By the skin of their teeth

As disastrous as the recent election results were for the Bloc, it's worth noting that they were nearly much worse. Here's the list of the closest races in the country - and it can't escape notice that three of the Bloc's four seats were won by less than 3% of the popular vote, with Richmond–Arthabaska ranking as the 12th-closest race in the country, Ahuntsic 15th, and Bas-Richelieu–Nicolet–Bécancour 31st. (In contrast, only two of the Bloc's losses were by 5 points or less, with the closest of those ranking 25th.)

Of course, we can fully expect matters to change in one direction or another by 2015. But it's surely worth noting that the Bloc's loss in seats didn't in fact reflect their losing a lot of close races - and in fact the party wasn't far from being reduced to a single seat in the House of Commons.