63towin (V)

The latest, and presumably last, batch of polls are in on the provincial vote-intent question in Quebec, which goes to the "urns" tomorrow.

First up, the outfit whose figures are usually taken as gospel, CROP. Unfortunately for poll junkies they were in the field the longest, and longest ago; they had the popular vote pegged at PLQ 45, PQ 29, ADQ 15, between November 28th and December 3rd, inclusive. Those numbers project the following seats:

Next, Léger Marketing, with the later and narrower field period of December 2nd-4th. Léger pegged the vote intent at PLQ 45, PQ 32, and ADQ 15, yielding the following seat count:

And finally, the two-day Angus Reid figures, also the latest, being collected on December 4th and 5th. Alas, they were also collected in an on-line sample, not a phone poll. They put the parties' support at PLQ 42, PQ 36, and ADQ 13, generating the following makeup for the National Assembly:
Taken at face value — a dangerous game with three different firms, three different methods margins of error and all that; but hey, let's have fun — these figures might suggest a race that is narrowing significantly between the Charest Liberals and Marois Péquistes in its final hours. Indeed, the Angus Reid numbers put the PLQ on the edge of losing the majority, even the whopping majority, that has been within Charest's grasp for most of the year, and most of the campaign.

They also suggest the ADQ on the edge of kablooieville, with most of the seats that Dumont won in 2007, tilting towards the Liberals in every election-period poll up until Angus Reid. The Angus Reid poll would give the PLQ and PQ an almost even split of the ADQ's entrails, a scenario which looks an awful lot like Philippe Gohier's 50-50 split, except that the PQ can pick up more than half of the ADQ's seats by picking up less than half of the vote that the ADQ is bleeding... but the PLQ has to have a five or six point lead over the PQ in voter-pickups from the ADQ, if it is to split the difference in seats with the PQ.

Charest still has the edge tonight, Election Eve... but by how much? And can Mario Dumont salvage enough seats to continue the minority status of the legislatur?

On verra sous peu.