Will there be any surprises on election night?

The question being posed here is, will there be any surprises in the election results on November 7? Of course there will be - there are always surprises in election results! However the outcome of the 2011 election has been confidently predicted by political pundits years in advance - this means that we are guaranteed to see at least one surprise on November 7!

So what might this surprise be? The conventional wisdom is that the Saskatchewan Party will gain seats at the expense of the NDP as it cruises to a second term. Given the consistent public polling results that have been released in recent years, it is unlikely that this conventional wisdom will not come to pass.

Therefore the coming surprises may have something to do with the magnitude of the Saskatchewan Party's victory and the scope of defeat for the Saskatchewan NDP. Therefore two possibilities emerge - either the Sask Party could gain more seats and the NDP could lose more seats than expected, or the Sask Party could gain fewer eats and the NDP could lose fewer seats than expected. Unless there is a dramatic shift in opinion before November 7, we are unlikely to see the NDP build on the 20 seats that they currently hold in the Legislature. But this doesn't mean that the NDP can't defeat any incumbent Sask Party MLAs.

There are 3 seats where Sask Party MLAs are vulnerable to NDP victories this fall. The margins of victory for Darryl Hickie in Prince Albert Carlton, Warren Michelson in Moose Jaw North and Jeremy Harrison in Meadow Lake were all within 100 votes last time. If you add the votes that the Liberal candidates in those constituencies received in 2007 to the Sask Party total, the pluralities of victory for Hickie, Michelson and Harrison grow to 660 votes, 236 votes and 431 votes respectively. Of the 3, it appears that Harrison is the most vulnerable to a surprise NDP win, since a plurality of 236 votes is not an insurmountable lead. However, at this point there is provincewide momentum for the Saskatchewan Party, and likely many new voters in these ridings who are originally from out-of-province. Thus the challenge for the Sask Party and the Sask NDP will be command momentum in this marginal ridings and to deliver enough identified supporters to the polls to ensure a victory. Who ever said Saskatchewan politics is boring?!