Saskatchewan election 2020

[adma]

Yeah, Wyoming is pushing it--and Regina and Saskatoon are far more dominant than Cheyenne and Casper.

The Dakotas are a closer equivalent, geographically and politically (i.e. their erstwhile amenability to Democrats, even those of a "McGovern-progressive" strain)

[adma]

Actually, the cities still have their "left inherency"--the real story, as in so much of the West (or the world in general) is urban-rural electoral sorting; so that the NDP is now almost exclusively a Regina/Saskatoon/far-north party and the Sask Party now gets Soviet margins in the rural parts which once might have been more marginal or even outright "Agrarian Socialist".

It's why the NDP was reduced to 9 seats on a 54-37% margin in 1982, but it took an over 2:1 margin to bottom out at a similar level the last two elections--in 1982, the vote was much more "spread out"...

[adma]

Yeah, how many places does the centre left do well in agrarian rural areas? The Liberals do well in the Annapolis Valley and PEI and the Acadien bits of NB... and that's all I can think of.

Though qualified by the McNeil factor in NS--and it's the rural areas which tipped PEI in the Tory direction last provincial election.

[adma]

So in most provinces and nationally you are bang on and ditto in US, UK, and Australia, but in Saskatchewan being more rural won't work.  Sort of like how Iowa used to go blue, but recent sorting means it will likely be tough for Democrats to win in future.  But at same time, Texas which is quite urban is now in play thus a pretty good trade off.

Though hard to tell with Iowa--after all, it gave 3/4 of its congressional delegation to the Dems in 2018 (and the controversy over Steve King almost made it a clean sweep).  And even there, it might be argued that even if the rural parts become increasingly GOP, the *longer term* sorting still works in the centre/left's favour because of the growth being in places like Romney/Clintonish places like Des Moines and outright liberal nodes like Iowa City.

Of course, the classic once-blue-now-red state is W Virginia, where there's scarcely any Romney/Clinton-ness at all (except maybe, latently, in the eastern panhandle as it becomes part of the DC commuter orbit--but it's more that that was *already* the most GOP part of the state, but it's now closer to par)

[adma]

Also it seems in Canada, urban areas over 100,000 is the typical tipping point.  Yorkton and Swift Current are pretty small and if you look at cities with similar size in Ontario, they tend to always vote Tory even in bad elections, like Tilsonburg, Pembroke, Brockville etc.

Depends--all those cited Ontario places are presently somewhat skewed by the kind of ridings they're in; and even there, they're far from monolithic (Pembroke still has the ghost of an ancestral Liberal lean, and Brockville helped make Leeds-Grenville et al marginal in 2015--and within Oxford, Ingersoll is comparable to T'burg sizewise yet it's had more of an latently NDP-friendly history, with the present automotive economy helping matters)

[adma]

In a rural-urban-sorted era, bellwethers aren't the eternal thing they once might have seemed.  Kitchener Centre, for one, now seems more perma-left than a left-right swinger.

[adma]

Also a lot of the people old enough to remember CCF days and Tommy Douglas have mostly died off while newer generation is much more individualistic and entrepreneurial and less on collectivist ideals as previous generations.  In addition large exodus to Alberta which has only ended recently probably makes some think if we vote more like Alberta we will do better.  Never mind parties on left focusing more on social issues has helped them win middle class and upper middle class urban areas, but hurt them in smaller working class communities.  Off course former is growing while latter shrinking so nationally probably the right move.

One thing that NDP may have in their favour long term is birth rate amongst First Nations much higher and projections show by 2050 they will be 1/3 of Saskatchewan's population so provided they are spread out (not sure how distribution works) and actually show up (low turnout quite common here) that could help NDP, but that is still a few decades away.  For newer non-white immigrants, not sure much benefit as I find a lot who move to Saskatchewan and similar to Alberta.  Otherwise the very entrepreneurial small business types so vote conservative more so than in other provinces.

Though while said newer generation might be less "collectivistic" in the traditional CCF way, it's not necessarily reactionarily so--it's only that the Ball/Moe Sask Party has presented itself as enough of a palatable big tent as to render an NDP vote superfluous.  But I reckon that even Saskatchewan has, among its "urban youngers", a corollary to Alberta's Notley/Nenshi latency; it's just that it needs an electoral alibi to pursue that latency.  That is, it shouldn't just require a rising First Nations share to put the NDP back on the government-in-waiting map; the raw goods are already there, much as they were in Alberta going into 2015.  (But NB: I'm *not* making that suggestion about the present election--unless Scott Moe "pulls a Prentice", that is)

[adma]

A case could be made that Saskatchewan and not Alberta is now the bedrock of conservative support in Canada. The federal Conservatives swept Saskatchewan in 2019, but fell one seat short of doing the same in Alberta. Some federal polls have recently put Conservative support in Saskatchewan running roughly even with the party's support in its western neighbour.

Provincially, the Saskatchewan Party and leader Scott Moe remain popular, while Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party have dropped in the polls. The NDP won an election in Alberta in 2015. The NDP has not won an election in Saskatchewan since 2003.

Another emphatic victory by the Saskatchewan Party would make the case stronger. Already, the party has put up historic performances, capturing more than 60 per cent of the vote in the last two provincial elections. The only other provincial parties in Canada to have done that in at least two consecutive elections were the Newfoundland Liberals after the province joined Confederation and the Quebec Liberals during the First World War.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/grenier-saskatchewan-political-dynaties-1.5747048?cmp=rss

Saskatchewan has more favourable demographics for parties on right.  More rural, slightly older, quite a bit whiter, percent with a university degree somewhat lower.  So no real surprise.  We are seeing a re-alignment across the globe and Saskatchewan better fits your typical conservative stronghold than Alberta does.  Alberta is 3rd most urban, 3rd most diverse, most educated, and youngest province which are not exactly demographics known for being favourable to conservative ideas.

Still, whether it's enough in the longer term is an open question--after all, Regina & Saskatoon aren't exactly Oklahoma City & Tulsa.  They're still growing, they're still nodes for "NDP viability", etc.  And the Sask Party just happens to have had splendid "grand coalition" leadership; but even when reduced to 9-10 seats, the NDP's maintained a bigger share of legislative representation than opposition parties had most of the time during Alberta's Manning and Lougheed dynasties.  That is, the legacy dies hard.

[adma]

Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina all seem pretty similar in their voting patterns. 

True, but in 2019, the orange blob was bigger in Saskatoon than Regina (probably due to the whole Erin Weir situation + Ralph Goodale strength in Wascana).

And of course, the riding not represented by either Weir or Goodale was represented by...Andrew Scheer.  (Though the fact of its being "rurban" would probably have made it out of reach, anyway, in the present climate)

[adma]

Finally a new poll. It's a bit tighter.

Sask 58%
NDP 36%
P.C     2%
Green 2%
Liberal 1%
Others 1%

https://researchco.ca/2020/10/11/skpoli-first/

Meilimentum!

Regional breakdown
Regina
Sask 49%
NDP 47%

Saskatoon
Sask 54%
NDP 41%

Rest of Province
Sask 65%
NDP 25%

NDP got 37% in 2007 so not bad results but still got a ways to go.  I cannot see NDP realistically winning here so their goal should be to win at least 15 ideally 20 seats which gives them a good base to work from for 2024.

And the 22-point margin is essentially identical to that btw/ Alberta's UCP and NDP (as incumbent party!) in 2019.

And relative to the NDP reattaining the bottom end of their "old normal": let's also keep in mind how the picture's presently skewed by how Saskatchewan has presently become the most electorally "binary" province--that is, the Sask Party tally feasting off how both the provincial Libs and Cons have been reduced to fringe forces (when it comes to their big tent, how would Ralph Goodale vote provincially?), while the NDP's eternal bankable viability has preempted any real Green momentum as an alternate left-option.  And re the Buffalo Party: my hunch is that Sask just doesn't get into that breakaway Western separatism thing the way Alberta does...

[adma]

My feeling is, Meili will come out of this with a "future premier" plausibility that the last two electiontime NDP leaders didn't.

[adma]

Anyway the scores at present are Saskatchewan Party 46, NDP 15. This is a change of five seats on the 2016 election. Of course with so much left to count and the seats being so small, much can yet shift.

Yeah, with that in mind, I'd scarcely label the Sask NDP "dead"--realistically speaking, that's within the mean seat total most were anticipating.  So if that *is* a death, it's more preordained,  It just means that a path back to power is ever more difficult; but we all already knew that.

If their seat total remained mired in the 3-6 range, *then* it'd be Taps time.  But 15 is "live another day" territory.  (And if their vote share fell, it's in part due to the Buffalo Party unexpectedly stealing some of the rural nominal-opposition thunder.  Seems that much like in BC, minor right wing forces were on the upswing.)

[adma]

It's looking like the NDP's got a more ambivalent result than "live another day" (and if Meili loses his seat, there goes the "premier in waiting" cast)

But even so, the one thing standing against declaring the NDP "dead" is: what's the alternative?  Basically, with the near-disappearance of the Sask Libs and the near-irrelevance of the Sask Greens, they have the viable left-of-Sask vote park advantage all to themselves--and treading water at 10 seats per election might not be great, but it at least keeps *some* kind of electoral pump primed.

Their problem is, they've yet to hit upon a compelling Notley/Horgan figurehead, and the Sask Party has had too steady a hand on the tiller.  And maybe re the "left wing socialist approach" comment below, they still have a bit of an identity crisis, where whatever vestige of Romanow "natural governing party" pragmatism coexists rather uneasily with the modern-day left-of-centre urge to be "woke".

And yes, Regina/Saskatoon are growing--but the elements there that are growing might be categorized as "Scheer suburbs", which at least for the meantime cancels out the impulse to veer left.

So if Saskatchewan is taking over Alberta's heartland-of-conservativism mantle, it might be through being the Abbotsford to Alberta's Greater Vancouver, or the Erin O'Toole's Clarington to the GTA.  A bit more peripheral, a bit sleepier, a bit less "cosmopolitan", etc...

[adma]

To win, the NDP is going to have to better appeal to those right leaning suburban and small town ridings or, actually win in the rural prairies (heh).

Notley-type leadership could do that--and when all is said and done, Regina/Saskatoon are more akin to Edmonton than Calgary.

[adma]

I don't imagine there's a Wildrose analogue in Saskatchewan waiting to split the right, at least not anywhere in the near future.

There's Buffalo's rural gains and second-places; but that's more akin to the earlier days of Wildrose, and before that entities such as WCC and various Alberta Socred reboot attempts.

But on the whole, unlike the one-party-stateness of Lougheed-era Alberta, Saskatchewan does still have one, single, clear viable opposition force (the NDP), and urban-rural electoral sorting has made that one-clear-optionness all the clearer.  (From Klein onwards in Alta, things are more clearly binary: the Liberals for a quarter century, and now the NDP).

[adma]

I'm wondering if it's a matter of Riversdale having coasted on Romanow/Calvert fumes until now, which made it look like more of a dead cert relative to the present-day NDP than it actually was--that is, there's just a bit too much on the far side of Circle Drive and whatnot that's not dissimilar to Sask Party suburban bastions elsewhere, and not enough on the near side to compensate.

One thing about the swing map that's interesting: the far SE/SW swinging heavily to the NDP by default because Buffalo took so much of the Sask vote and the NDP was already too depleted for much further sinkage...

[adma]

Looks like the count's complete--Pasqua and Riversdale stay Sask
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/final-count-in-for-sask-election-2-ridings-decided-1.5794500