Canadian Election 2019

[the506]

Going by what took place last few election cycles it seems most polls are fairly useless until the last 2-3 weeks before the election.  Is that because Canadians are more fickle or the nature of a 3 party system  manes that votes are more likely to be tactically minded and more likely to shift how they vote up until right before the election.   

Both really.

[the506]

Does JWR run again? If so, under whose banner?

To be honest, I could even see the 3 opposition parties declining to field a candidate against JWR if she ran as an independent.

Can't imagine the Tories doing that. NDP, probably not either. Greens would do it in a heartbeat.

[the506]

How did Singh become NDP leader in the first place.

They saw Trudeau won on shallow stylistics and wanted to do the same thing.

[the506]

Philpott too.

They both called Elizabeth May "an ally" in their speeches, my guess is the Greens have agreed not to run against either of them.

[the506]

Yes yes yes, the Liberals always play the strategic voting card to stop the “scary Conservatives”. They have done that in every single election I have been aware of. They played that card in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015. Of course it works with some people but that is a strategy that typically is the difference between the NDP getting 21% of the national popular vote or getting 18%.

And the hypocritical thing is that Liberal supporters absolutely do not reciprocate when the shoe is on the other foot...see 2011 or Ontario last year.

[the506]

I feel like Green losses due to the blackface scandal are an underrated part of this campaign, especially now that the Greens are getting more scrutiny than they usually do.

I'm not so sure, it may work that way on a national pop-vote level but the Green vote is very highly concentrated in Vancouver Island, NB, PEI and a few random ON/QC ridings. In all but the first, the NDP vote is going to be significantly depressed. I don't think it will hurt Green chances at winning seats in any of them.

[the506]

I have the Wikipedia candidate list a quick skim to see which riding has the most candidates. Ottawa Centre appears to be the winner with a whopping twelve:

• All the major parties
• Two independents
• Animal Protection
• Christian Heritage
• Communist
• Libertarian
• National Citizens Alliance

That will make for an intreresting candidates debate.

There seem to be a lot more minor party candidates in general this election, almost as many as 1993 when some ridings had as many as 13 and most big city seats as a rule had at least 9-10.

(Full disclosure: my brother is one of them, he's running as a Libertarian in Fredericton.)

[the506]

I'd imagine most Libertarians are supporting Bernier now.

They are. The ones that are left don't like the racism basically.

[the506]

Are the Greens in with a chance of picking up any PEI ridings given their performance at the provincial election?

Possibly, but the Liberals have very strong incumbents in 3 ridings, and the 4th is the Greens' weakest.

Best bet at a Green seat on the east coast is Fredericton.

[the506]

Now Nick Kouvalis and Joseph Angolino from Mainstreet are trying to get him to walk back the majority talk.

I swear the battles between pollsters are more frustrating than the actual campaign.