Canadian by-elections 2023

[adma]

Ultimately, safe-Conservative seats like Calgary Heritage and Oxford (and Portage-Lisgar?) give good insight into the type of CPC candidates that run for/win contested party nominations in a Poilievre-led party.

Or into degrees of macro-vulnerability, depending on the scale of victory and the nature of the opposition vote.

I do feel, though, that Poilievre's leadership *should* temper PPC support in Portage-Lisgar (PPC's strongest '21 riding, on the back of the normally nuclear-Con Mennonite populace in the S).  But conversely, provincial Con gov't unpopularity might be cause to monitor the NDP share in Calgary-Heritage (or even Oxford, where things have been tweaked orangeward by the CAMI/Toyota economy in recent years)

[adma]

Three New Brunswick all safe Liberal ones so should hold easily.  While margins interesting, Higgs has never done well in Francophone parts so whether he is in trouble as polls suggest or not will more depend if Anglophone support holding up or not.  Hamilton Centre will be solid NDP and I expect PCs as always do, to do poorly.  Sainte Anne-Saint Henri favours PLQ but QS upset possible.

For federal none are really swing ones.

Calgary-Heritage: Solid CPC and should win it easily but if called before provincial election possible direction could be first sign of what is to come.  While NDP provincially could win in this area, federally it will stay easily CPC.  But if they underperform could suggest UCP is hurting them but not enough to lose seat or even make it competitive. 

Oxford: Solid CPC but that was a riding PPC got 11% in so do Tories swallow most of that or fall short so could be good read on whether Poilievre is winning over PPC support and is he doing it without losing moderate Tories or not.

Winnipeg South Centre: Yes Tories won it in 2011, but that was in a perfect conditions and I don't see it being winnable for them right now.  For Liberals over 20 points good news, teens suggests probably in minority territory while single digits more worrisome.  Tories won't win it but need to get over 30% if they are going to win nationally.  NDP got 20% and while won't win, be interesting to see if they hold or much of it goes to Liberals.  If a lot goes to Liberals, bad news for Tories as suggests many strategically voting Liberal to stop Tories as I get impression NDP voters dislike both O'Toole and Poilievre, but Poilievre frightens them a lot more.

Conversely, I *could* see WSC as a provincial-Kirkfield Park-esque three-way--that is, through the NDP actually building on its base rather than yielding to the Libs; and to perhaps even allow for a dynamic a la the provincial Toronto-St Paul's in the Jill Andrew era.

As for Oxford, it depends on *where* that PPC vote goes--it's not unlike Reform in the 90s in that while their big strongholds are evangelical-based (Norwich & environs, etc), there's still a sizeable "blue-collar populist" element that *could* bounce back to NDP if so compelled.  So it might also be a test of the post-O'Toole endurance of the Cons' blue-collar strategy...

[adma]

In Oxford it will be interesting to see where the anti-CPC/Poilieve vote goes. The NDP and Liberals battle for second place; in 2019 is was the NDP by about 1-2% in 2021 it was the Liberals by about 1-2%. In 2015 the LPC were comfortably in second but in 2011 the NDP were. Both parties could argue they are the best suited to defeat the CPC. I think it will depend on resources and local candidates, If either the NDP or Liberals can score a "star" candidate they can use the strong candidate approach to rally the anti-CPC vote. There is also the anti-Ford=Poilievre factor that may play the spoiler with some moderate voters.
The LPC will focus on retaining WSC for sure, the NDP of the three by-elections would want to defeat the CPC over the LPC, so may focus on Oxford (win back a voting base that should align to them, union-blue-collar, etc) then on WSC (to maintain or grow the base). To try and spread out the CPC resources the two parties may have a go at CH if only to train the CPC who are fighting to hold two seats. 

OTOH WSC might be the easier "get" for the NDP, simply through inner urban Winnipeg's historical Dipper-friendliness (particularly provincially) and through the leverage places like Osborne Village carry.  But that'd require credible candidacy and a wave in the air.

Oxford is, historically speaking, more of a SW Ontario Heartland Tory bedrock seat, the sort that only shifts in waves when the Cons are either split or in the dumps ('87/90 provincially, '93-00 federally); but it's also one of those SW Ontario Heartland places where, provincially, the NDP's overtaken the Libs in opposition.  And even federally speaking, the comfortably-in-second Libs in '15 and NDP in '11 are a bit "duh" given the dynamics of those elections; but it might be more useful to state that it was one of Ontario's few single-digit Liberal shares in '11, while the NDP still managed over 16% in 3rd in '15--and they were barely a point behind the Libs in *'08*.  As for '19 vs '21, I wonder if the NDP and Libs switching places had something to do w/PPC--and maybe even the O'Toole Cons--snatching some of that union-populist base; but generally, while the Dippers can still give it a competitive-esque shot, I get a whiff of heartland-populist fool's gold a la what's characterized Sarnia in recent times.  As for the Libs, the main places where they can get leverage over the NDP might be recent and/or middle-classish suburbia a la recent developments in N Woodstock and all around Tillsonburg (including the latter's retirement communities).

[adma]

The NDP doesn't have that much room for growth in WSC. River Heights and Tuxedo are too anti-NDP for them to have a chance I think.

IOW they'd have to sort of "max out" in the Osborne/Fort Rouge/Fort Garry environs, and hope that might pull some bottom-feeding River Heights/Tuxedo vote over the wire in the process.  (And in the case of River Heights, it might not be so much "anti-NDP" as too hard-wired into the Liberal default.)

In any case, if there's more potential for the NDP in WSC, it's through a more amenable 3-way split environment than in Oxford, where things are pretty plumped for the Cons unless PPC were poised to build on their last result (which if that were plausible, could lead to a *4*-way split environment).

[adma]

Unless Mike Schreiner has some Morrice-coattails strategy up his sleeve, I'd imagine a likelier NDP-Lib race w/the Greens playing spoiler--that is, if the Libs decide to foot a "star candidate" of sorts.  But of course, the NDP-Lib-Green donnybrook could just wind up pushing the *Tories* up the middle, if they keep and build upon their quarter-of-the-vote rough floor...

[adma]

I can't see the Tories getting much more than 25% of the vote. The non Tory vote would have to be pretty evenly split for the Cons to pick it up.

Yet you can never underestimate DoFo's opportunism at potentially offering someone who might be good for a *third* of a vote and feasting off perceived disarray on the left--divide and conquer, etc.

Yeah, the real point about Mike Morrice vs Beisan Zubi is that once their incumbent candidate withdrew, the Liberal team basically threw in its lot with Morrice as a proxy--kind of the inverse of their Fredericton Jenica Atwin strategy, and fortuitously building on Morrice's own surprise result in '19.  The Grits *really* want to avoid giving the NDP oxygen if they can help it...

[adma]

So the Liberal candidate was off the ballot, now all it would have taken to win is to get the Green candidate off the ballot as well.  Then she would have won.  Do you hear yourself?  Yes, in any riding in the country where the CONs got less than 50%, any candidate who didn't have the other 2 progressive options would have won.

Again, it isn't just the Green candidate, but the *particular* Green candidate in this riding--by virtue of his '19 run, Mike Morrice was a unique case, not to mention totally apart from the dead-candidate-walking stigma attached to Annamie Paul's team.  (Though had the Lib candidate *not* withdrawn, the dead weight of the Annamie leadership disaster probably would have pushed Morrice below his '19 level and perhaps below the NDP as well.  But he wound up with the tacit Liberal proxy endorsement--essentially, the Greens benefited from a perfect storm on *all* fronts here.)

If you want a hint of what might have happened had the Green candidate been anyone other than Mike Morrice, refer to Spadina-Fort York, the other race where the Libs were forced to drop their candidate.  (That the NDP still fell short reflected the eleventh-hourness of that particular withdrawal of federal Liberal support--had Kevin Vuong been dumped a couple of weeks earlier, the outcome would have been different.)

[adma]

Yeah, given how Poilievre-era polling's going, it'd be more interesting to see how much support PPC's poised to shed than whether they're poised to consolidate on their '21 showing...

[adma]

Toronto City council has to agree to a by-election. They could just appoint someone. Also, knowing Ford, he might want to meddle in things a bit. Whatever it takes to get his nephew elected mayor.

Or if not Mikey, Kinga Surma, oh irony.

[adma]

Meanwhile, in Ontario, the Hamilton Centre byelection's officially been called.

[adma]

Marc Garneau is resigning his seat of NDG-Westmount. He says he had planned to retire in 2019 but stayed because he got Foreign Affairs.

Many people expected him to get named ambassador to France or some such "prestige appointment". I wonder if he has a new job lined up. Since NDG-Westmount (the riding I was born and raised in) is a super-safe Liberal seat, this could be a place for Trudeau to plunk in some big name star candidate and future cabinet minister who can shore things up for the Liberals in Quebec.

Dominique Anglade?  <ducks>

[adma]

Final figure:

QS 7897 (44.50) (+16.68)
PLQ 2896 (28.96) (-7.19)
PQ 2025 (11.41) (+3.14)
CAQ 1661 (9.36) (-8.37)
PCQ 478 (2.69) (-3.67)
PVQ 251 (1.41) (-.50)

[ETA: typo in Liberal figure acknowledged below; left in post for the record--that's what you get for posting too fast w/o double-checking]

[adma]

Hamilton Centre by-election is tomorrow.

Yeah, I know the Liberal candidate got 10% in '18; but given the escalating controversy over the NDP candidate, I wonder what the likelihood of a "Simon Hughes" surprise (or at least a serious scare) is...

[adma]

The number of voters in Hamilton Centre who consider the conflict in the Middle East to be a vote determining issue is very close to zero

I think it's more of a general Corbynesque "perhaps a bit too far left for her own good, with a looming cloud of so-labelled anti-Semitism for good measure" matter of tin-eared political optics.  That is, we're dealing w/a different case from Horwath's big-tent mainstream appeal--even if similar traits didn't impede Joel Harden's Ottawa Centre reelection last year.

In a way, as far as south-side-of-the-Golden-Horseshoe byelection replacements for party leaders go, Sarah Jama might be seen as the Sam Oosterhoff of the left.

[adma]

Hamilton centre is very “inner city” and the federal NDP MP Matthew green is also very much on the left of the party. I don’t think being known as a leftwing social activist is a liability in that seat. Oosterhoff for all his craziness has zero problem winning in his own riding which is a safe Tory seat.

Which is why I didn't present the JamaOost corollary precisely in terms of *vulnerability*, as opposed to wishful-think "targetability".  (Though at least "on the grade", I can actually see Oost as more vulnerable--he got just under 45% last time, though a lot of that shortfall was shaved away by the New Blue/Ontario Party axis.  Plus, he had former Pelham and West Lincoln mayors running against him for the NDP & Libs.)

Anyway, with 47 out of 53 polls in, the NDP's got 54.42%, and the Libs just over 20%; so that's it for "Simon Hughesing".

[adma]

Final 53:53 Hamilton Centre figure: NDP 9560 (54.28) (-2.98), Liberal 3535 (20.07) (+7.04), PC 2733 (15.52) (-.95), Green 1220 (6.93) (-1.83) New Blue 148 (.84) (-.82) Electoral Reform 121 (.69), Libertarian 105 (.60), Lingard (Ind) 102 (.58), Yan (Ind) 51 (.29) (-.21), Turmel (Ind) 37 (.21).  21.97% turnout.

[adma]

As expected, the turnout was low. I think I was a little shy on my NDP expectations though, I expected a larger swing to the Liberals.

Why would you have expected any swing to the Liberals at all? I suppose its not surprising that the NDPO vote share would be slightly lower now that they are losing the "leader bonus" that came with Horwath being the candidate in the general election - plus maybe the Liberals get a "dead cat bounce" from being able to run 100% on party brand and not being dragged down by Del Duca

The Liberals are the natural second party in the riding, that's why. Just look at the riding's history, only the NDP or the Liberals have won it since the 1960s. So, when the NDP vote goes down (which was obvious, given Horwath wasn't on the ballot, and the minor controversies), it benefits the Liberals.

And I was right, there was a 5 point average swing to the Liberals. Not as large as expected, but a swing nonetheless.

Given that the Greens went down as well, the Libs seem to have galvanized the "non-NDP progressive  vote" as well.  So yes, they rekindled their "nominal opposition party" status after 2 consecutive 3rd place elections--however, re the Horwath vote "naturally" migrating to the Libs, it's worth noting that her vote share went down 8 points from '18 to '22,  but it went all over the place (a couple of points to the still-third-place Libs, just under a point to the Tories, 3 points to the Greens, and 2 points to other parties.)

Perhaps it comes down to this: as much as the alarm might have been sounded on Jama's "extremism", those sounding said alarm didn't galvanize behind any particular opposition force.  So given the turnout, the biggest upshot might have been that a good deal of the "moderate establishmentarian" Horwath vote opted to sit on its hands instead.  It wasn't the difference btw/54% and 57% of the vote, it was the difference btw/22% turnout and 38% turnout (yeah, I know, it was only a byelection, but still).

And as much as the Tories have made blue-collar inroads lately, their Hamilton Centre ceiling remains mired in the mid-teens.  It's just that the relative centre of gravity for Libs and Tories in the riding has done a switcheroo: the tony "Red Tory" neighbourhoods below the Mountain are now the heart of yuppie Liberalism, while the ethno-working-class "Copps country" E end is now where lunchbucket Tory strength is founded...

[adma]

Speaking of turnout, I think in the current provincial climate low turnout is helping the NDP. According to our post-election polling, most non-voters would have gone PC or Liberal. Makes me think that low information voters are more likely to back the established parties, while high info voters were more aware that the NDP was the main opposition, and therefore they should get your vote to stop the PCs. This is also why the NDP did better than expectations, whereas they normally do worse.

That would also explain how the Ontario NDP did far better in the seat count in the June 2022 than anyone expected. The conventional wisdom was that whatever the final polls showed the NDP would do even worse because in a low turn out environment, their voters would be more likely to stay home - instead the exact opposite happened. I think part of what is happening a reflection of the new "education" factor on turnout. While its true to NDP vote tends to skew younger and lower income, it also skews towards higher levels of education - and people who have more education tend to follow politics and vote more.

This is also why the conventional wisdom in the US about vote suppression and turnout are getting turned upside down. It used to be that a low turnout favoured the GOP since GOP voters tended to be richer and older etc... but now that the GOP is increasingly becoming the party of (for want of a better term) "the poor white trash" and the Dems are increasingly the party of educated people - the turnout effect is very different. We see that the GOP has a big problem because unless Trump is on the ballot, many of their voters now can't be bothered to vote, while the more Dem leaning demographic segments are much more likely to be "high propensity voters". Paradoxically, the more the GOP keeps trying to make it more difficult to vote, the more they may be disenfranchising their own voters.

Though also re a seat like Hamilton Centre, it's also possible that a lot of "non-NDP" voters simply sat on their hands because they knew no other party had a chance, so why bother.

Conversely, let's not forget that just like Trump populism, Ford populism can be a "vote-motivator" to the otherwise-unmotivated--it certainly was in the 2010 and 2014 Toronto mayoral races, or in 2018 provincially.  That it wasn't so in 2022 had a bit of calculated incumbency inertia about it--plus, it might say more about people not motivated to vote *Liberal*, what with their dud of a leader and platform (and perhaps the Tories exploiting said dud-ness in the name of passive "opposition voter suppression").  As well as the fact that (as municipal elections bear out), the epitome of Ontario-style low-propensity voters are the "Lib/Con swing" 905 suburbans, which this time voted Ford out of status quo boredom, and where the NDP's biggest reversals relative to '18 happened.  (And as much as the media tried to push the Horwath-as-dud-leader narrative, it probably worked more to discourage further hitherto-Lib voters from swinging to the NDP, or '18's suburban "red Dippers" from making it a twofer.)

[adma]

Hate to be that guy, but I don't think there's anything to be interpreted from the Hamilton Centre byelection. Sure, a slight NDP->OLP transfer, but that's probably reversion to the mean more than anything else. I mean, not only did Horwath have a leadership bump, she held this riding and its predecessor for 18 years. The OLP has a lot of work to do before we can definitively say they're back.

On top of that, Hamilton Centre is as quintessentially NDP as it gets. The Liberals do have a history of winning here, but it requires many things to go right for them and wrong for the NDP. If Trudeaumania (TM) wasn't enough to even get within striking distance of turning this seat red, Minivan Caucus (TM) never had a chance. Obviously the PCs are a complete non-starter here, and it showed.

Well, there would have been no urge to interpret anything were it not for the NDP candidate controversy "forcing the issue".  Were it a more orthodox "Matthew Green" type of municipal leftist bearing the standard, there really would be no reason to bother seeing anything here.  But w/Jama, the main story is the negligible effect said controversy had on the vote.

And sure, the OLP have a minivan caucus--however, they just had their annual meeting in Hamilton which, on paper, *ought to have* energized the base; and we know from the Lib Dems in the UK that monkey-in-the-middle rump "middle parties" *can* muster a lot of maverick byelection energy.  It's just that, out of power and reduced to a minivan rump two elections in a row, the OLP is *that* energy-depleted.  (That those sounding the alarm over Jama stopped short of endorsing an alternative didn't help the Libs' cause, presuming that they're the only other even vaguely "electable" alternative here.)

[adma]

If 20% in the byelection isn't Liberalmentum I don't know what is!

Well, in all of SW Ontario beyond Burlington last year, they only crossed the 21% threshold *once* (and by a hair, in HESC next door).

[adma]

I'd say it could be more of a promiscuous progressive riding.  It was a 3 way race in 2018.  In 2022, the riding had a strong progressive incumbent, so no point in replacing her (Hunter) when everyone knew it was going to be a PC majority, so many would-be NDP voters voted for her.  But yes, it will be a tough race but I do think Marit has a shot here with the right candidate.

Yeah, in the name of "anti-Ford", Mitzie's incumbency rendered a NDP vote redundant.  But keep in mind that in the 2013 provincial byelection that brought Mitzie into Queen's Park in the first place, the NDP's Adam Giambrone made a controversially aggressive bid and finished a strong 3rd w/28.35%, 7.5 points behind Mitzie (and even w/a more nominal campaign in '18, they did not much worse than that and got within 6 points).

Plus going back to 2007, Scarborough-Guildwood saw the first provincial bid from the perennially-overachieving/never-quite-making-it Neethan Shan, and he got 21.9%, which was astronomical for that kind of riding in that particular election (and the NDP's *best* Scarborough result that year, better than even SSW).  Not to mention that impressions of relative '22 NDP success in Scarborough are skewed by Shan bidding for Scarborough Centre that year, and the '18 near-winner in S-Rouge Park reoffering (while Scarborough North simply had a better-than-usual candidate a la Shan and no Mitzi-type Liberal incumbent to hog the left oxygen).

So, in the event of a byelection *presently*, Scarborough-Guildwood is absolutely NDP-targetable--if it's been less-than-top-priority at other times in the recent past, it's due to various "circumstances" or to Scarborough more generally not always being that targetable a proposition for the party (one might argue that both 2011 federally and 2018 provincially "caught them by surprise" in Guildwood).

But one subtler detail behind Liberal strength in Guildwood, both in Mitzie's ability to survive '18 provincially and John McKay's ability to survive '11 federally: monolithic Liberal support in the Muslim zones around Markham & Lawrence even in the worst of times.  Not so much that it'd necessarily impede the NDP, though, given the 3-way marginality of both the '13 byelection and '18 (and '11 federally).

[adma]

I'm also not sure how much Hunter can rely on any Liberal "machine". I think we saw in last year's provincial election that the OLP machine is a Potemkin Village

Not to mention last week's provincial byelection.  "Hey!  You coulda Simon Hughes'd that loony-radical-left NDP candidate, and you didn't even come close!"

[adma]

And another thing about Scarborough-Guildwood: for all this Lib vs NDP chances talk, unlike Hamilton Centre, it *is* a seat where the Tories are viable in, and they'd *probably* look upon this as unfinished business from '18, especially.  (Indeed, back in the aughts a seat like this would have seemed more Tory-targetable than Scarborough Centre--though that's when the party's base was less Ford Nation ethnoburban and more Guildwood Village old-stock.)

[adma]

Merrillee Fullerton is resigning https://twitter.com/DrFullertonMPP/status/1639335799136059411/photo/1 .  This is sort of a bellwether as narrowly went Liberal federally but PC provincially.  Was solid Tory a decade ago but like many suburban ridings has shifted left.  So this could be a good indicator if PC support holding up or falling.  And likewise also sign if OLP or NDP gaining.

A *very* tenuous and newfound-condition "sort of a bellwether" at best.  But technically, I'm not sure if this territory has been anything *but* Tory, for well over a century--of course, that's accounting for predecessor ridings that were much larger and more rural.  Yet these days, with growth and redistribution rural West Carleton is really the only truly "Tory-invulnerable" zone left; so yes, provincial history is no longer automatically-presumed destiny here.  Now, it's PC more generically because the Libs imploded and the NDP's still too quixotic an option--though in a Chandra Pasma era, who knows about the latter anymore.

I doubt the NDP will really bother to contest Kanata, so it will be a real test to see if the Liberals can become relevant again. Of course, who will want to join the lifeboat?

I'm actually not so sure about that re the NDP--after all, rather than reverting to 3rd place status quo a la Nepean or Carleton, they actually *kept* their 2nd place in K-C in '22; and if Melissa Coenraad were to stand again, it's hard not to imagine that she'd give it a serious run on Chandra Pasma coattails.  (And Kanata has a lively history of municipal Dipperdom most particularly through Alex Munter, even if it's scarcely translated to a provincial or federal level.)

[adma]

I doubt the NDP will really bother to contest Kanata, so it will be a real test to see if the Liberals can become relevant again. Of course, who will want to join the lifeboat?

I'm actually not so sure about that re the NDP--after all, rather than reverting to 3rd place status quo a la Nepean or Carleton, they actually *kept* their 2nd place in K-C in '22; and if Melissa Coenraad were to stand again, it's hard not to imagine that she'd give it a serious run on Chandra Pasma coattails.  (And Kanata has a lively history of municipal Dipperdom most particularly through Alex Munter, even if it's scarcely translated to a provincial or federal level.)

Alex Munter was quite popular in Kanata, but that only translated into strong municipal numbers, and Peggy Feltmate winning his seat in 2003 on his coattails. Her chosen successor did not win in 2010 though, and the ward has been stuck with the dud that is Allan Hubley ever since.  Anyway, Munter was popular not because he was a progressive, but because he was the Kanata's wonderkid of the late 1980s, forming a local newspaper at the age of 14, and winning a prestigious award from Brian Mulroney.

Anyway, given recent municipal and provincial numbers, I'd say the NDP's ceiling here is around 30%. Not enough to make it competitive, but might make things interesting in a 3-way race. But the Tories would win in a tight 3-way. The Tory floor is about 35%, so that doesn't leave any room for the Liberals, unless the Greens don't run.

As much as one might interpret an apparent NDP ceiling here, two consecutive 2nd places and 20something shares certainly isn't a foundation for not bothering to really contest Kanata--even if it winds up handing the seat to the Tories on a silver platter.  Maybe if you were speaking of a *federal* byelection, you'd be on the right track; but provincially, it'd be only if the Libs offered a clear, strategically superior candidate (a la Jeff Lehman in Barrie last year)