2012 NDP leadership convention

[mileslunn]

Well, Wascana should be a target when Goodale retires, since, Liberals are pretty much dead in SK. Liberals will collapse there once he retires.

Not than people there are voting Liberal. They are voting Goodale.

True, although I could see it just as easily going Conservative.  A lot will depend on where things are in the political cycle.  I am pretty sure if he didn't run, the Tories would have won it, although the NDP probably would have had a strong second.  Likewise provincially I think the Saskatchewan Party won his riding pretty handidly, although not sure how it played out in 2007; the NDP may have won it or it would have at least been a lot closer.  Off course the most recent Saskatchewan election was in many ways a low point for the NDP, still I don't think the NDP can ignore the fact the province is resource rich like Alberta and doing well economically so if this continues there is a possibility its voting patterns could start to resemble Alberta more over time.  Off course Saskatchewan has a strong NDP history which Alberta lacks, so at least the NDP has far more potential there to stage a comeback in contrast with Alberta.

[mileslunn]

So would you say Conservatives would get a majority with only 35% of the vote again? What if Rae and Muclair cooperate and let the liberals run in the suburbs and NDP run in the cities?

They'd probably be some vague references to tactical voting from the leaders. Atleast, that's what's happened here in the past.

Vote swapping, anyone?

The Tories won't get a majority with 35% if that is what they actually get on election day.  It is true they could get one polling at 35% due to the fact the demographics they are strongest much tend to have a higher turnout so much like this past spring, they end up outperforming the polls.  As for vote swapping, it only works if people vote the same way as they did last time around.  In many ridings targeted in the last two elections, the Tories got over 50% making it useless or the second place party changed.  Looking at the 2008 election results, voting Liberal would have been the most logical choice in Bramalea-Gore-Malton, when in fact it was the NDP who posed the biggest threat.  Likewise in 2008, Parry Sound-Muskoka was heavily targeted for vote swapping going on the assumption the Tories would only get 40% like they did in 2006, when in fact they got 50% making it irrelevant.  The best way to deal with the problem of strategic voting would be to use IRV system like Australia where you rank your candidates and at least if your first choice does poorly, then it won't cost your second choice the seat. 

[mileslunn]

The "orange wave" already hit suburban Toronto and I don't see why they can't sweep Scarborough, expand from their showing in Bramalea-Gore-Malton to other Brampton seats, and pick up Mississauga East-Cooksville, Ajax-Pickering, etc.  They do after all win these types of seats in suburban Vancouver.

Though a barrier in Ajax-Pickering might be if Mark Holland runs again for the Grits.  (Still, in a seat like that, the NDP ought to try harder than the last couple of poteaux-level outings--the last one where the candidate locked himself out of campaigning through a pre-booked vacation.)

Ajax-Pickering appears too wealthy and suburban to go NDP.  After all much of the assumption goes on the idea that every Liberal vote would vote NDP if the Liberals weren't around.  I think ridings like York West and the Scarborough ones are far more likely.  Also if it looks like the NDP cannot beat the Tories in seats but can reduce them to a minority and form a coalition, you may see a lot of strategic voting thus Ajax-Pickering would then go Liberal.  As for ridings like St. Paul's, you might see the Liberals split right down the middle or perhaps even go Conservative despite disagreeing with their social policies.  Vancouver-False Creek in BC goes for the BC Liberals and it has a similiar profile to St. Paul's.  In addition in Ajax-Pickering, the Tories got 45% so it would be tough to win that riding without pulling away some Tory votes.  A riding like Don Valley East or Scarborough Centre is more doable since the Tories got under 40% and the NDP over 25% in both.

[mileslunn]

Good points from everyone.  I do think that while there are "working class populists" particularly in the SW and north that the NDP can target, the 25% Liberal vote province-wide is hurting more than helping the NDP and the NDP really needs to bury the Liberals.  Certainly that is the case in Scarborough, Brampton, etc. and most of the GTA and that's true in places like Kitchener-Waterloo also. 

There may be a few affluent ridings, as Tommy mentions, like DVW where a strong Liberal showing can knock off a Tory.  But they are few and far between, as even polling at Dion-like levels in Ontario seems utopian at this point.  The question again is do the Libs try to be a catch-all party or do they restyle themselves as a boutique party for affluent professionals? (Tommy's "midtown yuppies" are just about the only reliably Liberal constituency left at this point!)  And the question regarding Mulcair is, does he come off enough of a small "l" liberal to be seen as "safe" for the professional classes? Ultimately I think the NDP wants the "Obama coalition" which is basically the social democratic universe (which the NDP now dominates) + affluent "liberal" professionals (still very Liberal).

That assumes all Liberal votes would automatically migrate to the NDP.  As we have seen since 2004, just as many have migrated to the Tories as NDP, thus the Liberals disappearing may help them in some ridings, but in the case of some 905 belt ridings could have the opposite impact in terms of making them safe Tory seats.  Also in 2004, only 31% went Tory in Ontario, whereas in 2011 it was 44% so approximately 13% swung from the Liberals to Tories between that time.  The Liberals are centrist enough they could probably under the right conditions regain that 13%, but I doubt very many of them would jump all the way over to the NDP.  I agree it would take a few elections for the Liberals to return to their previous strength in Ontario and unless the right splits again I don't think you will see a repeat of the 90s when they swept Ontario, but I think the 2008 results are quite realistic for 2015 and the 2006 results are probably the best case scenario.  Lets remember, if you take Quebec out of the picture, the Liberals and NDP aren't that far apart and as we have seen Quebec can change on a moment's notice so if Quebec swings over to the Liberals they would return to opposition.  Those saying the Liberals are dead and the NDP will replace them is much like those in 1993 who said the Reform Party would wipe out the PCs and replace them.  While they did sort of do that, that was only through merging, they didn't wipe them out on their own and probably couldn't.