Canadian by-elections, 2017 (next event: Calgary-Lougheed, AB prov.: Dec 14)

[Jeppe]

Running in Agincourt would be a bad idea; wrong part of Scarborough for him to win in.  Do you think one of the Windsor MPs will step down for him? I'm worried that might not go over so well.

Any chance one of those might decide to run provincially as I am thinking of one of the eight Ontario MPs steps down to go provincial that could create an opening.  Of the upcoming by-elections, none of them are exactly seats the NDP is likely to win.

Being an MP is a lot more prestigious than being an MPP, so it's pretty unlikely. If somebody stepped aside for Jagmeet, it'd probably be an older member who has served a few terms already.

[mileslunn]

Running in Agincourt would be a bad idea; wrong part of Scarborough for him to win in.  Do you think one of the Windsor MPs will step down for him? I'm worried that might not go over so well.

Any chance one of those might decide to run provincially as I am thinking of one of the eight Ontario MPs steps down to go provincial that could create an opening.  Of the upcoming by-elections, none of them are exactly seats the NDP is likely to win.

True, but Wynne is extremely unpopular and not just on the right, but also left so the NDP is in better position to hold the balance of power if the Liberals only get a minority, form official opposition (and win when Ontario tires of the PCs) if the Liberals implode on both sides, or even if Brown messes up badly win outright.  By contrast Trudeau is fairly popular amongst progressives so defeating him or even forming official opposition seem highly unlikely.  Yes he might get reduced to a minority but even that is probably less than a 50% chance.  So even with lower salary and prestige things are looking better provincially for both opposition parties than they do federally.

He could also look to Saskatchewan or Manitoba as while those don't have their elections until 2020 the NDP in both provinces is likely to perform better than they did last time around and in the case of Saskatchewan they have a decent shot at winning outright while Manitoba is probably more difficult but not impossible.

Being an MP is a lot more prestigious than being an MPP, so it's pretty unlikely. If somebody stepped aside for Jagmeet, it'd probably be an older member who has served a few terms already.

[DC Al Fine]

Running in Agincourt would be a bad idea; wrong part of Scarborough for him to win in.  Do you think one of the Windsor MPs will step down for him? I'm worried that might not go over so well.

I doubt it. Brian Masse is under fifty and Cheryl Hardcastle  is a first termer.

Actually, this goes to show how narrow the NDP's options are for giving a leader a seat. If we filter down to seats where the NDP MP is in their 3rd term or later and won by at least 10% ( a decent proxy for leader byelection material) we get:

Outremont
Windsor West
Edmonton-Strathcona
Skeena—Bulkley Valley

Not exactly a great list. Edmonton-Strathcona would be the best bet IMO.

[mileslunn]

Running in Agincourt would be a bad idea; wrong part of Scarborough for him to win in.  Do you think one of the Windsor MPs will step down for him? I'm worried that might not go over so well.

I doubt it. Brian Masse is under fifty and Cheryl Hardcastle  is a first termer.

Actually, this goes to show how narrow the NDP's options are for giving a leader a seat. If we filter down to seats where the NDP MP is in their 3rd term or later and won by at least 10% ( a decent proxy for leader byelection material) we get:

Outremont
Windsor West
Edmonton-Strathcona
Skeena—Bulkley Valley

Not exactly a great list. Edmonton-Strathcona would be the best bet IMO.

Outremont was more a Mulcair seat than NDP so I actually think there is a real risk it would flip to the Liberals.  Edmonton-Strathcona looks safe, but not sure what impact the current provincial NDP government would have although it seems Notley is doing fine in Edmonton just unpopular elsewhere.  Skeena-Bulkley Valley is more a Nathan Cullen although with its large aboriginal population and being fairly rural doesn't seem like one either the Tories or Liberals would snatch.  The real danger there is it would have to be done in the next year while the provincial NDP government is still reasonably popular since if the BC NDP tanks in the polls (not saying they will, but cannot be ruled out) that could have a negative spillover federally.

That being said if there is a strong bounce in the polls after Singh winning I could easily see some NDP MP willing to give up a relatively safe seat in the interest of the party and then in 2019 try and make a comeback when Singh runs in Brampton East.  In many ways not too dissimilar to Scott Brison giving up Kings-Hants for Joe Clark, but then returning in 2000.

[DL]

Actually, this goes to show how narrow the NDP's options are for giving a leader a seat. If we filter down to seats where the NDP MP is in their 3rd term or later and won by at least 10% ( a decent proxy for leader byelection material) we get:

Outremont
Windsor West
Edmonton-Strathcona
Skeena—Bulkley Valley

You forgot Hamilton Centre whgere Dave Christopherson is quite old and has been there since 2004...and he won pretty easily in 2015

[DC Al Fine]

Actually, this goes to show how narrow the NDP's options are for giving a leader a seat. If we filter down to seats where the NDP MP is in their 3rd term or later and won by at least 10% ( a decent proxy for leader byelection material) we get:

Outremont
Windsor West
Edmonton-Strathcona
Skeena—Bulkley Valley

You forgot Hamilton Centre whgere Dave Christopherson is quite old and has been there since 2004...and he won pretty easily in 2015

Yes, you're right. My mistake.

[RogueBeaver]

South Surrey-White Rock: Watts quitting to run for the provincial Grit leadership.

[mileslunn]

South Surrey-White Rock: Watts quitting to run for the provincial Grit leadership.

Beat me too it.  As a popular mayor of Surrey she definitely is one to watch and although no guarantee she will win the BC Liberal leadership let alone the next provincial election, she is definitely one to watch.  Probably rightly figured the odds of the BC Liberals winning the next election are better than the federal Tories (note she likely would get a cabinet position if they won and she was MP).

In terms of odds, this is normally a fairly safe conservative riding, but the Liberals almost won it last time and considering how they did in neighbouring ridings I suspect the Liberals would have won it if she weren't the candidate.  Likewise since Liberal support has held up in BC and Tory support hasn't rebounded, I think there is a very real possibility of a Liberal pick up.  The only thing the Tories really have in their favour is by-election turnout is typically quite low and their base is more likely to show up so they tend to fair better when turnout is low than high.  Should be interesting to watch.

[136or142]

South Surrey-White Rock: Watts quitting to run for the provincial Grit leadership.

Not to go too far off topic, but from the B.C perspective, this likely explains why no Liberal M.L.A had entered the leadership race (which is only around 4 months away): they were all waiting to see what Dianne Watts would decide.

[mileslunn]

South Surrey-White Rock: Watts quitting to run for the provincial Grit leadership.

Not to go too far off topic, but from the B.C perspective, this likely explains why no Liberal M.L.A had entered the leadership race (which is only around 4 months away): they were all waiting to see what Dianne Watts would decide.

I wonder if Ben Stewart will step down as candidate as she will need a seat and since Kelowna West is a very safe BC Liberal seat it would seem logical for the next leader to run there if they don't already have.

[adma]

Outremont was more a Mulcair seat than NDP so I actually think there is a real risk it would flip to the Liberals.

Actually, Outremont, thanks to its "urban progressive" base, was the NDP's strongest QC seat over the Alexa/Layton years; and that was prime reasoning behind Mulcair's running there in the first place.  If it now seems "more Mulcair than NDP", it's thanks to the Justin Liberals repatriating the urban progressives--Mulcair "saved" Outremont in 2015 in much the same way that Justin "saved" Papineau in 2011.

[Hatman 🍁]

Outremont was more a Mulcair seat than NDP so I actually think there is a real risk it would flip to the Liberals.

Actually, Outremont, thanks to its "urban progressive" base, was the NDP's strongest QC seat over the Alexa/Layton years; and that was prime reasoning behind Mulcair's running there in the first place.  If it now seems "more Mulcair than NDP", it's thanks to the Justin Liberals repatriating the urban progressives--Mulcair "saved" Outremont in 2015 in much the same way that Justin "saved" Papineau in 2011.

This is correct. There really are no "NDP seats" in Quebec. Outremont is as close as you're going to get to one. As evidenced by the last two elections though, it definitely has a lower ceiling than other ridings in the province, due to being home to more habitual Liberal voting populations...

[adma]

This is correct. There really are no "NDP seats" in Quebec. Outremont is as close as you're going to get to one. As evidenced by the last two elections though, it definitely has a lower ceiling than other ridings in the province, due to being home to more habitual Liberal voting populations...

Or at least, it was as close as you *were* going to get to one in the 90s/00s, with Mile End being the base of their (and later Quebec Solidaire's) support.

One thing that helped is that Outremont was actually more of a Liberal-Bloc marginal, which gave the pre-Mulcair NDP hope of coming up through the middle.

[Krago]

Outremont, 2006 general election

Liberal - red, BQ - purple, NDP - orange, Conservative - blue



Outremont, 2008 general election

[RogueBeaver]

Scarborough-Agincourt: Grits are waiting to hear if Jean Yip, Chan's widow, will run.

[RogueBeaver]

She's running.

[Jeppe]

Grits probably hold it with Jean Yip. It'll be hard for the Conservative to attack the MP's widow without it crossing a line.

[DC Al Fine]

Grits probably hold it with Jean Yip. It'll be hard for the Conservative to attack the MP's widow without it crossing a line.

Oh, if there are attacks they will almost certainly be against Mr. Trudeau.

[Hatman 🍁]

My rundown of the by-election in Kamloops: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2017/09/kamloops-mayoral-and-council-by.html

For progressives, we should be hoping Nancy Bepple is elected to city council, but I am fairly certain Ken Christian (endorsed by two high profile Liberals) will win the mayoral race.

[Hatman 🍁]

Kamloops, mayor:

Ken Christian: 9274 (64%) - elected
Bill McQuarrie: 2661 (18%)
Stu Holland: 806 (6%)
Todd McLeod: 773 (5%)
Mike McKenzie: 518 (4%)
Glenn Hilke: 480 (3%)

Council

Kathy Sinclair: 3421 (12%) - elected
Ray Dhaliwal: 3292 (12%) - elected
Kevin Krueger: 3042 (11%)
Gerald Kenyon Watson: 2424 (9%)
Bill Sarai: 2182 (8%)
Leslie Lax: 2112 (8%)
Stephen Karpuk:1678 (6%)
Nancy Bepple: 1481 (5%)
13 others: 8194 (29%)

Turnout: 21% (down from 33% in 2014)

[mileslunn]

For Louis-Hebert provincially that should be interesting.  PLQ is favoured, but this could be the first indication if the uptick in CAQ support is real as this is riding where CAQ support usually tracks fairly close to the provincial average.  PQ has lost a lot of its support in Quebec City while PLQ is competitive and CAQ is too.  CAQ does though much like the federal Tories tend to do better in the suburbs so areas to the north and east of here, but they could pull off an upset nonetheless.

[RogueBeaver]

Watts and Foote's seats are officially vacant.

[Hatman 🍁]

Didn't write much, but here is my blog post about today's by-election: http://canadianelectionatlas.blogspot.ca/2017/10/louis-hebert-by-election-today.html

[mileslunn]

Watts and Foote's seats are officially vacant.

Foote's seat will be an easy Liberal hold.  Only thing interesting will be will it be as big a blowout as it was in 2015 or not.  Watt's seat however could flip to the Liberals as they dominated the Lower Mainland and probably would have won her seat if she were not the candidate.  That being said in 2006, 2008, and 2011, the Tories won it by big margins so this will be a test as to whether the Liberals are holding onto their gains in BC or are the Tories rebounding as polls of late seem a bit unclear which it is.

[Poirot]

For Louis-Hébert, I was listening to a preview on tv. It seems CAQ has a good chance of winning. They had a party paid poll (I think done by Mainstreet) done and they are ahead. So a good turnout is good for CAQ. Lib would need a low turnout to win. At 4 pm turnout was 33%.

Louis-Hébert was the ridign with the highest turnout last election. (from memory about 83%)
The rifding is higher income, higher education. A journalist suggested the Sam Hamad (who vacated the seat) loyalists could vote for the PCQ (Conservative), not voting for the opposition but not happy how Hamad was treated. The PCQ candidate works in the riding office of the CON Portneuf MP. She is a past candidate for mayor in Saint-Augustin. She was the CAQ riding president in Portneuf but left when the CAQ welcomed the PLQ riding president and became the CAQ candidarte for Portneuf.

Other candidates have also multi-party past. The PQ candidate had also QS membership up until the campaign began. The CAQ candidate was a PLQ member until maybe 2 years ago. She has worked for PLQ minister office in communication before. The PLQ candidate worked for Hamad in the Louis-Hébert riding office. She worked as volunteer when Hamad first got elected but between his first election and started working for him she was on the ADQ riding executive for five months. Some suspect she was spying.