British Columbia 2026

Same polls, different physics. Here is what Orbit, our quantum engine, sees next to Harfang des neiges, our classical model.

Orbit’s favourite

Con

60% chance of finishing first

Seats won

53Harfang 52 8 in 10 chance between 29 and 68

Chance of a majority (47)

57%Harfang 73% Con

Same favourite as Harfang des neiges

99% of ridings

Orbit (quantum) vs. Harfang des neiges (classical): do they agree?

They agree

Orbit (quantum)

Harfang (classical)

50/50 blend

Majority: 47

What if we listened to both engines at once?

50/50 blend: Con 52 · Chance of a majority65%

The blend gives each riding the average of the chances announced by Orbit and by our reference forecast, then counts the favourites. In our Quebec replays (2018 and 2022, the day before the vote), the blend always beat the reference forecast alone: in 2018 the error drops from 6.5 to 4.5 seats, and the announced probabilities become far more reliable. The 50/50 split is a choice of principle, not a setting tuned on those two elections. October 5 will be its first real blind test.

Party by party

Con +1 Harfang

Vote: 41.4%
Vote Harfang: 40.9%
Chance of a majority: 57%

NDP −1 Harfang

Vote: 39.2%
Vote Harfang: 39.0%
Chance of a majority: 37%

GP = Harfang

Vote: 11.1%
Vote Harfang: 11.0%
Chance of a majority: < 1%

The vote, with its margin of uncertainty

The solid bar is Orbit’s projected vote; the thin line, an 8-in-10 range; the black tick, our reference forecast.

Con 41.4%
NDP 39.2%
GP 11.1%
CentreBC 3.3%
OneBC 3.2%
OTH 1.8%

Where the two engines disagree

Surrey-Fleetwood Orbit (quantum): Con · 51% Harfang (classical): NDP

Orbit’s instruments

Voters who switched sides since the last election

11.4 at least, in points of the electorate

Average gap between pollsters

± 2.1 points, around the most likely state

Cone of possibilities until election day

± 8.8 points of maximum movement for a party at 30%

Days to election

20 October 24, 2026

The test of the past

We replayed past elections using only the polls known the day before the vote. Here is the average gap, per party, between projected seats won and the real results — the same measure as our track record. Lower is better.

Election	Orbit gap	Harfang gap	Ridings called right (Orbit)
British Columbia 2024	1.3	not replayed	86%

How Orbit works, in three ideas

Opinion travels on a sphere

A 2-point gain does not mean the same thing for a party at 5% and a party at 40%. By placing opinion on a curved sphere, Orbit knows this by instinct, and it carries the national swing to each riding the way you carry an arrow across a globe.

Polls are measurements

As in quantum physics, each poll is a measurement of a hidden state: the electorate. Orbit tracks that state day after day, erases each pollster’s own lean and lets no one dictate the average alone.

Qubits instead of dice

Each riding becomes a small quantum register. Instead of rolling dice 50,000 times, Orbit counts the seats exactly, in seconds. A real quantum circuit gives the same answer, to the billionth.

Read the full explanation →