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To gauge Canadians’ expectations about the election, we ask our respondents which party they expect to win in their constituency and which party they expect to win the most seats nationally. Each party is given a score on a 0-100 scale. We then “normalize” these scores so that the sum across all parties is 100. This gives us something like a probability estimate of each party winning the election.

These estimates tell an interesting and, for the Liberals and the NDP, a frustrating story. According to all eligible voters we surveyed from Aug. 27 to Sept. 10, the average expectation of winning the most seats for the Conservatives is 28 per cent. The Liberals are at 27 per cent, while the NDP sits at 31 per cent. While we have a large number of observations and thus very small margins of error, there is still too little space between these parties to make anything of the differences. The key point is that voters are equally split on which opposition party is likely to win. This makes coordination of preferences very difficult. What makes it even more difficult is that Liberal and NDP voters do not share the same expectations. Those who voted for the Liberal in 2011 give their party a four point expectation advantage over the NDP. Those who voted NDP in 2011 give their party an eight point edge over the Liberals. They cannot both be correct.

The story at the constituency level looks very similar, though it is better for Conservatives. Among all eligible voters, 34 per cent believe the Tories will win their constituency. Twenty-nine per cent give the nod to the NDP and 27 per cent to the Liberals. Once again, there is likely disagreement on which party to coordinate. And, once again, there is a divergence of estimates between past Liberal and past NDP voters. Liberal voters give their party a 12 point edge over the NDP and NDP voters estimate the same advantage for their party.