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

[DC Al Fine]

Does anyone think it's possible that the NDP will try to draw from the now-plentiful NDP MLAs in Alberta? I honestly don't know if it's common for a federal party in Canada to nominate provincial legislators. Admittedly, it'd probably be easier if the Alberta NDP Government was older, but my question still stands. (I'm assuming there are no issues with an MLA serving as such while running federally.) There seem to be quite a few seats in Alberta that are ripe for the picking.

Not impossible, but it would be considered pretty bad form to jump for another office 4 months after getting elected. Plus the dynamics are different federally, where the right is split instead of the left. That said, I could see an NDP MLA make a run.

[DC Al Fine]

For the heck of it, here are the fringe party nominations thus far according to Pundits Guide.

Libertarian: 82
Christian Heritage: 10
Forces et Democratie: 10
Pirate: 6

[DC Al Fine]

Another example. The NDP candidate for Calgary Confederation stepped down upon her election to the legislature.

[DC Al Fine]

Getting back on topic....

Does anyone have any thoughts on which seats/regions are most likely to move against the national trend?

My guesses:
Suburban Quebec City and the Lac St. Jean area will trend Con
The Liberals will under perform in the 905
The NDP will under perform in Northern Ontario
The Bloc will do well in Eastern Montreal

[DC Al Fine]

Why is Quebec City such an outlier compared to the rest of Quebec when it comes to supporting the Conservatives? It certainly is not due a residual english speaking population, as the area is overwhelmingly Francophone.

Lots of free marketeers concentrated there, and a vibrant talk radio scene. As to why those things are there, perhaps RB or Hash can answer?

[DC Al Fine]

I'd press the ultra-panic button more at 40/40/20.  35/35/25 offers more of an opening for CAQ-style pickups.

I just don't see the Liberals being the third party and the map of 905 looking like Kathleen Wynne's Ontario. 

It's not. I just put in the Forum Ontario numbers in my model and the Liberals won the followiing outside the City of Toronto:

• Ajax
• Brampton West
• Markham-Thornhill
• Three Mississauga seats

The Liberal vote in Ontario is more concentrated relative to CAQ so the ability to make a bunch of pick ups a la CAQ @ 25% is limited and offset by NDP gains in places like Scarborough.

[DC Al Fine]

McQuaig being herself.

She needs to talk more about oil. Lord knows we could use a boost in Alberta

[DC Al Fine]

Although if I was Mulcair, I'd have someone discreetly remind her that this is a national campaign.

[DC Al Fine]

Any polls out since that Forum one? We need to confirm if this NDP pushing 40% trend is real or not.

[DC Al Fine]

Scott Andrews running as Indie Grit in Avalon. DC, how well do you think he'll do?

In my uneducated opinion? About the same as Guergis did.

[DC Al Fine]

Presumably the state crossbreaks in Canadian polling are not particularly reliable?

Not especially. Sample size is terrible outside of Ontario & Quebec, and that's before you factor in the volatility of the electorate.

[DC Al Fine]

Harper 'delighted' to see roll out of Ontario Retirement Pension Plan delayed

While I support additional pension plans in principle, Wynne really screwed the pooch on this one; somehow managing to harm both the poor and the rich at the same time.

[DC Al Fine]

So I spent today touring around Cumberland-Colchester and Central Nova with the wife. These are two fairly interesting seats. Here's what the sign situation is like:

Central Nova: Mostly Tory, with a few Liberal signs. Not a single NDP sign anywhere despite the NDP running a former MLA and being projected to win the seat.

Cumberland-Colchester: Maybe 50% Tory, 40% Liberal, 10% NDP. Not that signs are that predictive, but it's probably a sign that it will be a close race. When I visited in 2008 it was like 90% Casey signs.

[DC Al Fine]

In other news, mailboxes are turning into a major election issue.

*Sigh*

[DC Al Fine]

This isn't a phenomenon limited to Manitoba. In general, in Canada, federal politics has little to no effect on provincial elections, but provincial politics can and does affect federal elections. Obviously this effect is strongest with the NDP, since the NDP is the most unified political party between the provinces and the Center. Dissatisfaction with the Bob Rae government torpedoed the federal NDP in Ontario in 1993, although (to be fair) it's not as if that campaign did better elsewhere. More recently, the only two provinces where the NDP saw no increase in its vote share in 2011 were Manitoba and Nova Scotia, which were also the only two provinces with NDP governments at the time. In the case of Manitoba, that NDP government wasn't even particularly unpopular at the time, since it was re-elected to a large majority just five months later, but the fact that it had been in power for twelve years killed the federal NDP's prospects all the same.

This year Alberta and Manitoba are the only provinces with NDP governments. The novelty of the NDP government in Alberta will probably help the federal party rather than hurt it (although a Mainstreet poll from a month and a half ago showed the provincial NDP trailing the Wildrose Party by a considerable margin), but now that the NDP government that has run Manitoba for the last sixteen years is genuinely unpopular it seems safe to say that the NDP won't be making many gains there.

I think you will see the NDP lose ground in Nova Scotia this time. They may not be in government any more, but I don't think many Nova Scotians are too willing to go back to them so soon. I think Chisholm is at risk of losing his seat, but the most recent provincial by-election in Dartmouth may indicate that the NDP has rebounded in Metro Halifax, so I don't know. At this point, I don't think the NDP is in a position to gain any seats in Nova Scotia.

It's not that much of a stretch for thme them to pick up South Shore-St. Margaret's. I agree that projections for them to win Central Nova are kind of ridiculous, but SS-St.M isn't that outrageous.

[DC Al Fine]

The Liberal candidate in Calgary Nose Hill has resigned after some nasty tweets from a few years ago resurfaced.

[DC Al Fine]

Brad Wall says not enough attention on economy in campaign

He seems to be popping up a lot in this election.

[DC Al Fine]

=http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-stephen-harper-unveils-tax-credit-plan-for-service-club-memberships-1.3200851Tories promise tax credit for service club memberships.

Standard micro targeting stuff.

NDP scales back promised corporate tax hike

[DC Al Fine]

I took a look at the "Where the leaders are map" to see what Gilles Duceppe is doing. He's spending 90% of his time in East Island Montreal or the Gaspesie, including half a dozen events in his own riding.

I note that he hasn't gone to Plamondon's riding yet, so perhaps he thinks they have things sewn up there.

[DC Al Fine]

Trudeau accuses Mulcair of 'austerity'.

[DC Al Fine]

That puts a damper on the Liberals recent numbers.

[DC Al Fine]

Before we start getting excited about trends, I note that the only company that has shown movement outside the margin of error is Forum of lol Forum fame.

[DC Al Fine]

Does this campaign seem more trivial than 2011? It seems like every other day on CBC there is a story about the memes some event has generated.

[DC Al Fine]

Did the NDP ever have a chance in Quebec after the 1968 election and before the 1988 election?  The only candidate I know of who did even remotely well in Quebec was Jean Paul Harney (or John Harney as he was called in Ontario) in the 1984 election when he got nearly 20% of the vote in Gaspe in 1984.

Duncan Graham almost beat a Socred in 1972 in Compton.

[DC Al Fine]

This is the only thing on the internet I can find about Duncan Graham:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parliament/FederalRidingsHistory/hfer.asp?Include=Y&Language=E&rid=158&Search=Det

When he ran again in 1974 he fell to just 3% of the vote!

I'm pretty sure that is a typo in the database and he got no where near that many votes. Notice that if you add up the number of votes cast in Compton in 1968, 1972 and 1974 - in 1972 there are about 10,000 extra votes!

Yep, smells fishy to me too. That database is full of errors.

If he got 982 votes instead of 10982, he would have received about 3-4%of the vote which would be typical for the NDP at the time.