2011 Canadian Provincial Elections - Wrap-up phase.

[DL]

I saw that trend to - but next time the NDP will seriously target Saint John and Moncton and probably win them and maybe Charlottetown too. One mystery in Atlantic Canada is why the federal NDP doesn't do better in Sydney and Glace Bay. A generation ago that was the ONLY place in Atlantic Canada they ever won - now its a wasteland. Any idea why?

[DL]

I have to say that I'm finding polling in Ontario to be very, very erratic (as it was throughout the lead up to and during the federal election). Just in the past two weeks we have seen the Liberals as low as 28% and as high as 38%. We have seen the NDP as low as 16% and as high as 24%. The Tories seem to be moving around within a much narrower range from a low of 38% to a high of 42%.

I'm not sure what to make of it all.

[DL]

City of Toronto (416) is also shaping as a three way race - when you have Liberals at 36% and NDP and Tories at 28% each - it smells to me like a three way split in the seat count because of the way the Liberal vote is spread evenly across the city.

[DL]

Regarding Toronto, i will also be very interested to see what happens in York West. That is actually the poorest riding in the city and was once a NDP stronghold provincially. The NDP is running the executive assistant to a city councillor in the area and the Liberal incumbent is very - shall we say - dated.

[DL]

I think Sgro is a stronger incumbent than Sergio and also the NDP had no campaign federally in York West. It may make difference to have an active campaign there this time.

[DL]

New poll out of Newfoundland:

MQO Research poll: PC: 53% NDP: 29% LIB: 18%. Leaders: KD: 64% LM: 22% KA: 14% Margin: +/-4.9% Sample: 413 Date: 09/16-09/18

To put things in perspective - in the last election the NDP took 6% of the vote and didn't even have a full slate of candidates. If those votes are at all concentrated in St. John's (as I suspect they are) - the NDP could easily go from 1 seats to 8 or 9!

[DL]

I also wonder whether if the Liberals get wiped out provincially in NL, it would put a lot of pressure on some of the 4 remaining federal Liberal MPs in NL to switch to the NDP or the Tories.

[DL]

Tory strength is too high in the St. John's area for the NDP to actually win any seats, I think.

We have no way of knowing that. The NDP took 29% in NL federally but in St. John's they took over 50% of the vote while they were in the low teens in the rest of the province. In the absence of any regional breakdown its hard to say - but its not unreasonable that the NDP could be at 40% in SJ and in the high teens elswhere. At 40% or more you are looking at a scenario where SJ splits PC and NDP in terms of seats.

But at this stage its all speculation. Its hard to use the 2007 NL election results as much of a yard stick since in 2007 it was before Williams ABC campaign and it was before the two federal St. John's seats went from being supersafe Tory seats to going NDP by a landslide.

[DL]

Actually there are several strong high profile candidates running for the NDP in St. John's.

Geoff Gallant in Cape St. Francis is the deputy mayor of Torbay and has a very impressive resume and is talked about as a possible future leader of the party.
Gerry Rogers (who is a woman) in St. John's Centre is an award winning documentary film maker who is very well known locally
George Murphy in St. John's East is a high profile head of a group fighting for fair gas prices.
Dale Kirby in St. JOhn's North is the NL NDP President and is a Professor at MUN and seems to be one of the main NDP spokespeople during the campaign.
...and if you go on the NL NDP website read about Keith Dunne in St. John's South and Chris Pickard in St. John's West you'll see that they both are lifelong activists in their ridings and that Pickard is a sports commentator on TV and radio.

Neither Jack Harris nor Ryan Cleary were seen as such "giants" until they got elected to Parliament. Harris had barely been able to win provincially and never expanded the NL NDP beyond his one riding and Cleary was seen by some to be a bit of a joke and a loose cannon who had a past as a Newfoundland separatist.

The thing is that now all of a sudden you have two NDP MPs in SJ each of whom has an office and employs staff and you have something like 60% of people in SJ who are now used to putting their "x" beside an NDP candidate on a ballot. The media is aso treating the NDP as a major player in NL in a way that it never did before. So I think the NL NDP i going to surprise a lot of people on Oct. 11

[DL]

Actually the NDP vote is terrible. I really had to work the numbers to make the NDP win seats. We might see one of those dreaded FPTP elections where one party (the NDP) racks up a huge number of "close seconds"

I assume you are referring to NL. In the absence of any regional breakdowns of party support in NL - we have absolutely no way of knowing how efficient or inefficient the NDP vote is in NL. Its is possible (though unlikely) that they get 25-30% in every single riding and get just 1 or 2 seats out of 48 and lose all the others by 15 to 20 point margins to the PCs. But in all likelihood te NL NDP vote will have its concentrations - probably in St. John's where the party won both federal seats. If the NDP vote is actually at 45% in St. John's and 15-20% elsewhere - the NDP could sweep the city and end up with a dozen seats. But in the absence of any actual regional polling data - all we can do is guess.

[DL]

Looks like the NDP will win in Manitoba. ahead 46-43 innthe final poll with a huge lead in Winnipeg

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/provincial-election/ndp-clinging-to-lead-poll-says-130836243.html

[DL]

There is a precedent for a party going from being in government and even a natural governing party of a province - to being dead in very short order.

Look at the Union Nationale in Quebec. They were in power almost continuously 1936 to 1960 under Duplessis - then they lost in 1960, then they had a dead cat bounce and regained power under Daniel Johnson in 1966, then they lost big in 1970 to Robert Bourassa and the Liberals but were still official opposition, then they were wiped off the map in 1973 and reduced to just 5% of the vote - so there you have it - in April 1970 the UN was the government of Quebec - by October 1973 they had zero seats and 4% of the vote!

[DL]

Labrador West (so solid I'd eat my shirt if they NDP lose) omnomnom?

How does the shirt taste?

I think the NDP has a fantastic foundation for the future in NL. Having a base in St. John's is KEY and it is probably inevitable that Dunderdale will lose popularity and the next election will be more competitive. I wonder if Lorraine Michael stick around for the NDP. She is 69 (I believe) and has had two kicks at the can. She may want to step aside gracefully and let someone like Dale Kirby of St. John's North run for Premier in 2015...btw: unless someone changes the fixed election dates the 2015 NL election will happen at exactly the same time as the 2015 federal election - making it even more likely that the NDP can cross pollinate federal and provincial popularity.

[DL]

We shall see what will happen but considering that parties on the right seem to always do a bit better than the polls state (I suspect this has mostly to do with the fact the demographics they are strongest amongst are more likely to show up), this should be a blow out. 

There are some exceptions to that pattern. For example in the 2009 BC election almost all the polls kept giving the ultra rightwing BC Liberals/Social Credit a double digit lead over the NDP...they ended up winning by just a 3.5% margin. In the 2004 and 2006 federal elections the Tories did worse than any of the final polls projected. In the recent Manitoba election the PCs did no better than the final polls.

[DL]

There seems to be an incredible amount of party switching in the Yukon legislature. It seems like almost every seat has someone running who ran before for another party etc...any explanation for that?