Canadian by-elections, 2014

[DL]

Its possible - but its also possible that the bottom falls out of OLP support and the ONDP gains traction during the campaign - its also possible (if not likely) that we get another minority parliament in Ontario and that July and August get dominated by machinations between the OLP and NDP over possible coalitions/accords etc...and that could create interesting dynamic federally in Trinity-Spadina since the federal NDP has declared itself open to any form of cooperation with the Liberals (e.g. coalition, accord etc...) in order to defeat Harper - while the Liberals under Trudeau reject working with anyone and have stated that they have no interest in ditching Harper unless they can govern alone - in Trinity-Spadina the Liberal position is likely to be anathema - though in a byelection it may or may not be a vote determining issue!

[DL]

Apparently in the advance polls turnout was low to the point of being non-existent in the condos...which is good since that is where a lot of Liberal support is - apparently the NDP has a lot of identified votes in that 7,000 who voted advance (possibly a majority) and it goes without saying that turnout on e-day June 30 promises to be ridiculously low - so who knows. Remember how Forum kept showing these big Liberal leads in Brandon-Souris and then it "reverted to the mean" and stayed Conservative!

[DL]

Is that internal data? , and secondly, Brandon Souris had a lot of trouble because rural route addresses are difficult to survey

How so? This is a phone survey not a door to door survey - someone living on a farm has a listed phone number just like someone in the middle of Brandon

[DL]

From what I understand, it's difficult to tie those phone numbers to addresses in specific ridings

That's bullsh**t - samples of phone numbers can be bought by postal code and by federal electoral district...in any case most of the non-Brandon part of Brandon-Souris would be people living in smaller towns outside Brandon - as opposed to people living on ranches.

A bigger problem is the fact that in an inner city riding like Trinity-Spadina with a very young population - it is impossible to get any riding specific cell phone sample.

[DL]

Furthermore the no-landline-concerns never seem to pan out.  Perhaps such concerns tend to be cancelled out by their rather low turnout rates.

Except that the IVR polls done by Ekos and Forum and Campaign Research at the end of the ontario election campaign all significantly underestimated NDP support and the excuse being given by Ekos is that this is because of undersampling of people who only have cell phones...now over 20% of the electorate

[DL]

Interesting. It looks like a fascinating place. What kind of people live there?

Artists and bohemian types...

[DL]

The Sun's "endorsement" of Cressy is probably terrible news. Urban progressives loathe the Sun, so their endorsement can only hurt Cressy's chances.

First of all "the Sun" didn't endorse Cressy - one of their columnists did. Actually that makes two columnists at the Sun who have endorsed Cressy - Christina Blizzard and Warren Kinsella. The Blizzard endorsement came out today - meaning that no "urban progressive" will even be aware of it since they don't read the Sun in the first place and the byelection is tomorrow. There are more people than you think in Trinity-Spadina who do read the Sun...and while Blizzard is a rightwing Tory and Kinsella is a Liberal - they both know that Joe Cressy is a great guy and Adam Vaughan is - put a charitably - a prick!

[DL]

Kinsella is a Liberal

ya...no he's not

Says who? Isn't being a senior advisor to Jean Chretien, Michael Ignatieff and dalton McGuinty enough to make someone a Liberal?

[DL]

Kinsella is a Liberal

ya...no he's not

Kinsella seems to have burned his bridges in the Liberal Party and has oddly morphed into a kind of quasi-NDP hack.  

I guess he got involved with Olivia Chow and then "went Native"

[DL]

Kinsella was a major figure in Sandra Puputello's leadership campaign - had she won he would be a big figure in her administration. He is probably a typical Liberal who's disillusioned by how his party is attracting revolting people like Adam Vaughan to the party standard.

[DL]

King of Kensington has got it spot-on. The man isn't a party member.  

Do you have access to Liberal party membership roles to prove that Warren Kinsella is not a member?

[DL]

McQuaig is running in Toronto Centre in 2015 which becomes way more winnable with Rosedale lopped off

[DL]

That was a mistake by Mulcair - Linda McQuaig held an event where she declared her intention to run in Toronto Centre in 2015 NOT Spadina-Fort York. Supposedly Jennifer Hollett will run in Spadina-Fort York

[DL]

In BC the NDP tends to do very well with Filipinos (the one Filipina MLA is the NDP's Mabel Elmore who is also openly lesbian) and the Manitoba NDP practically owns the Filipino vote as well.

[DL]

The NDP's 2nd place showing with 22% in Edmonton-Whitemud is particularly good when you consider that White is absolutely the worst riding in the whole city for the NDP - its very wealthy and very suburban - they didn't even come close to winning there when they swept Edmonton in the 80s.

[DL]

PCs have just lost one of their safest seats in the province.
Based on what we see right now, the next election is almost certain to be a Liberal wave.

You may be right - but bear in mind that in 2012 the BC Liberals lost one of their "safest seats" - Chilliwack-Hope to the BC NDP and everyone said it was curtains for them...they won the general election and won back the seats they lost in byelections - so who knows.

[DL]

Peterborough is now vacant. Guess that will be held sometime this spring unless there's an early election.

Not necessarily, harper could wait six months until May and then call the byelection for Oct. 19 (the supposed date of the next federal election)

[DL]

Keep in mind that about one third of the current riding of Whitby-Oshawa is in the city of Oshawa and after redistribution most of that gets folded into the riding of Oshawa in exchange for Oshawa ceding some of the more outlying northern parts of Oshawa to the riding of Durham. I have heard that Trish McAuliffe the NDP candidate in Whitby-Oshawa is likely to run in Oshawa next year (and Oshawa went NDP by 8,000 votes provincially) - so in the byelection the NDP strategy is probably for her to concentrate very heavily on the part of Whitby-Oshawa that will become part of Oshawa rising in 2015 so she can boost her name recognition there and go for the kill when its all part of Oshawa.

[DL]

No one "settles" for a particular number of votes, you try to get as many votes as you can. But in the absence of unlimited resources it makes sense to target the part of the riding that is the most promising

[DL]

with 65/280 polls reporting the CPC has a 5% lead 47% to 42% - they will very likely win.

[DL]

Rather disappointing, but it's at least close. The NDP will need to pick someone with name recognition. Maybe John Rodriguez?

I'm actually very encouraged by that poll, Thibeault is essentially tied with an unnamed NDP candidate ANDY the poll also prompted for "independent" and 12% said they'd vote for an independent even though there is no talk of anyone of any importance running as an independent. In the cross tabs people who who were undecided or who said they'd support an independent also massive disapproved of Thibeault's switch...this tells me that that if the NDP picks a decent candidate they can profit off a polarized race. So far five people are running for the NDP nomination and it seems likely they will go with Paul Loewenburg who ran in 2011 and lost by just 350 votes.