The message from Carbonear–Harbour Grace

Taking the swing from Tuesday's by-election in Carbonear–Harbour Grace, and applying it, for fun's sake, province-wide, yields a notional election result that looks like this (click to enlarge):

Pale colours indicate pickups for the opposition, or narrow holds for the outgoing PCs. There is only one in that latter category: Humber East, where the incumbent has already made it clear he's on his way to Pensionville.

The handful of gray districts are those where the forecast models disagree on the outcome, given the input assumptions. Of the ten tossup districts, only five are tossups where the PC party is still in play. In either case, the largest "universe" of PC seats, where one or the other model has them winning or in contention, is six districts.

Just six.

The forecast model does not take into account changes in affiliation (Osborne) or The Big Snit (the entire NDP and Dissident caucus). Recall that, despite The Big Snit, the NDP vote in the late by-election was essentially unchanged from the general election of 2011 in that district.

So, when does floor-crossing season begin, again?