October’s federal election produced a result that seemed extremely unlikely at the outset of the campaign in August. To understand what happened, it’s worth looking at two fairly simple indicators of how the election was received and what effects it will have on the country.

The stunning Liberal victory brings up a number of key questions. What are Canadians’ expectations for the future? How do citizens hope or imagine the return of ‘progressive Canada’ will affect their lives and the country?

Overall voter satisfaction level with this election is only marginally higher than it was in 2011. What is different is the much lower level of dissatisfaction this time. Conservatives, not surprisingly, were unhappy; Liberal supporters were ecstatic. The remarkable aspect is how supporters of other parties rated the outcome in each of these two elections.

In 2011, the NDP reached a historic 103 seats and formed the Official Opposition. These were heady achievements for a party which had never before come close to that level of political success. Yet the NDP fell short of denying Stephen Harper his strong, stable majority. In 2015, the NDP suffered one of the biggest political setbacks in Canadian history, losing more than half its seats and being reduced to third party status once again.

So it’s significant that the people in the NDP’s dwindled constituency appear to be much happier in the wake of the recent vote than they were in 2011. This vividly illustrates a key finding: throughout the last four years, ‘promiscuous progressive voters’ moved back and forth between the NDP and the Liberals. One year before the election, it was clear that Justin Trudeau was in the driver’s seat; then, in the face of withering negative advertising by the Conservatives aimed at Trudeau, the progressive vote began to coalesce around Tom Mulcair.

Some voters would have preferred a blend of some sort because there were two overriding objectives for progressive Canada: defeating Harper and installing some form of progressive government. Affection and fealty to individual parties were subordinated to those twin objectives. That’s why NDP voters were much happier with such a diminished outcome for their party. We’ll hazard a guess and say that Liberal voters likely would have been happier with an NDP victory than any scenario involving a continuation of the Harper government.

In the end, it was to the Liberals that progressive voters turned in large numbers in the late stages of the campaign. Almost one-third of voters decided which party to support only in the final week — a third of them only on Election Day itself.

The combined pressure among anti-Conservative voters of those two dominant goals — getting Harper out and a progressive government in — drove voters to the Liberals, a migration strategically informed by polls to an extent we have not seen so clearly before. Overwhelmingly, Trudeau’s Liberals emerged in the late stages of the campaign as the safest route to achieving these objectives.

Notably, late switchers – erstwhile supporters of the NDP and the Green Party – defected in droves in the final week. Nearly 60 per cent of those voters changed horses in the final stage of the campaign and they overwhelmingly went to the Liberals.

The 2011 campaign was all about inertia; the 2015 ballot was all about movement and change. Voters told us that this was a very high-stakes election. Voter turnout provided behavioural validation of these claims.

We thought it useful to ask Canadians if and how they thought the world would be different because of this election. Canadians tell us they see this as the beginning of a ‘sea change’ — a profound shift in the character of the country. One of the keys to the Liberals’ success was exceeding the very low expectations established by the Conservative party. Now, those low expectations have been replaced with huge, likely unrealistic expectations.

The results suggest that the reinstatement of a progressive government comes with large expectations of change. Notably, those expectations are highest when it comes to restoring the core values that progressive Canada saw compromised during the Harper era.

Fully two-thirds of Canadians believe that the new government will improve Canada’s reputation on the world stage (only 18 per cent think Justin Trudeau will have a negative impact on our international standing). A similar percentage holds a positive outlook on the health of democracy, which may reflect just how far basic barometers of trust in government and democracy had descended under Harper’s watch. Similarly high expectations are attached to the new government’s prospects for moving forward on climate change.

What is remarkable about these indicators is how this new optimism is shared by Canadians of either gender, from every region, age group and educational cohort.

Canadians are a little bit more circumspect about the government’s potential impact on the economy and our quality of life, but there is a clear plurality who think these areas of Canadian life will be improved. About half of Canadians are hopeful that the Liberals will strengthen and grow the economy. In terms of their personal quality of life and standard of living, a large portion of the Canadian electorate looks at the 2015 election results with more of a “business as usual” attitude in this area.

Results here are more split along party lines; the pessimists are concentrated in the traditionally Conservative demographics — Albertans and high school graduates. What is remarkable is that the share of the population predicting an erosion of Canada under Trudeau is between 10 and 20 per cent. Trudeau has the clear confidence of the country — and even the number of skeptics is well below the numbers supporting other parties.

The public’s mood about the new government is very positive — but not unqualified. Recall the Liberals went from third place to a decisive first in an extremely dynamic and surprising election. Citizens have yet to fully catch up with this result — but it does reflect a clear public judgement rooted in values and a belief that the new government had a more compelling narrative on how to restart economic and middle class progress.

The new government should savour this happy mood while it lasts — and remember the advantages of under-promising and over-delivering.

Frank Graves is founder and president of EKOS Polling.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

This study draws on data from two separate surveys. The first survey was conducted using High Definition Interactive Voice Response (HD-IVR™) technology, which allows respondents to enter their preferences by punching the keypad on their phone, rather than telling them to an operator. In an effort to reduce the coverage bias of landline only RDD, we created a dual landline/cell phone RDD sampling frame for this research. As a result, we are able to reach those with a landline and cell phone, as well as cell phone only households and landline only households.

The field dates for the first survey are October 20-23, 2015. In total, a random sample of 1,973 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey. The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The second survey was conducted using EKOS’ unique, hybrid online/telephone research panel, Probit. Our panel offers exhaustive coverage of the Canadian population (i.e., Internet, phone, cell phone), random recruitment (in other words, participants are recruited randomly, they do not opt themselves into our panel), and equal probability sampling. All respondents to our panel are recruited by telephone using random digit dialling and are confirmed by live interviewers. Unlike opt-in online panels, Probit supports margin of error estimates. We believe this to be the only probability-based online panel in Canada.

The field dates for the second survey are October 27-November 2, 2015. In total, a random sample of 1,227 Canadian adults aged 18 and over responded to the survey (1,114 online, 113 by phone). The margin of error associated with the total sample is +/- 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Please note that the margin of error increases when the results are sub-divided (i.e., error margins for sub-groups such as region, sex, age, education). All the data have been statistically weighted by age, gender, region, and educational attainment to ensure the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population of Canada according to Census data.