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

[Lotuslander]

Progressives outside of Canada haven't got the memo yet, but lil' Justin has been a huge disappointment. He tells us what we want to hear, but doesn't do what we want to be done. I don't know how many people actually care about electoral reform, but it's probably enough to account for a couple of points in the polls.

Haha. Come on. That's just rhetoric from an NDP diehard.

Nanos, a CATI pollster that has "nailed" every fed CA election result, since 2004, which equates to 5 election cycles... is the only CA fed pollster worth it's weight in gold - the gold standard of CA polling. Everyone else is just cheap polling junk. Worthless. Period.

Now let's look at the latest weekly Nanos CA polling numbers of February 10, 2017. Firstly, the fed Libs have been bleeding support to the Cons! Your alleged "argument" is lost right there.

BTW, the key data point that drives political party preferences, at the end of the day, are Nanos' "Best PM" numbers:

JT (Lib): 46.36%
Ambrose (Con): 19.12%
Unsure: 19.02%
Mulcair: (NDP) 9.65%
May (Green): 4.91%

http://www.nanosresearch.com/data

[Lotuslander]

Oh look, lotuslander found a thread that's not about BC. Guess it's finally time to put him on ignore.

You can tell Nik Nanos I say 'hi'.

Haha. Idiots will always be idiots. And the ideological NDP Scientology/Jehovah's Witness sect on this site will always worship their "high priest". It is what it is.

[Lotuslander]

Vancouver city council and School Board by-election set for October 14th. All 9 seats are up as the previous BC Liberal government dismissed all 9 trustees last year.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-school-board-byelection-1.4234442

Vacant Van City council seat opinion poll from a few days ago by Justason Market Intelligence:

Sample size: n = 400 with decided vote at n = 209;

Methodology: Opt-in online panel;

Poll voting options: Green, NPA, Vision Vancouver and One City; (should have included COPE as well IMHO);

IMHO, most eyebrow-raising factoid arising from the JMI opinion poll was that incumbent Vision Vancouver is in 4th place:



http://www.justasonmi.com/?p=5357

[Lotuslander]

Let's look at South Surrey-White Rock vacated by Dianne Watts.

Prior to redistribution, it was the riding of South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale. Interesting since the last time the fed Liberals came close here was in 2004 when a bit of a red wave made its way from City of Vancouver to the outer suburbs of South Surrey-White Rock whereby fed Liberals came within 6% of the CPC candidate. Looking at polling stations in 2004, the CPC did very well in the Cloverdale portion. With Cloverdale removed, the fed Liberals would undoubtedly picked this seat up in 2004.

Of course, the red wave of 2015 was akin to 1968 and swept through most of BC. Undoubtedly, the federal Liberals would have picked this riding up in 2015 had it not been for CPC candidate Dianne Watts who narrowly won.

BTW, in both 2004 and 2015, the federal Liberal candidate was former City of Surrey councillor Judy Higginbotham - "blue" Liberal.

Today, former long-time BC Liberal MLA Gordie Hogg for Surrey-White Rock (who did not run in 2017 BC election and also former mayor of White Rock) has officially announced his intention to run for the federal Liberal nomination. If no one else steps up, I expect Hogg to be fed Liberal nominee.

A few weeks back former fed CPC MP for neighbeighbouring riding of Delta & former Minister of National Revenue, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, announced her intention to seek the CPC nomination. Again, if no one else steps up to the plate, I suspect Findlay to be the CPC nominee.

Demographics of South Surrey-White Rock are typically centre-right and middle/upper middle class in an area considered to be one of most desirable in Metro Vancouver.

Hogg was a popular local BC Liberal MLA with name recognition while Findlay doesn't have the name recognition in the riding.

Will the red "wave" of 2015 remain in this by-election? Doubtful as they are rare general election events. While the Fed Liberals are still dominant in BC, I also sense an uptick for the CPC ergo the odds slightly favour the CPC candidate. Moreover, provincial BC by-elections (except under special circumstances) always favours an opposition party.

[Lotuslander]

Former fed CPC MP for neighbeighbouring BC riding of Delta & former Minister of National Revenue, Kerry-Lynne Findlay is now the CPC nominee for South Surrey-White Rock. Occurred Friday, November 10.

PS. Fed Liberal nominee Gordon Hogg was November 7.

[Lotuslander]

Yep. Back in 1968 Surrey was one single riding. Moreover, White Rock, which was a previous municipal ward within Surrey had voted, via referendum, to separate from Surrey 11 years earlier in 1957.

The 1968 fed results for fed Surrey riding was as follows:

NDP: 44.6%
Liberal: 32.3%
PC: 16.4%
Social Credit: 6.7%

Suspect that the stronger NDP vote was in the more older developed north Surrey area of Whalley back in 1968 while the Liberal/PC/SC vote was stronger in the White Rock/Cloverdale area. BTW, back in 1968, South Surrey was mostly forested with a bit of hay farming. Some residential areas were extant along its eastern border with WR.

White Rock itself was an original summer beach town, from the early 1900's, with rail access to downtown Van City. Even back in 1968 a considerable portion of White Rock remained undeveloped. The only other area of South Surrey that had older summer cottages was Crescent Beach on the other side of the Semiahmoo Peninsula.

I should know. I live here.

[Lotuslander]

So... 4 fed by-elections on Monday. I'm here in South Surrey-White Rock and while my previous post suggested leaning CPC... right now I'm on the fence for plethora of reasons.

BTW, this riding, among many Metro Van ridings, is one of those that folk don't use lawn signs to publicly display their political affiliation on their proverbial arm sleeves. Current by-election corroborates same.

Liberals have the better candidate in SS-WR in terms of former White Rock mayor/long-time BC Lib MLA Gordie Hogg. Liberals also have a much better/well known retail fed poli leader in terms of JT.

JT has campaigned twice in the riding. First time drew ~1,000 folk on weekday afternoon to WR coffee shop. Last Saturday, ~ 1,500 - 2,000 showed up for JT rally at Semihamoo HS:





Frankly, the foregoing is mind-blowing - completely outta sync from historical voting patterns in riding.

OTOH, CPC leader Scheer tours some fringe potato chip plant in a rural ALR NE portion of the riding. No voters there. And, frankly, the CPC nominated terribly here.

And then we get to latest polling sub-sample sizes for BC:

Leger (n=186 - opt-in online panel methodology):

Liberal: 47%
CPC: 27%
Green: 15%
NDP: 11%

http://leger360.com/admin/upload/publi_pdf/La%20politique%20federale%20au%20Canada_20171202_ENv3.pdf

OTOH, Forum Research (n=166 - IVR methodology):

CPC: 43%
Liberal: 32%
Green: 12%
NDP: 12%

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/f6183b5c-adce-4f57-a238-e66efd96ea76Federal%20Horserace%20November.pdf

Again, completely different political preference outcomes by different pollsters/different methodologies even though both were in the field in relatively the same time frame. Granted, any sample size with n<300 can be considered useless.

As an aside, the 2015 federal NDP candidate in Surrey South-White Rock - Pixie Hobby - is now endorsing the federal Greens in this by-election.

Mainstreet Research prez was quoted in the Hill Times as follows:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Within "5%"? Yet Mainstreet does not release any detailed riding polling data.

https://www.hilltimes.com/2017/12/04/liberals-unseat-tories-competitive-vancouver-area-byelection/127314#pq=Kap1cZ

Within the past week, Mustel (long-time BC CATI pollster), which has nailed every BC election/fed BC election result for ~20 years (pre-2013), had this BC finding with larger sample size:

"Overall Performance of Federal Gov't":

Wrong Track: 40%
Right Track: 33%
Don't Know: 23%

So how does one rationalize all of the conflicting foregoing data? Ya just can't. Again, I'm now sitting on the fence on Monday's outcome. Grab your bag of popcorn and watch the result come in.

[Lotuslander]

Also in BC, it will be interesting to see how the Green Party does in Kelowna West as using your argument they should decline although since the BC Liberals are likely to get over 50% won't be enough for the NDP to pick it up, but perhaps increase their vote share.  The only way the NDP could ever win this is if there was no Greens and the BC Conservatives were really strong and split the right wing vote perfectly evenly which won't happen anytime soon.

Interesting tidbit about 4 fed by-elections, which I heard on Global news - largest NDP pop. vote decrease was in SS-WR compared to 2015. Not surprising since NDP *brand* in BC always diminishes/collapses  after BC NDP wins gov't in BC. Compared to post 1972/1991 BC NDP gov't elections, this drop is earliest yet. Remember that fed NDP brand collapsed after 1 1/2 years of BC NDP gov't in subsequent 1974/1993 fed elections - to just 2 seats.

As for Kelowna West by-election - suspect BC Libs will again win well in excess of 60%. With current BC poli political fallout... either Greens or perhaps even BCCP will supplant BC NDP 2nd place finish in 2017. I have no doubt about that. Another grab your bag of popcorn moment as results come in next February.