Saskatchewan election 2020

[DL]

The Ontario NDP wins lots of rural seats in northern Ontario and the BC NDP seems good at winning rural seats on Vancouver island and along the coast. They could easily gain Skeena and Fraser Nicola too

[DL]

I don't think there is much of an urban rural split in Scandinavia and there are some very rural areas of France and Spain and Portugal that still vote left - in fact the Alentejo region of rural Portugal remains a Communist stronghold to this day.

[DL]

The decline of the NDP in rural Saskatchewan is parallel to the decline of the Democrats in the Dakotas and rural Minnesota. Once a upon a time South Dakota elected George McGovern to the US senate and North Dakota elected a lot of socialists in the depression etc... but that would never happen now. Minnesota leans Democratic because the Twin Cities are such a big part of the population (like what Winnipeg is to Manitoba). In the long run I'd rather be a party whose base is in the cities and suburbs - which are steadily growing in population, then be a party whose base in depopulated and shriking rural areas...

[DL]

Meanwhile your average rural Saskatchewan or Dakota's farmer probably does own the land he farms in because his family was the one who settled it in the first place, only 150 years ago or so.

In general around the world I'd say land owners vote for the right, while peasants vote for the left. It's just that places like rural Canada or America have many more landlords than peasants.

Though another thing to consider is that at one time the Prairies were dotted with small "family farms". Those have largely died off and now its mostly factory farming. The main thing happening in places like rural Saskatchewan is you have a shrinking aging population who are resistant to social change and its hard to get them excited about economic populism when all the social media they are exposed to just goes on about gun rights and the threat of Muslims and transgendered people etc...

[DL]

While not over yet, seems 2020 elections look like they've been good news for incumbents and bad news for opponents.  Higgs already got his majority, Horgan likely will in 9 days and Moe likely wins a landslide in 11 days.  So wondering if the polls are accurate if that makes Trudeau want to find a way to go sooner than later.

The window for a federal election this fall is now closed and by the time it reopens in the Spring when the Trudeau government will present the next budget - who knows what the state of public opinion will be

[DL]

Its election day tomorrow and there has been remarkably little polling - but Mainstreet was out with a final poll today that has it Sask Party 55% and NDP 37% - with the NDP leading in Regina and slightlly behind in Saskatoon.

Given that in 2016 the Sask Party beat the NDP by 30 points - if the gap narrows to 18 points - the NDP could very well gets its seat count into the high teens - which would be a sign of progress.

[DL]

Trent Wotherspoon, Meili’s challenger in the last leadership race posted this on Facebook the day after the election.

“A full day running many miles while pulling signs while sorting through yesterday’s outcome - an incredibly disappointing result for Saskatchewan New Democrats and the many inspiring, selfless, tireless candidates that put their hearts and souls into their service.”

While Meili has been saying that the results were good(?!) and that he’ll stay on as leader, a good portion of his caucus and the membership will probably disagree.

I'm not so sure about that...first of all i have not heard Meili say the results were "good" - though I'm sure he is hapy to have won his own seat. As for the caucus, there has been a fait amount of turnover from retirements and new seats won and old seats lost so now almost all the caucus members were either first elected this year or were first elected in 2016 and would be less "old guard". I doubt if there is much appetite in the Sask NDP to switch leaders yet again - at some point you have to stick with something. They went old guard centrist in 2011 with Dwayne Lingenfelter the oil company VP from Calgary and were crushed. They went old guard centrist with a younger face in 2016 with Cam Broten and were crushed. so its not as if the Sask NDP has done better with leaders from other factions/tendencies in the party.

[DL]

Any explanation for why the NDP lost their old stronghold of Saskatoon-Riversdale when there was a swing TO the NDP in most other ridings in Saskatoon?

[DL]

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

The NDP must have done quite well with the remaining Mail in ballots because while they lost those seats they narrowed the gap quite a bit even compared to the first count of Mail ins