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

[DC Al Fine]

Quebec will be interesting on election night for sure.

If DL's analysis is true, a small shift in support for the NDP could mean the difference between a minor loss and a massive one.

It's also interesting to see how each party views their support. The Bloc wishes they were more concentrated, the Liberals want to be more spread out. I imagine the Tories are pretty happy if their 15% is concentrated in Quebec City & Chaudiere-Appalaches.

[DC Al Fine]

Those EKOS Manitoba numbers lol lol lol

Sample sizes of 28 and 42 in Saskatchewan and Manitoba respectively. No wonder those numbers look off

[DC Al Fine]

Since we've been talking about potential leadership candidates, does any one have any ideas who will run to be Elizabeth May's eventual successor?

[DC Al Fine]

Dan Gagnier resigns from the Grit campaign after his lobbying advice to EnergyEast was revealed.

Not that it will make a huge difference, but its nice to see the Liberals finally get a negative story.

[DC Al Fine]

Since we've been talking about potential leadership candidates, does any one have any ideas who will run to be Elizabeth May's eventual successor?

If Jo-Ann Roberts wins Victoria, she'll be a contender for the Green leadership.

I'd extend that to any Green candidate. If the Greens have a caucus of 2-3, any non-May MP will be a leadership contender.

[DC Al Fine]

Possibly. If there's one thing left that can swing large numbers of votes it's major newspaper endorsements. Any idea when the G&M is going to drop theirs?

I think hardly anybody is swayed by newspaper endorsements these days.

Does anybody think that there were some voters who went into the advanced polls planning to vote Conservative but got so annoyed by the long lineups that they ended up voting for a different party?

Its odd to hear these stories of lineups. As I noted on a previous page, it was a total dead zone when my wife and I went to vote Monday. We were the only ones there.

[DC Al Fine]

Elections Canada released advanced polling numbers by riding.

There doesn't seem to be any particularly partisan correlation to it. Worst results after adjusting for population size were either large rural ridings or blighted urban ones (e.g. Souris-Moose Mountain, Hamilton Centre). Best results were in wealthier ridings or traditionally high turnout regions (e.g. Greater Victoria, PEI)

[DC Al Fine]

Also, I just realized there is a place in Saskatchewan called Moose Mountain. Unless there's some hilly part of Saskatchewan I don't know about, that has got to be one of the worst misnomers in the country.

[DC Al Fine]

Daily EKOS

33.5-32.6-22.9

If this keeps up, EKOS will look either very good or really bad on Oct. 20. Regional subs are funny as always.

[DC Al Fine]

More riding polls for Quebec.

Jonquiere
33-24-20-19

Lac St. Jean
35-30-17-16

[DC Al Fine]

And Northern Ontario

Nickel Belt
46-35-14

Nipissing-Tismkaming
47-31-16

Sault Ste. Marie
36-35-23

Sudbury
38-31-27

[DC Al Fine]

 I agree with At Issue tonight, that a major irony in Harper's loss is being done in by his own incrementalism. Not offering anything new beyond more of the same, which isn't enough in a poor economy and strong opposition. But ultimately Harper's numbers have been pretty steady for about 2 years now, so the question was who would replace him. Putting the tax code through a cheese grater... lame, bad policy and beyond its expiration date.

Micro credits are really annoying in my profession, but I don't have much confidence that a Liberal government would get rid of them. They were designed to be difficult to repeal as they all have a constituency that would loudly attack their repeal. E.g. 'Why is the government cutting the child sports credit?!?! Don't they know we have an obesity epidemic?!'

I can't see Trudeau spending the necessary political capital to save so little money.

[DC Al Fine]

So if someone just woke up from a 3 week coma, and wants to know why the Conservatives had a solid lead, and now there's talk of a Liberal Majority, what would you tell them?

1) There was never a solid Tory lead. The best we managed was around 2-3%

2) The NDP pooped the bed by running to the center when progressive voters wanted a shift to the left after Harper. This allowed Trudeau to consolidate the anti-Harper vote somewhat.

The Tories also ran a lackluster campaign and overplayed on the niqab which didn't help them.

[DC Al Fine]

Probably. But I think a near-tie in the popular vote would still lead to a LPC minority because their support is concentrated in the seat-rich Atlantic and Ontario, whereas the CPC really only has the prairies.

That's the first time I've heard "seat rich" and Atlantic together

[DC Al Fine]

In any case, a slim CPC minority won't last very long.

Yeah this. It means the difference between Harper quitting on election night and Harper quitting sometime in the next 6 months depending on how the coalition talks go.

At this point, the absolute best case scenario is the Tories finishing first by a small margin, losing a confidence vote and having a general election, and even that's quite unlikely. Most likely we'll be in for a spell on the opposition benches.

[DC Al Fine]

EKOS Daily poll shows little change. This is interesting though.

[DC Al Fine]

Or, on the flip-side, is there any scenario whatsoever where the NDP and Conservative Party would entertain a coalition with each other against the Trudeau Liberals? This is all fantasy now, but I'm at the point where I'd prefer anything over PM Trudeau, so... gotta grasp at straws.

I can think of one, but it involves Trudeau seeking a 5th term in 2031

[DC Al Fine]

Lol @ the Globe.

"The Conservatives have been a big tent party in the past, and they must be once again. Fiscally prudent, economically liberal and socially progressive"

Sounds like they are looking for the Liberal Party

Reminds me of Crabcake's famous list

6) the GOP should become fiscally conservative, but socially liberal (like me lol) if it is to survive

7) the Democrats should become socially liberal, but fiscally conservative (like me lol) if they are to survive.

[DC Al Fine]

"Just not ready" didn't have the punch of "Just visiting" or "do you think it's easy to set priorities." They should have gone with something along the lines of "pompous douchebag."

The Dion ones were far and away the best of any of Harper's campaigns, especially since they had so many choice clips of Dion saying stuff instead of stuff pulled from a newspaper.

[DC Al Fine]

How factional are the three main parties? I'm wondering about the potential for post-election infighting, especially amongst the Tories and Oranges.

The Tory side has been answered already.

The NDP are remarkably forgiving of their leaders. Sure they have their factions, but there hasn't been anything close to the fights UK Labour takes for granted.

Whenever Mulcair quits, the lefties will complain about how they got out lefted, the centrists will whine about how they need to stay in the center to win power... And then they'll pick a leader and stick behind them for 5-10 years.

[DC Al Fine]

As for the Tories, Jason Kenney seems to be the man with the smart money on him, but it's worth mentioning that the only person who has expressed openly an interest in running for the leadership of the Tories is Rob Ford.

lmao

That will certainly change the Tories' stance on drug legalization.

Its actually his baby brother Doug Ford, who wants the job. He is slightly thinner and has no videos of crack smoking, but has  the same politics as big brother Rob.

[DC Al Fine]

Liberals up 6% in Quebec according to RB's favorite poster... That would make for an interesting election night.

[DC Al Fine]

I noticed Harper was in Laval today. That's weird whether the Tories are playing offence or defense.

[DC Al Fine]

If the final results looks something like this, is it safe to say Mulcair would resign as NDP leader?

The question is also whether he'll be re-elected in the first place.

I think he will, I don't think the uniform swing in Quebec will be enough that allows Outremont to go anything other than NDP. It would take a hefty swing to the Liberals for him to fall, after all he won the riding with over 30%, then again, I haven't been following it in depth, so I could be wrong of course.

Quebec is so regionally divided that uniform swing is pretty useless to use. There are huge swathes of voters in each region that are inaccessible to each party. Tory gains will never show up much in East Montreal. Bloc gains won't show up in West Montreal etc. Anyway Outremont is the sort of place where the Liberals could see an outsized gain compared to their gain in the province as a whole. That said, I still think Mulcair holds on fine.

Just a quick question to the Canadians on here: when you guys count the vote is it similar to how the British do it you know count all the votes and then the returning officer reveals the winner or is it similar to ours here in the states where you have precincts one by one come in for a partial then total count?

Results are released bit by bit.

[DC Al Fine]

Anyone know where I can get coverage of this? I live in Tallahassee now and my building has the worst cable provider ever, so I don't have access to C-SPAN or C-SPAN 3 (which I'm sure will cover it). I assume the CBC will have a decent broadcast online?

Yes

Scroll down. They'll have several different live streams on election night.