The riding-by-riding election prediction machine DemocraticSPACE has launched its 2008 campaign website. It currently predicts the following seat makeup:
- CON: 146 (up from 124 in 2006 and 99 in 2004, but just shy of the 155 needed for a majority government)
- LIB: 91 (down from 103 in 2006 and 135 in 2004)
- NDP: 30 (same as at dissolution: 29 in 2006 plus Thomas Mulcair in Outremont)
- BQ: 39 (down from 51)
- GRN: 0
- IND: 2 (André Arthur in Quebec and ex-Tory Bill Casey in Nova Scotia)
- BQ: 39 (down from 51)
- CON: 18 (up from 10)
- LIB: 16 (up from 13)
- NDP: 1 (Mulcair)
- GRN: 0
- IND: 1 (Arthur)
If these results hold, it would be bad for the Liberals nationally, bad for the Bloc, bad for the Greens (Vancouver Liberal-turned-Green MP Blair Wilson, they predict, will lose to the Tories), status quo for the NDP and, of course, good for the Conservatives, but still short of their goal.
The website will keep updating its predictions, based in part from comments left by constituents in those ridings, before taking a wild guess on too-close-to-call races just before the vote. In the 2006 election, the website was 94% accurate at predicting which party would win any given riding, underestimating the number of Liberal seats and overestimating the number of Conservative and Bloc seats.