Monday, March 05, 2007

The Two Quebec Elections

Every time Quebec goes to the polls, there are always two elections underway at once - one among anglophones/allophones and one among francophones. The two contests are quite different. In the most recent Léger poll here is the linguistic breakdown.

Among anglo/allos (about 17% of Quebec's population):

Jean Charest's PLQ - 71%
André Boisclair's PQ- 12%
Mario Dumont's ADQ - 9%
Others - 7%

However, among francophones (about 83% of Quebec's population) a different story. You wouldn't know it from the media coverage but the PQ actually does have a small lead among francophone voters overall:

André Boisclair's PQ- 33%
Jean Charest's PLQ - 28%
Mario Dumont's ADQ - 28%
Others - 12% (including 6% for Quebec solidaire, which is drawing votes from the PQ)

When it is all added up the poll overall gives us the following outcome:

Jean Charest's PLQ - 36%
André Boisclair's PQ- 29%
Mario Dumont's ADQ - 25%
Others - 11%

My estimate is that this would probably produce a minority Liberal government, but when you have a three way race that evenly divided among francophones it makes the net outcome very unpredictable at this stage.

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