Newfoundland and Labrador election, 2019

[Hatman 🍁]

Deadline for nominations today, and so far the NDP have nominated a grand total of...  five candidates.

What the actual f**k? They could've been competitive this time...

[Hatman 🍁]

A combination of an early election call, and a new leader are probably to blame.

Newfoundland is supposed to have fixed election dates, so a bit of a dick move by Dwight Ball to call the election this early.

[Hatman 🍁]

According to Wikipedia, the Tories don't have a full slate either (though this will probably change). If they can't find a candidate in Burgeo-La Poile or Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, the Liberals there will be acclaimed. Should note that those are among the safest Liberal seats in the province. They won 97%(!) and 93% respectively in those ridings in 2015.

The PCs also don't have candidates in Humber-Bay of Islands and Labrador West, but incumbent Eddie Joyce is running as an independent in the former, and Lab West has an NDP candidate.

[Hatman 🍁]

The NDP is notoriously slow when it comes to doing nominations.

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, the NDP found 8 more candidates, for a grand total of 13. Pitiful.

The Tories couldn't get a candidate for Waterford Valley, but at least the NDP has one there. Oddly enough, it went PC as recently as 2011 (when it was St. John's South, they won 58% of the vote there and 80% in 2007).

[Hatman 🍁]

Elections NL only shows 13: https://www.elections.gov.nl.ca/elections/resources/pdf/releases/NR%20-%20Officially%20Nominated%20Candidates%20for%20the%202019%20Provincial%20General%20Election.pdf

No candidate in Mount Pearl North.

Fewest NDP candidates since 1972, when they ran 4, winning 0.2% of the vote!

The last poll had the NDP at 16%, which is actually better than they did last election! But, obviously not having that many candidates will hurt their numbers. I do wonder how pollsters will treat this situation; most voters won't have an NDP candidate on the ballot, but you still need to ask, as they can still win seats in St. John's.

[Hatman 🍁]

Elections NL made an error, it will be 14 after all. Huzzah!

[Hatman 🍁]

Elections NL made an error, it will be 14 after all. Huzzah!

They beat the Alliance after all. Man, the election results are going to look like something out of the 1950's.

What, heavily based on religious lines, or whether or not the party supported confederation?

[Hatman 🍁]

Elections NL made an error, it will be 14 after all. Huzzah!

They beat the Alliance after all. Man, the election results are going to look like something out of the 1950's.

What, heavily based on religious lines, or whether or not the party supported confederation?

Haha

No I meant mostly two party races with the occasional CCF New Democrat to make things interesting.

Well, I think the NDP will at least win Signal Hill-Qidi Vidi, so we're looking at more like a 1990s situation, where the NDP wins 1or 2 seats and gets less than 10% of the popular vote.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'm guessing it's really hard to get good polling for a province as lightly-populated and sparse as Newfoundland

NL has 4x as many people as PEI, and there were lots of PEI polls.

May be a lack of money for polling.

[Hatman 🍁]

Abacus:

PC: 42
Lib: 37
NDP: 15

So, actually an interesting race developing.

And if the NDP is actually in the low teens, that should be enough to hang on to Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'm sure a lot of that 15% are people who are expecting to vote NDP, but will be surprised to find out they have no candidate in that riding. So, in reality, we're talking about something much closer to 10%.

[Hatman 🍁]

Forum:

42-40-13

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/3378d018-a80f-4817-9ae5-c18fc55e51cbNL%20Issues_May%208th%202019_final.pdf

[Hatman 🍁]

A minority is very unlikely if the NDP wins just 1-2 seats.

[Hatman 🍁]

How can a minority government be "the most plausible outcome" when the NDP+Independents will be lucky to win more than 2 seats combined?

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet:
45-41-8

Quito is predicting 2 Indies and on NDP elected.

Oh, and 22 Libs and 15 PCs.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet:
45-41-8

Quito is predicting 2 Indies and on NDP elected.

Oh, and 22 Libs and 15 PCs.

Quito's predictions at the riding level are pretty crappy. He predicted every seat in Alberta and in several he was off by a mile!

To be fair, he was very good in the Ontario election. I didn't follow his Alberta predictions that closely, but I loled at him predicting the Liberals would win Mountainview (they came a distant 4th with 6% of the vote). Our internals didn't give him a chance. I suspect he is over-predicting the Liberals here as well.

[Hatman 🍁]

Mainstreet:
45-41-8

Quito is predicting 2 Indies and on NDP elected.

Oh, and 22 Libs and 15 PCs.

Quito's predictions at the riding level are pretty crappy. He predicted every seat in Alberta and in several he was off by a mile!

To be fair, he was very good in the Ontario election. I didn't follow his Alberta predictions that closely, but I loled at him predicting the Liberals would win Mountainview (they came a distant 4th with 6% of the vote). Our internals didn't give him a chance. I suspect he is over-predicting the Liberals here as well.

Ontario ridings are big enough that they can be polled and mainstreet did a gazillion riding polls. Provincial ridings in NL are extremely small and each have about one sixth the population of an Ontario riding. Its virtually impossible to draw any kind of an accurate sample in such a small electorate and with response rates to IVR polls being so low - a riding poll that mainstreet would do in NL - likels is a poll of 30-40 old people with landlines...

Did they even do riding polling?

We did some riding polls back in 2015; I think we had 100-150 completes in each. Newfoundland has the lowest cell phone only household rate in the country, which helps with this kind of thing (a huge contrast to Alberta, which is approaching 50% cell phones!).

[Hatman 🍁]

How can a minority government be "the most plausible outcome" when the NDP+Independents will be lucky to win more than 2 seats combined?

"[L]ucky to win more than 2 seats combined" is a bit melodramatic lol

It's not hard to see the NDP holding onto both their districts, with Coffin retaining the most orange seat in the province & the NDP holding onto a pretty urban area. That's 2 seats right there.

Independent-wise, Paul Lane can hold onto Mount Pearl-Southlands, & re: Joyce, I think name recognition & length of service will end up outweighing partisanship & political scandal, imo.

So, 2 NDP, 2 Indys; say the Libs walk out of election night with 19 seats to the PC's 17: boom, minority government.

At this point, I admit the NDP+Ind seat total max is 4 (most likely it will be 2-3 imo), but still, that's not enough to make a minority the most plausible outcome. Even with a tie PV. One party usually has a geographic advantage. Look at the 1989 election. Essentially it was a tied PV, but the Liberals won a 10 seat majority. 

[Hatman 🍁]

How can a minority government be "the most plausible outcome" when the NDP+Independents will be lucky to win more than 2 seats combined?

"[L]ucky to win more than 2 seats combined" is a bit melodramatic lol

It's not hard to see the NDP holding onto both their districts, with Coffin retaining the most orange seat in the province & the NDP holding onto a pretty urban area. That's 2 seats right there.

Independent-wise, Paul Lane can hold onto Mount Pearl-Southlands, & re: Joyce, I think name recognition & length of service will end up outweighing partisanship & political scandal, imo.

So, 2 NDP, 2 Indys; say the Libs walk out of election night with 19 seats to the PC's 17: boom, minority government.

At this point, I admit the NDP+Ind seat total max is 4 (most likely it will be 2-3 imo), but still, that's not enough to make a minority the most plausible outcome. Even with a tie PV. One party usually has a geographic advantage. Look at the 1989 election. Essentially it was a tied PV, but the Liberals won a 10 seat majority.  

It's a shame that's the case, but I agree that it is. A majority for either Ball or Crosbie would be a disaster. If you're wondering, I'm supporting the Conservatives this fall (although I'm not in Canada currently.)

If the PCs won a majority, they may still not have a single MLA from the Long Range Mountains/Labrador parts of the province. It should be an interesting night.

Because I'm a pedantic a$$hole, I have to point out that they're called MHAs in Newfoundland

Anyway, Newfoundland is prone to some wild swings, so expect the unexpected tonight.

[Hatman 🍁]

Truly an insane result.

Can't believe the NDP won three seats after running in only 14 ridings. Clearly a miracle. And Labrador West? I thought they were running a no name candidate up there!

Well, I didn't think it was likely, but here we are a Liberal minority, and the closest election ever to boot.

Looks like the NLA did fairly well in the ridings they ran in. Clearly people wanted change, but not the Tories.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Liberals aren't that much better in Newfoundland; they've been running the province in austerity mode the last four years. The province hasn't had a decent Premier since Danny Williams, who led a PC government - but was very anti-Conservative.

Really? I've heard in passing that it was Williams & his PC's who were responsible for NL's debt crisis. Is this a massive oversimplification, or just plain wrong?

Well, there is that of course. But TBF, the province is in such economic shambles, no one can really help it without begging to Ottawa for more money. And that would be true no matter which party is in charge.

What's the deal with the independents elected? Who are they, and why did they win?

Two MHAs thrown out of their caucuses, but remain personally popular in their districts. Personal popularity is very important in NL.

[Hatman 🍁]

Labrador West isn't a surprise from an historical perspective, but it is a surprise in this particular election. Especially if Coffin didn't even go up there (makes sense though, it's very expensive to fly up to Labrador, and I'm sure the party has no money).

Looks like both Quidi Vidi and St. John's Centre have become pretty reliably safe NDP seats. I think the area has demographically become the home of your typical urban progressive voter. Progressive candidates tend to do better in this part of the city in municipal elections too.

[Hatman 🍁]