'll be making a post about New Brunswick tomorrow morning. 

Today, however, I quickly wanted to mention some things I'm seeing in Israel. As many of you may already know, Israel has established relations with the UAE, and now, Bahrain. What's been catching my eye, however, are the polls.

There have been 3 polls this month, averaging them, we get the following:

31 - Likud
20 - Yamina
15 - Joint List
15 - Yesh Atid
11 - Hosen / Blue and White
8 - Shas
7 - UTJ
7 - Yisrael Beiteinu 
6 - Meretz

What's interesting is that a right-wing coalition of Likud, Yamina, Shas, and UTJ would easily have 66 seats and a majority. 

More interesting is why that is.

Bibi has, at least to me, seemed to have been moving to the right over the years. It turns out, I am not the only one who perceives this. Naftali Bennett, leader of Yamina, has noticed this too. He's taken his party, which currently has 5 seats, to 20 seats in the polls, in large part, by moving it closer to the centre. He is still right-wing, of course, but he is now able to fit in in a more pragmatic place then Bibi.

I've mentioned before that Gantz's hope is to "take over" the gigantic core of small c-conservative votes that Bibi currently has a lock on. Gantz would love it if the Likud-Hosen coalition were to continue after Bibi steps down, and that Gantz would simply, effectively, become leader of Likud. Bennett essentially wants the same. This contrasts with Lapid's plan to take the place as Prime Minister by being progressive and growing the anti-conservative vote. 

Right now, Bennett is doing an excellent job. Covid may be a huge reason why. Israel is  country of 9.2M people, according to estimates based on official census figures. Israel has 148,000 covid cases as of today. This compares with 135,000 for Canada, a nation of ~35M, and 284,000 in Italy, a nation of ~60M. According to this website, which, from what I can tell, constantly has data that closely mirrors official government numbers, Israel has 16K cases per 1M people, making it the 16th most covid-infected per-capita on the planet, behind the USA (20K), and Brazil (20K), but ahead of France (5.5K), the UK (5.3K), and Canada (3.6K). The Deaths-per-Capita figures are more generous, indicating that perhaps Israel is simply testing many people, with at rate of 119 per million, contrasted with 117.8 for the world as an average, behind 242 for Canada, 595 for the USA, 612 for the UK, and 1,237 for San Marino, but ahead of Germany at 112, India at 56, and New Zealand at 5. 

The "TLDR" is in the Bennett vs Gantz battle to be the next PM, Bennett is winning, but that Bibi still has an edge on both, for now. 

Japan - Opposition vote results and more!

The opposition in Japan has completed their merger process, which I mentioned in a previous post.

The name CDP (Constitutional Democratic Party) has won 94-54, and the CDP's leader, Edano Yukio, by a margin of 107-42, has been elected as leader of the party. 

The new party will change the makeup of both the lower and upper houses of the Diet. I want to compare how things were at the start of the week, to where things are now, after the results. Note that this graphic was prepared in advance of the results of the vote, so the new party is labeled as "NEW", while those DPP members not joining are labeled as "TAM" after Tamaki Yuichiro, current DPP leader, who will not be joining the new party, and instead, will be starting a new party with other disaffected members of the DPP. Lastly note that I am not certain that the current opposition coalition will stay together, but, given the numbers I've outlined in the last paragraph, I believe they will be, as, they will need TAM to keep 50+ seats in the upper house. 

The major change is the consolidation of members within the newly merged party. This also will help boost the party at election time. Japanese election polling has a strange tradition of having massive amount of "don't know" respondents, only for a good 2/3rds of them to break for the largest opposition party. By pooling all of the 'oppositionness' into one party, it will help to concentrate that vote into a single force, and prevent a split result. 

Note that the size of each party also determines what they can and can not do in each chamber. In the house, for example, parties with 100 or more members can propose amendments to the constitution, while those with 50 or more can propose budgets, or votes of non-confidence (VONC). Those with 40 or more can censure MPs, while parties require 20 members to propose legislation. Only parties with 10 or more members get guaranteed spots in debate. In the upper house, there are only three "levels", 50 or more grants the ability to propose amendments to the constitution, while 25 or more allows for VONC proposals, and 10 or more are needed to propose legislation. 

US election, Trump probably will be re-elected

 Not much commentary, as, I try to avoid US politics, but, this is my current prediction:

A big week for Japanese politics.

Japan is going to see a lot of change over the next few days. The governing LDP have selected their three leadership candidates, and will pick from among them on the 14th. Given the time zone differences between here (90 mins north of Toronto) and Japan, we should know who the new LDP leader is by 8am, or 10am at the latest. I've talked about the LDP leadership a bit already in recent posts, so lets talk about the other big change, the opposition.

As I thought at the time of the 2017 election, in the post I made about the results, the opposition would re-unite. Unlike my projection, the re-unification appears quite more 'complete' than I'd expected. Most KNT members would go on to leave and form the DPP, the Democratic Peoples Party. The CDP, Constitutional Democratic Party, would retain more seats, however. The CDP and DPP would eventually agree to sit as a single caucus in the Diet, uniting both the upper house and lower house caucuses of both parties, putting the new opposition caucus in a strong position. In December, the two parties made an agreement in principle to merge. With all the kinks worked out, the final step of the merger is taking place.

As a reminder, lets quickly go over some history. After the war, the US maintained an occupation office over Japan which had much domestic power. This ended in 1952. At the time the sitting Prime Minister of Japan was part of the Liberal Party. His successor as PM would be from the "1954 Democratic Party", which, would merge with the Liberals, to from the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP. The LDP would govern Japan for decades. The 1990 election showed some weakness in the LDP, and various factions broke off from the party. The three main breakaway parties would form an agreement with the other 5 parties, which formed an alliance that excluded only two major parties; the LDP and the JCP (Japan Communist Party). This alliance managed to win the 1993 election. The new coalition government would fall apart, and the LDP would form a coalition with the Socialists. It was during this term the electoral system was changed to the Parallel system used today. The 1996 election was then won by the LDP. Many of the parties that had won the 1993 election would merge into the "1998 Democratic Party", which went on to become the main opposition party in Japan. The LDP would continue to rule until the 2009 election, when, for the first time since the end of the war, the party suffered a decisive defeat. The Democratic Party won a clear majority, but, proved unstable in government. In the following 2012 election, the LDP returned.

The Democrats were always keen to return to office, and in 2016, they would merge with the Innovation party to form the "2016 Democratic Party". This was, in hindsight, a bad decision. Much of the Innovation party would end up in the new Ishin party, and, the "2016 Democratic Party" itself would split in two, after agreeing to merge into Kibo. Kibo would later end up as the DPP; thus creating the DPP and CDP. 

Of the 183 members of the merging parties in either house of the Diet, 149 are joining the new party outright. The big questions that are left are simple; who will be leader, and what will the party name be? My understanding is that the two are being decided via the same vote, at the same time. 

Edano Yukio is the current/former leader of the CDP. He played a key role in creating the CDP after progressive Democratic Party members were barred from Kibo, and, unexpectedly, the CDP beat Kibo in the election to form the main opposition party. He wants the new party to retain the CDP name. 

Izumi Kenta followed Democratic Party members into Kibo, and the into the DPP. He seems to hold a position that seems potentially roughly equal to that of a house leader, or whip. He is running for leader of the merged party, and wishes it to go back to the old "Democratic Party" name. 

So far, 25 people signed the endorsement of Edano's CDP name, and 25 have signed the endorsement of Izumi's DPJ name. This leaves it a bit unclear as to which "side" will win. The CDP does seem to have an advantage in that the 34 people not joining the new party, seem to all be from the right of the spectrum. What complicates things is that the CDP name was chosen, in part, as the old DPJ name had become stained by the merger. It is thus unclear if members of the new party, many of whom were old DPJ members 5 years ago, will desire a return to the old name, or wish to keep the CDP name that only some of them supported in the last election. 

Either way, the decision on September 10th will be interesting to watch. 

Updates, 06SEP2020

 Upcoming elections:

September 14th; New Brunswick (Provincial), Liberal Democratic Party Leadership (Japan)

October 17th: New Zealand (National)

October 18th: Bolivia (National)

October 31st: Queensland (state)

Updates on places not listed above:

Belarus: Things continue to develop. There's not much to say, really, as we've yet to pass another, how to put, ticking point. Consider a Pawl. You spend a lot of time slowly moving towards the next little 'cliff'', and you only hear that next 'tick' when you get there. We'll get to another 'tick' in Belarus, but, for now, we are simply moving towards that cliff, and which way things will go when we get there is still unclear. 

Russia: Putin's party is seeing a very minor bounce back from its low of ~30% in the polls, and now sits at about ~31%. This is still below the ~33% they'd been sitting at since the pension issue, prior to which they'd been closer to ~50%. Their opponents sit at about ~13% for the Communists, ~11% for the Nationalists, and ~5% for Just Russia, which I've speculated on before, is a party that was set up to become the 'replacement governing party' should the need ever arise for one. The remainder are undecided, or would vote for various tiny parties. This puts Putin's party at 53% of the decided vote (among parties expected to pass the threshold), and thus, it would win a majority based on that alone. Add to that the fact there are also FPTP seats, and a party with this kind of lead could easily win over 3/4ths of those seats; for a total of about ~300 seats in the 450 seat Duma.

Japan (non-leadership): Only one new poll since Abe resigned; it shows the LDP up to 40% from 30%. Like Russia, these polls come with a massive amount of undecided voters; but unlike Russia where said voters tend to break the same way they do here, undecided voters in Japan have a history of backing the opposition massively. Due to Japan using a similar Parallel system that Russia does, this 40% would be enough for a majority. 

Northern Territory: We now have final results for this election. They are as follows:  Labor - 14 // CLP - 8 // TA - 1 // IND - 2. We also now have a regional breakdown. Darwin has elected 11 Labor members and 2 CLP members; while outside Darwin, there are only 3 Labor members, alongside 6 CLP, and 3 Others; one being the TA member, and two being Independents. Unless the CLP somehow screws up during this next session, the TA is likely to either fold, or, become small enough not to matter, by the time of the next election. If the CLP is smart, they'll invite the single TA member back into the CLP fold. 

Jamaica: I'm still working on a fuller post for this, but it is proving harder than I expected and may need to be abandoned. In short, the governing JLP (which uses Green as its colour) has won 49 seats, while the opposition PNP (which uses Orange) has won 14 seats. This is a change from the 32-31 result in the previous election. Ignoring the 1983 election, which the PNP boycotted, as well as elections prior to 1962 (independence), this is the 2nd worst result for the PNP both in terms of seats and popular vote, beating only 1980. Of the elections held since full Independence (1967 on) this is only the 5th JLP victory, while the PNP had won 7 elections in the same period of time. If current PNP leader, Peter Phillips resigns, (he has said he is doing so) he will be the only PNP leader to never be Prime Minister/Premier. All of this is probably easy to follow; but what tends to confuse people is JLP is right-wing, and PNP is left-wing. Why is that confusing? JLP stands for Jamaica Labour Party, and PNP for People's National Party. Using names that, in most countries, would be usually used by "the other side".

Upcoming:

New Brunswick: My previous prediction still stands. I post updates on Twitter as they come. 

New Zealand: My current predictions is 60 - LAB // 38 - NAT // 14 - GRN // 8 - ACT // 0 - NZF. However, I'll need to refine that as the election draws closer. 

Queensland: The LNP may be on the path to victory. 

Bolivia: No new polls since my last update; hence looks set to be a showdown between Pro-Morales candidate Arce, and Anti-Morales candidate Mesa, with the final winner being unclear.

LDP: Details below.

The LDP leadership is getting a bit interesting. There are three top candidates, all of whom I addressed in my previous post. Ishiba seems to lead most polls, but Kishida seems to still have the backing of Abe. Suga, however, seems to be the one who could run away with it all. 

If this election were happening in any country but Japan, Suga's record and policy stances would make him an obvious shoe in. The election is going to take place among only 535 electors, made up of the 394 caucus members, and 141 others chosen to represent the prefectures. 

In the end, it is likely that Suga will win. Abe seems to want to stop Ishiba, and Suga is in the best place to do that. Additionally, factions within the LDP are lining up behind him. 

New Brunswick, the math

 After the last NB election, I recorded all the results on a spreadsheet. It might be helpful to click here to follow along with the rest of this post. 

You should see a list of ridings, and the results. On the left you'll see the raw ballots cast, and on the right, the share of vote. For now, focus on all the numbers above the thick black line, and, only focus on cells without a grey background. 

The data above the line simply shows the 2018 results.

Now look at the numbers between the two black lines. 

Here I've placed the 3 most recent polls. Leger, all post-writ; Narrative, polled during the writ drop; and Angus Reid, polled months ago. There could be an argument to ignore such an old poll, but I wanted at least 3 polls for this example. 

I've summed the polls together. So, the PC Party for example, gets its 40% from Leger, added to its 44% from Narrative, added to its 39% from Angus Reid. This results in 123%. I then take one third of that, or, 41%, and this becomes our poll average for the PC Party. 

The next step is to use the following formula: (Poll Average) / (Previous election result) = (Factor)

The "factor" for the PC Party in this case is 1.29, as 41%/31.89%=1.29

Finally, I want to figure out the number of "points" in each riding each party is estimated to obtain. This is the greyed out area below the second black line.

Note that these are not votes estimated. These are simply the numbers that result when you multiply the last-election result, in each riding, by the factor for the party in question.

As such, the 961 votes the PC Party obtained ni Restigouche West becomes 1236 points, as, 961*1.29=1236

The last step then is to find the share of the vote in each riding. Doing so tells us the PC Party, by the math alone, is estimated to take 15.56% of the vote in Restigouche West. 

The sheet shows the math for every riding. It produces a map like this:

You'll notice however, that this map is not the map I've been using as my prediction map. Why?

Simply, cause there's more to forecasting an election than applying a single formula. A good election forecaster does not start with guesswork, they start with math. A good election forecaster does not end with math, they do more. Take for example the Peoples Party in the last federal election. Since they'd not run previously, all forecasters using only math would have had this party taking 0 votes. Therefore, every single forecaster across Canada had to do more than use one pure simple formula to estimate results. Additionally, each forecaster also broke things down regionally, using regional polls to project each region instead of a single nationwide topline poll. In effect, they were running roughly 10 different forecasts at the same time. 

Go back above the two black lines and look at the area on the right shaded in grey. For this area I've quite simply copied the raw vote in select ridings. Which ridings? Ridings that I decided were "french". I then summed these results, and found the vote share. This told me the PC Party took 21.78% of the vote in these ridings. Finally, I subtracted the vote numbers from the "french" ridings, to get a number for the "english" ridings. This told me the PC Party got 37.87% in the "english" ridings. Great! Now I have something I can roughly compare to the most recent Leger poll's demographics. Doing this helped me see that while the Liberals do appear down in Anglophone ridings, that they've not moved much in Francophone ridings. 

This is, of course, just a rough estimate; but it can help give you an idea of what's going on in subregions of a province. 

This is why my current prediction is as follows:

You'll notice that this differs from the math. Let me explain where and why. 

Firstly, I've given the Liberals a chance to win nearly every seat they currently hold. It is always possible that voters will sour on the tories for calling this election. While I'm not seeing that happening, I am keeping an open mind to its possibility. As such, each riding currently held by a Liberal has a red dot in it. As do two additional ridings in the Moncton area. 

Why these two, and not others where the Liberals were closer?

Simple; the PANB vote has collapsed. Polls show not only PANB doing poorly, but Kris Austin, their leader, also doing poorly. As such I've judged it more likely that PANB voters will go PC this election, and thus, boost the PC vote. Since these Moncton area ridings do not have PANB vote totals as high as outside the Moncton area, it seems likely that if the Liberals are to gain, it will be ridings like this where it will happen. 

So, what of ridings the math says the Liberals will win, but I've coloured in blue?

That is also simple, as we saw with the demographic numbers, the Liberals are down in Anglophone areas. This means any PC gains will be stronger there. Additionally, 2018 PANB voters could help push a 2020 PC candidate over the top. 

Great, but what of PC ridings I've predicted will go Liberal?

There's only one and its a Francophone riding. Given the PC Party seems up in Francophone ridings, people may consider this an odd choice, but remember that the PC MLA elected in that riding in 2018 left the party. When this happens, even if the MLA does not run again (he is, but in a different riding), strange things can happen. Sometimes the party will actually increase their vote, but just as often, their vote will decrease. Given the circumstances, it is my guess that the PC vote will drop here, and as a result, the Liberals will be able to take the riding; but, that they may only hold on to it for a single term. 

Wonderful. How about the prediction in specific ridings? What of Kent South (#13) for example?

This one could be a weird one. I actually lived here for a year and voted here in a federal election. Kent County as a whole tends to be somewhat united. What impacts one part can and will impact the other. Additionally a quick look at the poll by poll results of the federal riding can show what is on my mind. One easy way to get there is using this map. As you can see, the Greens, while only winning a single poll, did very well in other polls in Kent South. Put another way, I suspect the vote could be split here, and that if this happens, it could allow the PC Party to sneak round the right to victory. 

Note as well on that federal map how well the Greens did, federally, in the other riding they hold provincially. With that in mind, pan on over to Fredericton to see why I've made one of my more controversial calls. 

Fredericton North, the provincial riding, was "won" by the Greens, in the federal election. It is my expectation that the provincial party can pull this off again at the provincial level. Beyond that, the battle between the Liberal MLA and his PC opponent provides an excellent opportunity for the non-Green parties to split the vote and allow the Greens to sneak around the left to victory. It is important to keep in mind that in the Maritimes especially, all the parties are more 'moderate' versions of the same party we find elsewhere in Canada. It is thus not crazy to image someone who usually votes PC who will lend their vote to the Green candidate in 2020. The Candidate the Greens have also does not seem to be 'a weirdo' or 'crazy', and while I wouldn't rank them as a 'star', they seem to be active, and are likely acceptable enough to win. 

If you look closely at the riding, however, you'll notice some blue in there. 

These is one of the "dots" I mentioned earlier. It means that while I currently think the Greens will take the seat, that there is a very high chance that the Tories will take it instead. 

The same is thus true for riding #38. While I think the Tories will take it, PANB can hold it. It is not only their 'best' riding, but, is that of their leader, Kris Austin. Given his personal low polling, however, he may be in for a tough battle. 

So to re-examine the seats; ridings 32, 09, 46, 47, 20, and 18 could all be held by the Liberals if people show displeasure at an early election. Ridings 21 and 22 could be won by the Liberals if that is true but the displeasure grows. 

19 could go PC if the party is able to maintain its strong position in the polls. 07 could elect another PC MLA if the displeasure over the events that least to the defection of the previous MLA has been papered over. 13 could go PC if the Greens manage to split the Liberal vote just right. 38 will probably go PC but could be held by the PANB leader. And 41 could go PC if the Greens fail to pull off the saem level of victory in Fredericton that they did Federally last year.

Riding #10, Miramichi, could go PC but looks like it will go Liberal. It's the seat of a PANB MLA who won in a "shocker" last election due to her personal electability. It is the riding the Liberal Leader, Kevin Vickers, is running in. The actual winner will depend heavily on local factors, and as such, is difficult to predict. 

Lastly, Riding #01, Restigouche West, is probably one everyone has their eyes on. I had previously seen this as a clear pickup for the Greens. That changed upon seeing the breakdowns within the Leger poll. While the Greens could still take the seat, the Leger poll suggests the party is too weak in Francophone ridings to do so. 

As such, my current prediction is as follows:

PC - 29 (possible 20-34)
LIB - 16 (possible 11-24)
GRN - 4 (possible 3-5)
PANB - 0 (possible 0-1)
Others - 0 (possible 0-0)