Quebec votes for 127 seats, with the Parti Québécois favoured and a majority still in doubt

Quebecers voted on Monday for all 127 seats in the National Assembly. Sixty-four seats make a majority. Lieutenant Governor Manon Jeannotte dropped the writs on 27 August, after Premier Christine Fréchette asked her to dissolve the legislature. Polls closed under a fixed-date law that set the election for the first Monday of October in the fourth year after the last legislature. Results were still coming in as the voting day itself became the story outside the province.

Éric Grenier's final pre-election model, updated on the night of 4 October, put the Parti Québécois ahead in 94 percent of simulations and a majority in only 36 percent. In 58 percent of runs the PQ won a minority. The average seat count in the model was 58, just short of 64, with the party leading in 65 seats at the high end of its range. The Quebec Liberal Party was projected around 37 seats and a return to official opposition. The Conservative Party of Quebec was projected around 17 seats and just over 20 percent of the vote, enough in Grenier's reading for official party status either by seats or by vote share.

Who is on the ballot

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon leads the Parti Québécois and holds Camille-Laurin. The party won 3 seats and 14.61 percent in 2022 and went into this campaign with 7 seats. Fréchette has led the Coalition Avenir Québec since 12 April 2026 and is running in Trois-Rivières. The CAQ won 90 seats and 40.98 percent in 2022 and held 79 at dissolution. Charles Milliard has led the Liberals since 13 February 2026 and is running in Orford. The Liberals won 21 seats and 14.37 percent last time and held 18. Ruba Ghazal leads Québec solidaire, holds Mercier, and took the leadership on 16 November 2024. QS won 11 seats and 15.43 percent in 2022 and still held 11. Éric Duhaime leads the Conservatives, is running in Bellechasse, and took the party from zero seats and 12.91 percent in 2022 to one seat before the writs.

Each of the five main parties filed a full slate of 127 candidates. Smaller lists included Climat Québec under Martine Ouellet with 52, the Parti nul under Renaud Blais with 38, the Green Party under Alex Tyrrell with 37, and the Parti canadien du Québec under Joseph Cianflone with 29.

Why the chamber is larger

The assembly grew from 125 seats to 127 for this election. Two districts were added. Thirty-nine changed boundaries. Five regions were left alone. The new seats track population growth the electoral commission had already flagged. A majority line at 64, rather than 63, is the mechanical result. Grenier's model sitting at an average of 58 seats for the PQ is why a first-place party can still miss a majority by a handful of ridings around Quebec City and the suburbs.

The referendum question hangs over the PQ lead. Plamondon has kept a sovereignty vote in the party programme. A minority, which Grenier rated more likely than a majority on the final polls, would leave that vote dependent on partners who do not want one. The Liberals under Milliard are the federalist opposition in the projection. The CAQ under Fréchette is the incumbent autonomist government trying to hold a map it won by 90 seats four years ago and has since watched shrink to 79 before a single Monday ballot.

What Monday does not yet decide

A projection is not a count. The 36 percent majority share in Grenier's simulations is a statement about poll error, not a forecast of the riding-level result. Official party status for Duhaime's Conservatives, if the vote share clears 20 percent or the seats clear 12, would put a fifth party on the assembly floor with the funding and question time that status brings. QS under Ghazal is the party whose seat count has moved least since 2022.

The institutional fact of the day is the expanded house and the date. Quebec has not elected this 127-seat map before. The premier who advises the lieutenant governor after the count will be the first to govern it. Until the returning officers finish, the only numbers that are fixed are the ones in the election law: 127 seats, 64 for a majority, writs dropped on 27 August, polls on 5 October.