2015 election scenarios for Canada: orange vs. blue
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  2015 election scenarios for Canada: orange vs. blue
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Author Topic: 2015 election scenarios for Canada: orange vs. blue  (Read 3437 times)
King of Kensington
Junior Chimp
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« on: April 08, 2012, 02:24:02 AM »
« edited: April 08, 2012, 02:37:22 AM by King of Kensington »

I'd like to see scenarios for the Mulcair vs. Harper matchup in 2015.  Of course this exercise would be easier if we had the new riding boundaries.   I am assuming that the Conservatives after 9 years in power will not be gaining votes and the NDP will be picking up a very large share of the Liberal vote - after all the old strategic voting argument doesn't work for the Liberals anymore and in facts works against them - as well as a good number of disaffected Conservatives.  Some questions/thoughts:

- What happens to the Liberals?  Can they retain even the 18% of the vote they obtained in 2011, or does it collapse down to say, the mid-teens?  How many seats does this translate into - what kind of base will they have?  Do they retain a regional base in Atlantic Canada (akin the "Celtic fringe" in England)?   How stable is their "base" among affluent urban professionals?  Can they retain a seat like St. Paul's and maybe pickup a seat like Don Valley West, or will even St. Paul's swing orange?  Part of the question is who is Liberal leader?  Does Bob Rae stay on? If not is their new leader center-right or center-left?

- How complete will the "Obama-ization" of the Mulcair-led NDP be?  I am assuming the working class Liberal vote will swing NDP big time: Davenport, York South-Weston and Scarborough was hit by the orange wave; seats like York West, seats in Brampton etc. should be low hanging fruit.  But how much can they take of the upscale liberal professional vote?  How far does the "modernization" process go?

Looking at the country from east to west:

Atlantic:  Liberals may be able to hold out support here, in PEI and Newfoundland outside St. John's, Scott Brison's seat (could he be a Liberal leader?).  Cape Breton could swing NDP, as could South Shore-St. Margaret's and maybe even Central Nova.  Halifax West could be a "Lib Dem" type seat or swing NDP.  New Brunswick seems a little hard to predict: Moncton and Saint John are possible NDP pickups.  Could the old "Franco-Liberal" areas (which have swung Tory recently) ditch the Tories and get behind the NDP, or could be the Liberal base be re-established?  The Tories seem more entrenched in their seats in NB than elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

Quebec:  Mulcair has the potential to improve on the orange wave and nearly sweep the province.  On Montreal Island, there are a working class few "mixed" allophone/francophone Liberal holdout seats like St. Laurent-Cartierville, Papineau, Bourassa, St. Laurent-St. Michel, etc.  I think these are quite likely to swing NDP, though maybe(?) Justin Trudeau can buck the trend.  Westmount-Ville Marie should go NDP and the more well-to-do anglo federalist ridings of Mount Royal and Lac St. Louis could even go NDP given that the orange wave did indeed hit the West Island and given further Liberal collapse (and Mulcair does have federalist cred) but they could also be Liberal holdouts.  The Tory vote is concentrated enough to be able to retain 4 of their 5 seats - they won these 4 by quite big margins, Lotbiniere-Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere was the only close call.   The Bloc of course could resurge and that would spell trouble for the NDP, but they won't have much money for a full campaign given the end of the subsidy and their vote is pretty spread out.

Ontario:  I'm assuming Conservatives hold the rural and exurban seats and hold York and Halton regions, NDP wins the most 416 seats; Liberal strength in Toronto difficult to detect they'll likely lose their working class seats but maybe pick up a DVW or Willowdale.  The industrial heartland/southwest becomes an NDP-Conservative battleground, seats like Sarnia, Brant, St. Catharines, Kitchener Centre, etc. could come into play. Not sure if there's a LibDem-ish college town strength in Kingston, Guelph and maybe London North Centre that allows the Liberals to keep/pickup these seats (if not they go NDP).  The Ottawa seats of Ottawa West-Nepean, Ottawa South and Ottawa-Vanier are interesting: NDP came close in Vanier last time, but civil servants are likely to be even more anti-Tory next time, making South and OW-N interesting questions when the Libs are now a weak third party.  

The Prairies:  NDP easily takes back their lost 2 seats of Elmwood-Transcona and Winnipeg North. Can Mulcair catch on to the Doer/Selinger appeal and win suburban Winnipeg seats like Kildonan-St. Paul and St. Boniface?  The one "Liberal" possibility is Winnipeg South Centre based on demographics and history (after River Heights is the only Liberal seat in the Manitoba legislature) - but the large intelligentsia/bohemian/urban professional element could also swing NDP.  Manitoba is after all more accustomed to a NDP/Conservative polarization. The rural Prairies stay Conservative, "agrarian socialism" is dead.  Assuming these silly "rurban" ridings in Saskatchewan are kept I see the NDP finally picking up close-calls Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River, Palliser and Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar.  The remaining "rurban" Regina and Saskatoon seats are the real question mark.  Regina-Qu'Appelle and Lumsden-Lake Centre both have a history of NDP strength, Wascana less so but Goodale likely took more NDP than Tory votes.  NDP support in Saskatoon seems to be more concentrated in 1 seat.  In Alberta, there's not much to talk about except Edmonton which was hit by the orange wave and has strength provincially; Edmonton East and Edmonton Centre are likely NDP pickups.

British Columbia:  In the Lower Mainland, Van Centre almost certainly swings NDP.  Van South could also swing NDP if it's a two-way orange/blue battle (Ujjal Dosanjh captured a lot of NDP vote), if Liberal support is concentrated enough they could hold Quadra (if the "Obama coalition" thing works out for the NDP - they could take it).   Fleetwood-Port Kells looks like it could be an NDP pickup, given what's happened in surrounding ridings, and Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission is a possibility.  In the interior and north c, the left/right polarization is pretty strong, though Kamloops could go NDP.  The Tories could be swept off Vancouver Island entirely (Nanaimo-Alberni and Vancouver Island North), but I expect Elizabeth May to stay on as a Green, should she run again.  Left Coast indeed!
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Smid
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2012, 07:46:40 AM »

I've pondered these questions frequently, as well. Incidentally, there are blank maps in the gallery - I'm sure you've seen them, but you might find them useful to shade to reflect potential targetted ridings. I don't know if I agree about Winnipeg Centre South, River Heights is the Torah belt in the city and aside from Mulcair, the NDP isn't as pro-Israel as the other parties. The Liberals could regain it, but they may struggle, unless there is no chance of them supporting an NDP minority government. I suspect this may be why the Conservatives won the Jewish vote in 2011. The same potentially could be the case in Mount Royal.

On the other hand, the suburban west riding in Winnipeg... I forget, Charleswood? Assinobia? Something like that (as in, something along those lines combined. There's a third one in there, too, St something, I think. Anyway, from memory, it is split by the river, and provincially, ridings on the north side are NDP, while provincial ridings on the south side are PC, so there could be room for growth there. I think a provincial PC members ran for the Liberals federally there.

I think you're right about the potential for the NDP in London North Centre - there's a poll map on here somewhere. I think it the result was mostly to do with vote splitting. Probably similar to Scarborough Centre. Dislodging the (Liberal) incumbent is half the battle... In some places, like Vaughan, this benefits the Conservatives, in other places, like Scarborough Centre or London North Centre, it could possibly help the NDP in the long run - so not the party that defeated the incumbent in the first place.
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adma
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« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2012, 11:36:18 AM »

I think you're right about the potential for the NDP in London North Centre - there's a poll map on here somewhere. I think it the result was mostly to do with vote splitting. Probably similar to Scarborough Centre.

Vote-distributionwise, LNC isn't quite a SC situation--the polling patterns were pretty flip-a-coin helter-skelter in SC, while LNC is rather emphatically divided btw/the Tory/anti-NDP-leaning north and the NDP-voting south, with the Liberal base in '11 heaviest in the university and "professorial class" affluent midriff.  (Interestingly, in the most heavily NDP parts, the Tories clear second-place advantage over the Liberals--a bit of a "Reagan Democrat" effect there.)

Of course, redistribution will make everything a whole new ballgame by 2015, which may put an added fresh-start ball into the NDP court--though at least for the sake of full democracy (and besides, three-way races a la LNC and SC are fun), I still wouldn't rule out the Grits, particularly in the event that former MPs bid for a comeback...
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King of Kensington
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2012, 04:22:15 PM »

I don't know if I agree about Winnipeg Centre South, River Heights is the Torah belt in the city and aside from Mulcair, the NDP isn't as pro-Israel as the other parties.

By "Torah belt" do you mean any Jewish neighborhood or *Orthodox* or more religious Jewish neighborhoods?   

"Jewish vote" or not, the Conservatives barely took WSC in the last election.  And the riding has lots of "liberal Jews" as well, like in St. Paul's or Westmount-Ville Marie, who don't read much Torah.  I think Orthodox Jews (outside Quebec at least) have become a Conservative block vote, and there's enough of them in the riding of Thornhill to explain why Peter Kent took it in '08, or why Bernie Farber couldn't beat Peter Shurman provincially last fall.  While Harper's Israel policy certainly helped gain Jewish votes I don't think it's as simple as that. 

Israel helped, but it also mirrored the national trend - the collapse of the Liberal vote and "bourgeois stability" (rather than right-wing ideology) resulted in a lot of affluent suburbanites going from Liberal to Conservative.  If the Conservatives decline in popularity, a lot of these voters will be up for grabs.  Mulcair can pass the pro-Israel litmus test (his pro-Israel stance is quite well known in the Jewish community).  The question is how does it split between the NDP and Liberals - if the LPC is too far down/lacks concentrated support/is even further on its deathbed, it will be interesting.  WSC and the riding of St. Paul's are of course good tests of the brand of "professional Liberalism" - and to what extent the "modern progressive" NDP can crack it. 

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And now that the NDP is the Official Opposition, will they solidify behind the NDP in a more clearly defined "orange vs. blue" battle to get rid of the Tory who slipped through? 
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King of Kensington
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2012, 04:24:04 PM »

(Interestingly, in the most heavily NDP parts, the Tories clear second-place advantage over the Liberals--a bit of a "Reagan Democrat" effect there.)

Not surprising.  The Liberals are the most "elitist" party. 
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adma
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« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2012, 06:32:21 PM »

I think Orthodox Jews (outside Quebec at least) have become a Conservative block vote,

And they did finally succeed in being something of a Conservative block vote in Quebec in 2011, at least in the appropriate polls in Mount-Royal, Pierrefonds-Dollard, and Saint Laurent-Cartierville--though not enough to win the seats at large.
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Smid
Junior Chimp
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« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2012, 06:03:44 PM »

Sorry, yes, you're right about Winnipeg SC. I was rushing a bit when I posted the other night.
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BlueDog Bimble
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« Reply #7 on: July 05, 2012, 01:49:03 PM »

My prediction popular vote wise:

Conservative: 38%
NDP: 35%
Liberal: 15%
BQ: 7%
Green: 3%

Although the NDP are either tying or ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls, I think there will be a bit of "shy Tory factor" involved here. Also, although some Grits will switch to the NDP, i would say that many Liberals would rather vote Tory than NDP.
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CalgaryManifesto
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« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2012, 09:42:58 PM »

I would say the most important factor is going to be the Liberal leader, and whether or not they can finally revitalize their party. If the Liberals are weak, you'll see progressive voters break left, which might swing a bunch of ridings in Ontario and BC. If you end up with a competent, charismatic leader, and a functional party organization, I think you'll see the Tories retain government.

We will also have to wait and see how the new boundaries line up. We'll probably have a good idea how it will play out by late 2013.
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