That's the story the polls have been telling us about the Saskatchewan provincial election next Monday. Brad Wall of the Saskatchewan Party is an extremely popular incumbent premier riding on the coattails of a hot economy and sustained growth. That the SP is going to win a massive majority on Monday is undisputed. The real question is how many of the province's 58 seats can the NDP reasonably expect to walk away with. Turnout is going to be a major player this election.
Will favourable poll numbers make Sask. Party supporters complacent, and help the NDP keep a few more seats than they would otherwise? Or will psychologically downbeat NDP supporters opt to stay home, exacerbating the SP landslide? Usually in these cases, the party with the big lead sees a late narrowing and a drop in turnout works against them.
The other question is: how low can the Liberal Party go? With only 9 candidates this election cycle, the Liberal is closer to the Western Independence Party than the Green Party. While the polls expects them to take 1.5% of the vote, even 1% could prove difficult (I've tweaked the vote projection to reflect this). It seems the Sask. Party has taken over all of their former support, and the need for a Liberal Party in Saskatchewan could very well be called into doubt.
With that, here is what is most likely the final (and only) projection for the Saskatchewan election.
SP: 60-67%, 44-52 seats; median 63.0%, 46 seats
NDP: 27-34%, 6-14 seats; median 31.5%, 12 seats
Green: 3-5%, 0 seats; median 3.5%, 0 seats
Other: 0-3%, 0 seats; median 2.0%, 0 seats
There are only 3 recent polls for me to work with, so the confidence range is larger than I'd like, but in this case the outcome is nowhere near changeable.
To conclude, Politically Uncorrect projects a SASK. PARTY LANDSLIDE.
