first, the hijab narrative is nonsense. as you can see, the conservatives seem to wavered up a little at about the same time as that was happening. remember, kids: correlation does not imply causation. it seems to have been a little randomness in the data, nothing more. but, hey, when you have an election like this, the media will jump on anything it possibly can.
so, the hijab thing in quebec is bollocks. there's no trace of it in the polling. if it does show up eventually, it's going to be because the media created it. but for all the problems the country has, we're better than that. more than most of us. almost all of us. so, ignore that. and, fuck the media.
what you don't see there is undecideds. nanos decided not to publish that this morning. but, he published it yesterday and it was roughly twice the national average, around 16%.
what that means is that the place ndp support is going is to "i don't know". nobody is directly benefiting. there's been no swing. rather, what we're seeing is a large pool of apathetic voters that are disenchanted by the ndp's move to the right and now don't like any of the options.
here's the thing: if they choose not to vote at all, if we have record low turnout in quebec, then it's the liberals that benefit because, in quebec, they have the strongest base. for now, anyways. a lot of it is getting older.
but, here's another twist: the media narrative is only likely to worsen voter turnout and increase apathy. and, honestly? i agree. it's depressing. as a ballot question, it's enough to make you want to spoil your ballot.
now, you've got the tpp thrown in - and the fact that everybody except the bloc and greens are in favour of it.
...and a long election...
what this is is a toxic stew leading to voter apathy and increasing disengagement, and that's what the numbers here are really saying: as previous ndp voters tune out altogether, the liberals are closing in.
so, i'd be leaning towards the bloc being the most likely to pick up the voters that have been knocked loose.
but, i think the larger trends signal a drive towards record low voter turnout.
