Ekos seat projection for Oct 3.

There is also an Ekos popular vote breakdown as well at the same Ekos site. I have given party popular vote percentage in parentheses after the number of seats they indicate for each party.
155 seats are needed for a majority. This poll contrasts with a Nanos poll today that puts the Liberals at 30 percent of popular vote! As far as a Harper majority is concerned he is quite close and Conservative popularity does not seem to be declining very much although at one time it was at 40. We need more polls to see if there is any real change after the debate and other events such as the US financial meltdown. There is still well over a week to go.

Conservatives 152 (36)

Liberals 60 (24)

NDP 41 (19)

Green 0 (11)

Bloc 54 (10)

Other 1

SEAT PROJECTION - OCTOBER 3, 2008-->
Conservatives Tantalizingly Close to Majority

[OTTAWA – October 3, 2008] – We offer this seat projection, based on our latest EKOS tracking poll, released earlier today.

According to today’s figures, the CPC is poised for victory. Although the predicted 152 seats means the Conservatives are still shy of a majority, it would return them to power with a much strengthened minority (+28 seats). It is worth noting that the CPC would be improving their position despite achieving almost exactly the same proportion of the popular vote they had in the last election (roughly 36%).

Two factors have emerged in this election that allow for this scenario to occur. This first is that the gap between the Conservatives and the second place Liberals is much greater today (36:24) than in 2006 (36:30). The second is that the left-of-centre vote is far more fractured among the LPC, NDP and Greens.

This projection also finds the Bloc just six seats behind the Liberals, making Gilles Duceppe a serious contender for leader of the opposition. Based on our analysis, however, we would expect the LPC to retain its role as official opposition, as the party remains the primary beneficiaries of “strategic vote shifting”, a trend we anticipate coming into greater focus over last week of the election campaign.

As always, we caution that seat projections have inherent limitations. However, this projection offers a plausible scenario of what might happen if Canadians voted as they told us they intend to do over the last few days.