Canadian federal election - October 19, 2015 (Official Campaign Thread)

[DC Al Fine]

Worth noting for those who advance the myth that Mulcair conquered a "no-hope" riding in his byelection that Outremont was the NDP's best QC seat for 5 consecutive federal elections before that...

It was still 17% of the vote pre-Mulcair and pre-Orange Crush. Would it have been anywhere near an NDP target list had Mulcair not been on the ballot?

[DC Al Fine]

Con: 71%
Lib: 48%
NDP: 30%
Green: 28%

[DC Al Fine]

Paul Martin blasts NDP move to the 'far right'

[DC Al Fine]

Wells on Grit polling. We'll see what happens when the Phony War ends next week.

What a stupid article. First,  it puts way too much importance on the regional sub samples which are too small to believe the numbers are dead on.

More importantly, it overlooks that when Dion got 26% of the vote in 2008, it wasn't a 3 way race.  If the Liberals got 26% of the vote this time, they'd probably win 100 seats.

I'd tweet that to Paul Wells, but if I did, I understand he'd block me.  He is said to be the most thin skinned journalist in Ottawa.

You say that as if the party system simply sprung into existence from nothing. For better or worse, there's a large segment of leftish voters who would have voted Liberal in 1997, or 2004, or even as recently as last year, that will probably vote NDP. The Liberals' inability to bring these voters back into the fold is a major cause for them staying between 25-30%, and is a major aspect of their performance. To handwave that away as part of the three party system, doesn't do it justice.

[DC Al Fine]

A riding poll is out in Laurier-Ste. Marie that has horrifically bad news for Gilled Duceppe the leader of the BQ.

Helene Laverdiere NDP - 57%
Gilles Duceppe BQ - 20%
Poirier Liberal - 15%

http://tvanouvelles.ca/lcn/infos/national/archives/2015/09/20150902-155418.html

Wow. Barring Plamondon winning as a quasi-independent, it looks like the Bloc are goners.

[DC Al Fine]

Peter Pensahue is running for the Tories in Labrador

[DC Al Fine]

It's a northern riding so, I guess the Tory strategists think his base will turn out for him no matter what. Not that I think it will matter if they run him or some staffer, but I can see the logic.

It would be ridiculous though if Penashue's local base and an NDP surge in Atlantic Canada result in him squeaking in

[DC Al Fine]

I think those are both viable strategies given the two parties' respective situations. The Liberals need to get back into the game early and prove they are still a viable force. The NDP is still somewhat of an upstart party, which means they will probably face stiff headwinds towards the end of the race (a candidate will say something dumb, voters will have 2nd thoughts about voting NDP for the first time etc.), so it makes sense for them to keep some dry powder till the end.

[DC Al Fine]

Oh FTR, I haven't seen a single non-Tory in Nova Scotia. Not one lone NDP or Liberal ad has crossed my TV screen yet.

[DC Al Fine]

Tom Mulcair promises CPP, QPP expansions

I vastly prefer expanding CPP to the Ontario Liberals' *just asking for mismanagement* plan, but I doubt this will come to fruition.

Tom Mulcair and the NDP are becoming my sensible second choice and the Liberals are becoming my ridiculous lefties... What is the world coming to? I miss Paul Martin.

[DC Al Fine]

You mean the same Paul Martin who seems to think Mulcair is the second coming of Ronald Reagan? OK

Paul Martin the finance minister, not Paul Martin the Liberal hack. As other Liberal hacks like to remind me, he was the most fiscally conservative finance minsiter/PM EVAH!!!

[DC Al Fine]

Now a new Forum poll is out: NDP 36%, Liberals 32% and CPC 24%

I find it impossible to believe their Ontario number where they have Conservative support at just 21%

Yet again, lol Forum.

[DC Al Fine]

Forum are pretty terrible, but is there actually a Canadian polling firm (these days) that isn't?

It's not that they are terrible, rater, they are more terrible than everyone else.

You know, people make fun of Forum a lot and some of it is justified...I usually have less of a problem with their actual numbers than I do with their ex-cathedra spin on their own findings. But apart from that Brandon-Souris by election their record is not bad at all.

Their final polls were quite close to the final result in the 2011 federal election, both the 2011 and 2014 Ontario elections, the Toronto mayoralty last year and other provincial elections in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Alberta

All of that being said I still refuse to believe that the CPC is as low as 21% in Ontario

Well, they'll either look like geniuses or dummies come election day if they keep polling the Tories five points lower than everyone else. They're still the only poster who have shown any statistically significant movement this campaign, so my vote is on dummies.

[DC Al Fine]

I think more Conservative candidate may soon be fired - several have been exposed as having ties to fanatical anti-gay hate groups.

Who?

Yes. Name names and link articles.

[DC Al Fine]

Well, as I've said all along: that's what you get when you let your campaign get run by the brainiacs behind Sun News--and who still feel that Sun News' failure was an "outside fix"...

Just curious, what would you do differently if you were CPC campaign manager? Same for RB, Hatman et al. Not that the Tory campaign is spectacular but I'm having trouble thinking of specifics that would have them up 5% right now.

[DC Al Fine]

As if on cue.

'Stephen Harper isn't perfect': New Tory message raises eyebrows online

[DC Al Fine]

Re: Tory campaign strategy

Much of what I've heard from the media and lay folk about what Harper needs to do different just isn't that feasible right now. I mean the leader is a guy seeking his fourth term in office. He's an oceanliner, not a Honda Civic, so we can't just do a 180 on his image mid-campaign.

Harper has two major issues. The first is Harper fatigue. Most have commented on it so I won't add anything. The second problem is that the Tories have spent the last couple of years preparing to fight Trudeau, and now Mulcair is leading a three way race. Mulcair is siphoning some of Harper's "politics for grown ups" mojo.

With that in mind, I'd change the following

1) Get some decent anti-Mulcair ads. The only people this "career politician" stuff will work for live in Quebec and won't vote for us anyway.

2) Join the debates. In a three way race, Mulcair and Trudeau will have to go after each other, which will help bring some swing voters back in the fold.

3) Release a decent flagship policy. People need to get talking about a Tory tax cut.

If I had the campaign from the start, I'd also loosen up a but on security, media etc. This is the first campaign I remember where HQ, not candidates are responsible for most unforced errors.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm wondering what the seat target is for the Tories to have any chance of a minority government.  If they are the biggest party in seat terms but just barely, seems like they would fail, but what if they are pretty close to a seat majority?

An important factor is how the Liberals and NDP do relative to each other. If Trudeau and Mulcair both think they are the rightful PM there is less of a chance of them working out a coalition/informal arrangement between themselves.

E.g. 130-100-100

is better for Harper than

140-120-70

[DC Al Fine]

Daily Nanos

30.9-30.8-29.9

[DC Al Fine]

Elizabeth May willing to mediate coalition to topple Stephen Harper

Lol Greens.

[DC Al Fine]

CBC talking about how the Liberals are running left of the NDP.

[DC Al Fine]

Also, who the heck is choosing where riding polls are done? I want to see how Fortin, Rathberger, and Mark are doing, but no all we get is polls of random boring swing ridings.

[DC Al Fine]

At the moment, Eric Grenier is projecting Churchill, the riding covering northern Manitoba, to be a Liberal gain from the NDP, 41-38. The riding has been held by the NDP continuously since 1979, excluding the Liberal wave in 1993 and a split in the NDP vote in 2006 (when the riding also went Liberal). Indeed in 2011, the Liberals came in third to the NDP and Conservatives, 51-26-20. Is this an unreasonable result calculated by universal swing, or is the Manitoba provincial NDP government really so unpopular that the NDP is at risk of losing Churchill?

Grenier's model does a poor job of of accurately mapping out large swings. The Liberals have gone from ~10% to ~30%. His model over projects the swing onto the few remaining areas where the Liberals had support in 2011 (Churchill, Ralph Goodale's riding, the wealthier bits of Winnipeg), and under projects it every where else.

Here's an example: The Liberals got roughly the same vote share in the Prairies in 2004 that they are polling now. Grenier projects the Liberals to get roughly 60% of the vote in Winnipeg South, Winnipeg South Centre, and Saint Boniface, but in 2004 they score roughly 45-50%. Conversely, the Liberals did better in 2004 in the rural Prairies than Grenier is projecting them to.

Getting back to your original question, it's not out of the question that the Liberals could pick up Churchill if they surged at the end of the campaign, but they aren't going to pick it up as things currently stand.

[DC Al Fine]

What other places are there to go that have detailed riding-by-riding projections? As long as Grenier has a monopoly on that, he'll be able to attract attention.

Look--you have to regard Grenier as the psephological equivalent of the talking GPS girl.  Giving directions from the "data available", but no substitute for the ability to navigate oneself and get one's feel for the lay of the land.

An excellent analogy.

I've been reading him less lately. His comments section has gone to pot during the campaign. I guess its to be expected, but there's only so many comments about Harper pulling a Campbell '93/Mulroney '84 you can read without going crazy.

[DC Al Fine]

What are "tax integrity measures"?