Canadian federal election - 2015

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I actually think the NDP has a chance in Papineau.  Many who would have voted NDP last time around voted Bloc because they had a strong candidate (and former MP) running (and the NDP had basically a name-holder, and still came in 2nd).  I'm not sure if Barbot will run again for the Bloc here, but my thinking is that with a popular candidate, the NDP can garner the soft separatist vote, and consolidate the left vote.

They *could*; however, Justin lost far less ground than any other Liberal incumbent in Quebec, and that's when he didn't yet have the leadership sheen.

It'll take an open-seat circumstance IMO here--particularly given that Justin doesn't register as a unpalatable soft-left option...

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Mulcair's more likely insofar as he's more likely to have a "star" challenger making claims to Outremont's "Liberal history" (would Cauchon try here, or elsewhere?)

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I think that if we're dealing with a Conservative party dancing around 30% or even below, there'll be more seats at play in, say, non-GTA Ontario or urban Alberta than you're counting on...

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Victoria:
Here, the Greens got *only* 9%, but if I remember correctly, it'll be a little more feasible next election because the redistribution cuts off a big chunk of Green support from Saanich-Gulf Islands and attaches it to Victoria. Also, last time the NDP got over 50% in this riding, and presumably if the Greens were to win a riding most of their new votes would come from the NDP. Their candidate last time was the relatively obscure Jared Giesbrecht, but if they were to run one of their star candidates, and add some more funding, maybe...

You seem to have forgotten the recent byelection where they nearly defeated the NDP.

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And if 40% = minority, it might just be a Canadian version of the "monkey in the middle" dilemma that plagues centrist parties (cf. Britains' Lib Dems)

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Note that I did not include Peter Stoffer's riding in the NDP holds. Sackville-Eastern Shore was always more of a Stoffer riding than an NDP riding. The recent redistribution removed the outlying rural parts (which vote like BC) and tacked on some Liberal voting suburbs (Dartmouth East, provincially). I expect the Liberals to win the new Sackville-Preston-Chezzetcook by a nose.

Though my feeling is that Stoffer's the sort whose magnetism migrates to whatever new territory he takes on--a little like how Peter Kormos used to operate in Ontario...

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what would happen in Canada if there was a hypothetical NDP/Liberal coalition is anyone's guess.

Closest hint might be the NDP propping up the 1972 Liberal minority--and then having its seat total halved in 1974...

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Naw; more a "transient worker w/no bonds to the community" thing.  The poll-by-polls for Fort Mac are notoriously low...

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Quebec MPs rarely have much of a "personal vote".

It happened in the remote areas in the past. Guy St-Julien, André Harvey, the ever astonishing Nancy Charest (which had a personal vote despite being a former MNA)...

Negative personal vote is more common, through.

And I'd deem Maxime Bernier to have a "personal vote" today.

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1993 is a great example of how voters can drift; a majority of the NDP caucus was from a province where they are currently shut out!

The entire NDP caucus was from Western Canada, no less.

And the only place in *Canada* which has seen continual NDP representation since 1993 is whatever inherited portion of Svend Robinson's 1993 constituency remains.  (And if any of it was inherited by Libby Davies in '97 or Peter Julian in '04--I'm not sure what the geographic configurations are.)

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The only New Democrats in Quebec that I'm aware of that did well, outside of the 1988 and the 2011 elections were famous lawyer Robert Cliche in 1968 (the Liberals were so scared of him they recruited famous economist Eric Kierans to run against him),former provincial party leader Jean Paul Harney in 1984 in Gaspe (around 20% of the vote), prospective provincial party leader Pierre Ducasse in 2008 and former federal Liberal M.P and now NDP M.P Francoise Boivin in 2008.

*And*, don't forget Phil Edmonston winning the Chambly by-election in 1990.

Plus, Ducasse actually didn't do *that* great in 2008, sharewise (a titch under 20%--less than Dowson's share in Westmount-VM--and there were a number of other NPDers who got 15-20% that year)

Oh, and shouldn't forget, of course: Mulcair had already been byelected and then elected in Outremont.  (Which, even pre-Mulcair, tended to be the top Quebec seat the party was pitching for--they got over 15% in both '04 and '06 there)

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The NDP is tanking right now in Northern Ontario, there's no chance they'll win Sault Ste. Marie. It will be a Liberal-Tory race.

Maybe tanking; but not necessarily *that* kind of tanking--at this point I'd deem it a genuine 3-way.

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Though there's more overlap w/Baird's former *provincial* seat, before he went federal.

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On behalf of a Gérard Deltell, they might.

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The NDP will be acclaiming their 2011 candidate in Richmond Hill, ON, Adam Devita. The riding's incumbent (Cons. Costas Menegakis) is fleeing to a safer neighbouring riding.  Businessman Michael Parssa will be the Conservative candidate and engineer Majid Jowhari will be the Liberal candidate. Both Parsa and Jowhari are Iranian-Canadians, which I thought was interesting. Turns out the riding has a large Iranian population (over 10%).

Also reflected in the present MPP for Richmond Hill: Reza Moridi.

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Too bad Maria Minna isn't bidding to win back her old seat--Minna and Manna: what a combo...

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EPP up for this year
http://www.electionprediction.org/2015_fed/index.php

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We know the seat is winnable now, too. The new boundaries make it easier too. It's all about depressing the Liberal vote.

*And* the Conservative vote--a lot of which is "parked" and swingable to the NDP (or the Libs, for that matter), believe it or not.

In fact, in last year's provincial election which Jen French won, the Liberal share actually *rose* from 2011--there's a blow to conventional wisdom for you.

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Maybe targeting is a strong word, but Trudeaumania is lifting the Liberal boats in a lot of places, and Oshawa is no exception. But I think come election time, progressive voters in Oshawa will still vote NDP instead, even if they like Trudeau.

In that case, the Liberals might as well be targeting *everything* in Ontario, i.e. gunning (or at least providing) for another Chretien-style clean sweep...

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Liberals have the edge of course (Thunder Bay is a Liberal city),

Provincially.   But provincial and federal patterns have long followed a different drummer (and I'm not really counting the Chretien era re Liberalism)

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Maybe. But when I worked in Hyer's office, they would tell me about how Liberal Thunder Bay is compared to the rest of the riding. Also, in Northern Ontario the cities tend to be less NDP friendly than the rural areas. This can be seen federally and provincially.

Well, yes--consider the case of Sudbury vs Nickel Belt, historically speaking.  Which is a legacy of the NDP's years as a more squarely union-guided "lunchbucket" party, which got lots of mileage in resource-based Northern ridings.  By comparison, the cities had the nodes of whatever bit of "cosmopolitan middle class" the North could churn up, which worked to the "non-NDP's" favour.

To offer a rough equivalent, it'd be like Toronto surrounded by an archipelago of mini-Hamiltons or mini-Oshawas.  (Though it's blurrier in these days of the NDP aiming for a broader support base--and it's also worth noting that 2014's provincial Liberal support in the Thunder Bay seats tended to be more evenly urban-rural distributed than once might have been the case.)

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Incidentally, the provincial Port Arthur seat was Liberal from 1987-90 (btw/Jim Foulds' retirement and the Rae landslide).

But Hatman's point is true now more then ever, the NDP does much better in the rural areas where the economy is based more on resources, working class jobs. But the cities (TB, Sudbury, SSM) are where you see the wealth, the professionals and the business sector thrive much more.

I'm not so sure about "more than ever"--indeed, re Sudbury proper, I'd counter-argue *less* than ever; remember that federally speaking, it was Liberal for *decades* before Glenn Thibault's upset victory in '08, and likewise the long string of provincial Bartolucci landslides came to an end this decade (and Thibault-as-byelection-Liberal-victor scarcely counts as "landslide").

As for SSM: I suspect it's more a matter of the federal NDP taking the seat for granted in 2011, and a David Orazietti "personal vote" thing provincially.

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Well, L-H conforms more with his original provincial turf than Pontiac does...

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While it is only a small part of the riding (the riding should probably have a better name), the Pontiac MRC is very conservative (very Anglo- basically a continuation of Renfrew County across the river), and so it gives the riding a higher than usual Tory floor for a Quebec riding.

But even with that, Cannon won with no better than a third of a vote in both 2006 and 2008.  (But I can see how it *looked* like a better bet going into 2006--in 2004, thanks to the "Renfrew County echo effect",  the Cons won more polls here than anywhere else in QC.)

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So, sorta like Libman being a modest step up from, say, Howard Galganov.

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Though to be fair, Ed Miliband's woefulness is more akin to Joe Clark than to either Trudeau or Mulcair.

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Though in Saskatchewan's case as in Alberta's, impressions might be skewed by a genuinely popular leader-figure (Brad Wall, as opposed to Rachel Notley).

Even with Alberta, I wouldn't foresee a "largely unchanged" federal Con vote.  What it might mean is that the Cons'll win with 50% or 60% in seats where they've been previously winning with 70% or 80%; and that lost share *won't* be with a right-wing splinter party...