Canadian by-elections, 2015

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Kenora voted the way it did because a Con fluked into 2nd over NDP in 2006, thus anointing the Cons as the "strategic anti-Liberal" option going into 2008, and then incumbent advantage in 2011...

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I can see a First Nations candidate in Northern Ontario facing voter discrimination, much more than a candidate in Southern Ontario.

I disagree.

Depends on the candidate, of course.  But ideally, in this day and age, there'd be no more voter discrimination than that faced by a lesbian "unelected" (to use conservative troll talk) Premier en route to a majority government.  (And if the Grits blow this byelection, Wynne's sexuality'll have nothing to do with it.)

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Though in this case: given yesterday's news, I wonder what the results might have been had the election taken place 24 hours later...

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And don't forget that Marchese was on his way out anyway, and it was a miracle that he even held on in 2011.

Not necessarily such a miracle.  After all, that was Olivia Chow's federal riding, Jack & Olivia's *home* riding, it was post-Orange Crush and right after the Layton funeral.  Given all of that, it's more a miracle that he nearly lost than that he held on that year...

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Relationships between White people and Native people in northern Quebec and Ontario are close of Deep South ones.

Then why did Romeo Saganash get elected in 2011?

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The NDP actually lost ground in York South-Weston and throughout Scarborough in 2014.  The "wine-sipping Toronto elitists" critique rang hollow because it wasn't only "elite" Torontonians that rejected them.  The pocketbook populist strategy didn't resonate among working class Torontonians either.  Not to mention Davenport - a seat they lost - is a pretty low income riding.

Though one might argue re the lost ground in YSW that the NDP vote was already "overleveraged" in both 2007 and 2011, first because of Paul Ferreira's byelected incumbency and then because of "Ferreira was robbed" sentiment--by 2014, that sentiment was seeping away.

And it's worth noting with Davenport that the NDP lost most of its ground in the gentrifying south--in the north, it was actually more or less flat (though still behind the Grits, as per tradition)

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Yes.  In 1990 the NDP formed government with no seats in Brampton.  Brampton is much bigger now and it's a place where the NDP would need to win more seats.  So yes, it matters more than in 1990, but as hatman says, a winning coalition excludes most of the 905 belt.

Though the NDP *nearly* won both 1990-era Brampton seats--in fact, if the riding division were east-west rather than north-south, the NDP would have won a hypothetical "Brampton East" (i.e. the Bramalea part).

And here's food for thought worth considering re growth and demographic changes: the parts of BGM which most markedly fueled Jagmeet Singh's victory (and the parts of Brampton-Springdale which went for Gurpreet Dhillon provincially in 2014) *did not exist* in 2010.  It was still farm country and fields...

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Trouble is, aside from JagmeetSinghLand and Oshawa, the party has virtually no infrastructure, real or potentially supportive municipal office holders et al, to wheedle 905 victories out of...

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Forget Aurora - it's a very affluent suburb/exurb filled with McMansions and "estates." 

And remember that Evelyn Buck was more of a holdover from pre-exurbia pre-Magna days when the NDP was more of a viable proposition in much of York Region.  (Though given how she latterly turned that "holdoverness" to her blog-fueled Council-maverick advantage, maybe 905 councils could use a few more Evelyn Bucks.)

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And Ajax Mayor Steve Parrish is a political free-agent who strikes a "progressive-amenable" tone more often than not.

Unfortunately, above the municipal level, there's been a recent pattern of the provincial and federal NDP basically "throwing" Ajax--rather notoriously in 2011, vs the Holland-vs-Alexander LibCon deathmatch, the fed NDP (not knowing the Orange Crush was going to happen, of course) fielded what was basically a name-on-the-ballot who was on vacation for much of the campaign...

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And John C. Turmel finally won a poll in a by-election!  I'm 99.99% certain it is an error (the NDP is listed as having three votes in Poll 86), but a win's a win!

Yeah, I remember that in the live tallies that evening, Turmel made a mysterious "jump" from the back of the pack--that must be why.

Agree; likely tabulation error.

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Sort of like the Quebec City version of St. Paul's, I suppose.

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5. While the Greens ran a paper candidate here last time, they still came in 2nd in many polling stations and won a popular vote share as high as 27%.

Now, that's a quackish claim.  Might as well suggest that the NDP has a serious chance in Don Valley West because they scored a solid second in many Thorncliffe/Flemingdon polls...

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And the ONDP (w/the same candidate as in 2011) fell a titch in share, too.

For whatever reason, Kathleen Wynne actually overachieved in a lot of Central Ontario Heartland seats; maybe she came across as a bit of a Sensible Red Tory in Liberal clothing...

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In the leadership race, didn't Wynne put extra effort into wooing Central Ontario?  Maybe they were returning the favour (to a degree)

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Is there any record of provincial by-elections during a federal campaign or vice versa?

Vice versa: Scarborough-Agincourt, 2014.

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Was it ever used in Ontario? Remember John Tory by-election.

Did a quick Wiki search.

It was used up until John Tory. The Liberals ran a candidate against him in both the by-election when he became leader (unexpected) and the by-election after he lost in 2007 (more expected).

Actually, that principle was violated even *before* John Tory.  In fact, Tory's first byelection was facilitated by Ernie Eves stepping down in Dufferin-Peel-Wellington-Grey--which was Eves' byelected ticket back into Queen's Park after he won the PC leadership, in 2002.  And while Tory won by a landslide in DPWG, Eves only won by 11 points over (in his first bid for public office) future Toronto Councillor Josh Matlow running for the Grits.

And before that, in 1982, newly selected ONDP leader Bob Rae won in York South by a similar margin vs another future Liberal office-holder: John Nunziata.

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Not a strong performance, but what is essentially a repeat of the 2011 results in this riding should not scare the OLP.

Well, maybe relative to the 2014 result, it would.  (And given the federal-camp civil war over the nomination, the fact that the ONDP would do that well may be more impressive than it looks)

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Hatman, the only thing I'd disagree with you on is that Hawkesworth was an obviously better candidate than the lawyer who ran in the general election.  While he did have years of political experience, he is also a 'career politician' and a carpetbagger.

He also didn't end his elected career prior to this on a good note, having run a very poor campaign for mayor of Calgary and taking some shots at now Mayor Nenshi.

And FWIW, he was a parachute in Foothills.

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The result also say something about how benign the Wildrose option's become--and Brian Jean's turned out to be not all that unlikeable as opposition leaders go...

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He's a little like the Stelmach to Danielle Smith's Prentice...perhaps.

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Canada is clearly swing to the left. We have seen that federally and in the last series of provincial election in Alberta, Ontario etc... The rabidly right wing BC "Liberal" (aka Social Credit) Gov't is clearly on the way out.

Though even now, I'd deem the BC Libs (like the Bill Bennett Socreds) a bit more big-tenty than "rabidly right wing"--it'd take a different leader than Christy Clark to prove to me otherwise.

But re this thread-hijacking, I'd have to say that Lotuslander's tone re the NDP reminds me of guys at the wrong end of an ugly divorce case trying to portray their alimony-leech exes as mentally ill feminazis or whatnot...

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Yep. You're def a bright one. Ya just gotta be an NDP supporter. Ya have all the hallmarks of same.

Yeah, just like an angry ex-husband suggesting that defenders of his leech of an ex-wife have all the hallmarks of feminist radicalism ;-)

Look: I agree that certain claims on behalf of the NDP have been a bit over the top over time--but you seem a little too, er, overeager to drive them to the supposed margins they "deserve", by reading the current 12% polling as inflexible evidence they're following the inevitable road to oblivion just like the PCs, Socred, Union Nationale, maybe the UK Lib Dems et al...

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And I must say also: we're talking about the *provincial* NDP here.  The way lotuslander's going about it, it's like the BCNDP's heading for (and moreover, *deserves*) an equivalent to 12% oblivion, and a "Dosanjih wipeout", etc.

That's not reality; that angy-ex-husband bile.

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Though given what's just transpired federally and the psychological impact that might have, I'm not so certain about either an easy PC win or the race being for second--unless Horwath's got some sleight-of-hand tricks up her sleeve, I wouldn't be surprised if the NDP's pushed back to around the 10th percentile or less.  Much like what happened to 2011's federal second-placer in the byelection to replace Flaherty, or to 2014's provincial second-placer when he ran federally presently.  (NB: six months ago, I wouldn't have been so bearish re NDP chances.)

As contentious as Wynne is, there's wind in the Liberal brand's sails--in fact, had Elliott not run last year, there's an excellent chance that Whitby-Oshawa could have gone Liberal a la Burlington, Newmarket-Aurora, Durham.  In the end, W-O is more a "Flaherty/Elliott" seat than a Conservative seat--though it may depend on who's running for the PCs; might newly-defeated MP Pat Perkins hit the ground running?  Or any of the Elliott-Flaherty triplets?

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You are clearly misrepresenting what I actually previously stated. Again, Forum Research's opinion poll from Wednesday had the NDP at 12% federally and 13% right here in BC. Undoubtedly the largest collapse of support that I have ever seen happen so quickly. Why is that relevant? 'Cause it's quite apparent that roughly 90% of folk posting here are NDP supporters - obviously not representative of the electorate at large.

But again--that's the *federal* NDP.  We're dealing here with the *provincial* BCNDP--a party without the traditional third-party stigma we see in Ontario; and indeed, one whose own (in spite of itself?) big tent encompasses a lot of present-day "Justin Liberals", i.e. those who were leaning Mulcair until they joined the Red Wave in the end.

Which is also to say: because of the special binary case that is BC (as opposed to three-party Ontario, where there's more inherent fed + prov echo), let's wait until we see *provincial* polling to judge whether the BCLibs are getting a "Justin bump" here.