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Election 2021: 338Canada projects NDP victories in most of Vancouver Island

Canadians head to the polls on Sept. 20 for the 44th federal election. Photo credit: "I just did" by Dennis Sylvester Hurd via Flickr (Public Domain).
Roy Hales - CKTZ - Cortes Island • BC | 07-09-2021
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338Canada’s projection for Sept. 6 shows the NDP on the verge of winning five or six of Vancouver Island’s seven federal seats.

If the electoral projection website is correct, the NDP are riding on a wave of pubic support that they have not seen since 1988 when 43.9 per cent of the Island’s popular vote was NDP. They had 40 per cent in yesterday’s projection.

Chart showing the winners in every Vancouver riding from 2008 to 2019, plus the Canada338 projection for Sept 6, 2021

Chart compiled from election data and 338Canada Sept. 6 projection by Roy L Hales. Note: The number of ridings increased from 6 to 7 in 2015 and identifications with previous ridings are approximate.

So far during this election, 338Canada projected that the Conservative party would replace the Greens as the Vancouver Island’s second choice in terms of popular vote.

Yet the only riding where someone not belonging to the NDP enjoys a comfortable lead is Saanich-Gulf Islands, where Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been the MP since 2011.

Rachel Blaney was elected in North Island -Powell River, as part of an NDP sweep in which they captured 6 of Vancouver Island's 7 ridings.

The vast majority of Cortes Island and other Discovery Island residents voted either NDP or Green in the 2019 election.

Since 338Canada was launched in 2017, its software correctly predicted the outcome of 7 out of 8 elections. It also correctly identified the winning candidate for each riding 88.3 per cent of the time.

"The 338Canada project is a statistical model of electoral projections based on opinion polls, electoral history of Canadian provinces and demographic data. This web site is the creation of Philippe J. Fournier, astronomy and physics professor at Cégep de Saint-Laurent in Montréal," the 338 website states.

A graph depicting the popular vote on Vancouver island in the 2015, and 2019 elections, as well as 338Canada's projection for September 6, 2021

Compiled from elections data and 338Canada projection for Sept 6, 2021 by Roy L Hales.

A combination of demographic and polling data is used to project the outcomes of federal and provincial elections.

The calculations change every time new data is introduced.

For example, throughout most of the 2019 federal election, the Green Party was depicted leading in four Vancouver Island ridings. However, this changed by election day, when 338Canada correctly projected the NDP winning five seats and Green Party MPs being elected in two.

There are still 13 days, and two federal leadership debates, until election day on Sept. 20.

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