Friday, August 31, 2012

Que faire si: Gauche Droite division? / What if: Left Right split?

What if.
What if rather than a Federalist-Sovereigntist split, Quebec was split like most of the rest of the world, among right and left wing parties? What if the CAQ and QS were the only two parties to win seats? Unrealistic to the extreme, but very insightful!


Que faire si: 5 Partis à 20%? / What if: 5 parties at 20%

What if.
What if the 5 parties with candidates in 'all' the ridings split the vote at 20% each, and no other votes are cast whatsoever. Not very realistic, but very intriguing! (A note of caution, the ON, with no vote history, will naturally as a result of a partly unreliable vote distribution and should be take with extreme caution)


Que faire si: 4 Partis à 25%? / What if: 4 parties at 25%

What if.
What if the 4 parties in the debate split the vote exactly at 25%, and nobody else received any votes at all across the province. Not very realistic, but fun to think about!


Que faire si: 3 Partis à 33%? / What if: 3 parties at 33%


What if.
What if each of the top three parties manages to tie at 33% of the vote each, and, no other party captures any votes at all. Not very realistic perhaps, but interesting to look at! 


Prove you know what you are talking about

Okay, here: http://calgarygrit.blogspot.ca/2011/05/predicting-unexpected.html

Two websites did "better" than me in terms of projecting the number of seats won, but none of them had riding by riding projections. Of anyone who dared to project every single individual riding, I was closer than anyone else.

Now this is, of course, 1 election out of many, and I have been "more wrong" than others before - this blog's own history will attest to that - but I want to ensure that people know I am not just some raving madman who does not know what he is talking about. I'm a raving madman who knows his stuff.

Afternoon Update

No analysis, just the map!


I may be 25% Québécois

My personal ethnic background has not really been much of a mystery to me until somewhat recently.

My father, also named Nick Boragina, was born in Italy, in particular, in Calabria. From what he tells me, the last name means "Bad Priest" and is 100% Italian.

My mother is Acadian. Her father, Sylvio Plourde, was born in Madawaska in New Brunswick. Her mother (RIP) Marie LeBlanc was born in Kent County in New Brunswick. Her grandmother was native, Mi'kmaq to be specific.

This was all nice and good until the past few years when I started doing some digging.

First, Boragina is not a popular last name whatsoever. It also seems to be spread around Italy. Considering what I've been told about the origin of the name, I have begun to suspect that it is a corruption of Borgia, the infamous middle-ages family that produced a number of popes. I thus, may be, part Spanish. Considering the age of these events, however, that "part" would be very minor.

What is more interesting to me is my grandfather. I can call him right now and ask (though he'll be upset I'm waking him in the middle of the night) but he will insist that he is Acadian. The "problem" is that my grandmother's sisters originally thought he was Quebecois because of his accent. As well there are a very limited number of Plourdes in New Brunswick, but a large number in Quebec. In addition, he was born suspiciously close to the Quebec border. Perhaps over a generation or two or three they became accepted as "Acadian" but in terms of "Ethnicity" - if you believe the Quebecois are an "Ethnicity" that is - it is very likely he is a Quebecois.

Thus I may be 25% Quebecois!

New Poll, New Numbers

Tweetline: #qc2012 Prévision des Election / Election Projection 51 #PQ | 40 #CAQ | 32 #PLQ | 2 #QS | 0 #ON http://riding-by-riding.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-poll-new-numbers.html


There are a few things to note here. First, the PQ is not rising, in fact, they are falling, or at least, are stuck. Secondly, in the past both the PLQ and ADQ have been able to outperform the polls. Third, the CAQ clearly has the momentum and is on the move. These things combine to tell me that the final result will have the PQ lower than expected and the CAQ higher, confirming my trendline.

Next, another note is that the CAQ vote is becoming much more efficient. Their regional splits have settled down and they are no longer whompping in the Capitale-Nationale (Quebec City area) but rather only winning by a large margin, they also are down on the Island of Montreal. Without these two areas sucking up votes, there are votes in the Rest of Quebec that are going CAQ. This might be a bit confusing so here is what I mean.

Last election there were 3.3 million voters in Quebec. 30% of that is about a million votes. I expect the CAQ right now is sitting on 30%, or, a million votes. In 2007, when the ADQ did very well, they took 122,000 votes on the Island of Montreal. Lets presume for a moment that the CAQ is sitting on 122,000 votes on the Island of Montreal. That means that there are 878,000 votes going CAQ elsewhere in Quebec. If the CAQ, however, is sitting on 200,000 votes on the Island of Montreal, that means there are only 800,000 CAQ votes elsewhere in Quebec, meaning they will win less ridings in these areas and more on Montreal; but with the CAQ/ADQ doing so poorly on the Island of Montreal, 122,000 votes or 200,000 votes both mean 0 seats; thus the total seats won by the CAQ is lower.

This all changes, however, if the CAQ can concentrate their Montreal vote in a particular area, say, in Anglophone ridings.

Regardless, as usual:

Map!