Canadian Election 2019

[DistingFlyer]

Another curious thing: the Tories are about to exceed 6 million votes. This will make only the third time this has ever happened (Liberals in 2015 with 6.9 million & Tories in 1984 with 6.3 million are the other two).

The overall shares of the vote aren't too far off from how things looked mid-campaign, as opposed to the last few days.

Strangely, the last time polls at the start of the campaign got the result right was 1988: they showed 43%-33%-22%, then the campaign itself got very volatile, but then things settled back again to 43%-32%-20% on election night.

[DistingFlyer]

Another curious thing: the Tories are about to exceed 6 million votes. This will make only the third time this has ever happened (Liberals in 2015 with 6.9 million & Tories in 1984 with 6.3 million are the other two).

The overall shares of the vote aren't too far off from how things looked mid-campaign, as opposed to the last few days.

Strangely, the last time polls at the start of the campaign got the result right was 1988: they showed 43%-33%-22%, then the campaign itself got very volatile, but then things settled back again to 43%-32%-20% on election night.

Now the total number of votes has exceeded those cast in 2015 (a new high); turnout's down, but population's up more.

[DistingFlyer]

My question is whether any of the losing Tory leadership contenders (or O'Leary) would have done better than Scheer. I'm inclined to think that Lisa Raitt wouldn't have alienated as any moderates as Scheer did and probably would have won. Same goes for somebody like Peter MacKay, who of course did not run. Erin O'Toole and some of the others, maybe.

O'Leary or Bernier would have been real wildcards. I don't think Bernier would have stood much of a chance at victory as Tory leader.

Wouldn't Raitt have bled a lot of votes to PPC?

Maybe, but if she & Bernier had actually been able to work together better than Bernier & Scheer did, he might not have bolted & formed the PPC in the first place.

[DistingFlyer]

Will be interesting to see what the average vote share for the winning candidates was this time (both overall & by party). Offhand, I'd guess that the figure rose for Tories & Bloquistes, fell for Liberals & maybe fell for New Democrats; an overall drop.

Figures for the last few elections are as follows:

2015 - Cons 51.2%, Lib 49.8%, NDP 38.5%, BQ 34.2%; 48.6% overall
2011 - Cons 54.4%, NDP 47.3%, Lib 41.2%, BQ 34.9%; 50.4% overall
2008 - Cons 52.8%, Lib 45.7%, BQ 45.6%, NDP 45.5%; 49.5% overall
2006 - Cons 51.2%, BQ 49.4%, Lib 46.8%, NDP 44.3%; 49.0% overall
2004 - BQ 55.8%, Cons 49.2%, Lib 48.5%, NDP 43.8%; 49.9% overall


Certainly from this one can see that the old 'getting elected by virtue of a fragmented opposition' saw is a description that better fits the New Democrats than the Tories.

[DistingFlyer]

Will be interesting to see what the average vote share for the winning candidates was this time (both overall & by party). Offhand, I'd guess that the figure rose for Tories & Bloquistes, fell for Liberals & maybe fell for New Democrats; an overall drop.

Figures for the last few elections are as follows:

2015 - Cons 51.2%, Lib 49.8%, NDP 38.5%, BQ 34.2%; 48.6% overall
2011 - Cons 54.4%, NDP 47.3%, Lib 41.2%, BQ 34.9%; 50.4% overall
2008 - Cons 52.8%, Lib 45.7%, BQ 45.6%, NDP 45.5%; 49.5% overall
2006 - Cons 51.2%, BQ 49.4%, Lib 46.8%, NDP 44.3%; 49.0% overall
2004 - BQ 55.8%, Cons 49.2%, Lib 48.5%, NDP 43.8%; 49.9% overall


Certainly from this one can see that the old 'getting elected by virtue of a fragmented opposition' saw is a description that better fits the New Democrats than the Tories.

Would not medium of all winning vote share versus average be a better metric ?

Interesting question. I'll take a look:

2015 - Lib 49.3%, Cons 48.0%, NDP 37.9%, BQ 33.4%; 47.4% overall
2011 - Cons 54.0%, NDP 47.5%, Lib 41.0%, BQ 34.9%; 49.6% overall
2008 - Cons 53.1%, Lib 46.1%, BQ 45.8%, NDP 44.8%; 47.5% overall
2006 - BQ 49.7%, Cons 48.8%, Lib 46.9%, NDP 46.0%; 48.0% overall
2004 - BQ 57.2%, Lib 47.7%, Cons 46.0%, NDP 43.7%; 48.0% overall

A small difference between the metrics (note the Tory median improving relative to the average the better they do overall), but not too much.

[DistingFlyer]

Another thing that we are  all forgetting when talking about scheer is that Canada on the provincial level right now is a Blue Dominion. The Conservatives and their allies rule nearly the entire country provincially, with BC being the only stickout. This shows there are plenty of paths to a Tory govt: reaching out to the left-behind Rural Atlantic, hugging the CAQ for rural Quebec, flipping Suburban Toronto, going full populist and targeting the WWC in South/North Ontario, appealing to Conservative minorities in BC and Peel. Scheer did none of this and just ran a plains-based campaign that got it's dead-cat bounce in most of the country. If the NDP did a bit better, and divided up the Lib/NDP vote, then Scheer still probably couldn't win a majority. Ontario ended up as a firewall, the gains in BC and potentially the Atlantic wouldn't get him close to the now-reduced Liberal minority govt's overall total. He needs to go.

Canadians now just need to pray that Ford doesn't decide to abandon Ontario for national politics, because the eventual recession in the next five years will likely bring down Trudeau's govt and put in power whomever happens to lead team blue.

I doubt Mr. Ford will get very far in national politics; his unpopularity clearly had a big effect on Monday's results.

I'd said back in 2018 that his victory could very well be the way to Justin Trudeau's getting another term if the trademark Ford seat-of-the-pants style of governing on display at City Hall continued in the Premier's office. Unfortunately it did, and the Liberals were able to use that to get a net loss of only one Ontario riding, and a swing to the Tories of only 1% (from a 10% lead to 8%). Had the Tories picked up 35 or so MPs (not an unreasonable figure), the national figures would be almost an exact reversal of what they are.

I don't know if the Ontario Tories have yet turned into a 'Ford cult' the way the federal Liberals have turned into one around Mr. Trudeau (or the Republicans around Mr. Trump), but hopefully they will not do so. The sooner those jurisdictions (and parties) are rid of those three buffoons, the better.

I do agree, however, that the impending downturn may lead to a Tory win. I've jokingly said the last week or so that this is why the two big parties' campaigns were so terrible: neither of them wanted to be in power for the next term because they saw what was coming. Given that it's a minority Parliament, I doubt the Tories will dump their leader (who knows when the next election will come?), so I just hope he turns out to be someone like Joe Clark or Bob Stanfield: not very charismatic, a bit of a slow-starter & a dullard at first glance, but surprisingly capable. (NS Tories said about Stanfield that it would be hard to elect him, but once he was in office he would never be voted out. Certainly that was true provincially, though nationally we never found out.)

[DistingFlyer]

A total of 62 constituencies changed hands on Monday (relative to the last General Election as opposed to by-elections):

Lib to Cons (21)
West Nova (NS)
Fundy Royal (NB)
New Brunswick Southwest (NB)
Tobique – Mactaquac (NB)
Chicoutimi – Le Fjord (QC)
Aurora – Oak Ridges – Richmond Hill (ON)
Hastings – Lennox & Addington (ON)
Kenora (ON)
Northumberland – Peterborough South (ON)
Charleswood – St. James – Assiniboia – Headingley (MB)
Kildonan – St. Paul (MB)
Regina – Wascana (SK)
Calgary Centre (AB)
Calgary Skyview (AB)
Edmonton Centre (AB)
Edmonton Mill Woods (AB)
Cloverdale – Langley City (BC)
Kelowna – Lake Country (BC)
Mission – Matsqui – Fraser Canyon (BC)
Pitt Meadows – Maple Ridge (BC)
Steveston – Richmond East (BC)

Lib to NDP (3)
St. John's East (NL)
Winnipeg Centre (MB)
Nunavut (NU)

Lib to BQ (
Avignon – La Mitis – Matane – Matapédia (QC)
La Prairie (QC)
Laurentides – Labelle (QC)
Montarville (QC)
Rivière-des-Mille-Îles (QC)
Saint-Jean (QC)
Shefford (QC)
Thérèse-De Blainville (QC)

Lib to GP (1)
Fredericton (NB)

Lib to Ind (1)
Vancouver Granville (BC)


Cons to Lib (2)
Kitchener – Conestoga (ON)
Milton (ON)

Cons to BQ (3)
Beauport – Côte-de-Beaupré – Île d’Orléans – Charlevoix (QC)
Beauport – Limoilou (QC)
Lac-Saint-Jean (QC)


NDP to Lib (5)
Hochelaga (QC)
Laurier – Sainte-Marie (QC)
Outremont (QC)
Sherbrooke (QC)
Windsor – Tecumseh (ON)

NDP to Cons (6)
Essex (ON)
Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River (SK)
Regina – Lewvan (SK)
Saskatoon West (SK)
Kootenay – Columbia (BC)
Port Moody – Coquitlam (BC)

NDP to BQ (11)
Abitibi – Baie-James – Nunavik – Eeyou (QC)
Abitibi – Témiscamingue (QC)
Beloeil – Chambly (QC)
Berthier – Maskinongé (QC)
Drummond (QC)
Jonquière (QC)
Longueuil – Saint-Hubert (QC)
Rimouski-Neigette – Témiscouata – Les-Basques (QC)
Saint-Hyacinthe – Bagot (QC)
Salaberry – Suroît (QC)
Trois-Rivières (QC)

NDP to GP (1)
Nanaimo – Ladysmith (BC)


We can now work out overall gains & losses as follows:

Lib - 184 +7 -34 = 157
Cons - 99 +27 -5 = 121
NDP - 44 +3 -23 = 24
BQ - 10 +22 = 32
GP - 1 +2 = 3
Ind - 0 +1 = 1

[DistingFlyer]

Do people speculate about coalitions every time a Canadian election produces a minority government, or is something unique about this time around?

Not usually, but given the proposed coalition back in 2008-9 (and the Tories raising the specter of it again in the 2011 campaign) it gets mentioned now more than it used to be.

[DistingFlyer]

And we have our first official count - the validated results for Sackville – Preston – Chezzetcook have been released:

Kevin Copley (Cons) - 11211 (22.6%) (+7.8%)
Anthony Edmonds (GP) - 5725 (11.6%) (+8.8%)
Sybil Hogg (PPC) - 816 (1.6%)
Darrell Samson (Lib) (inc.) - 19925 (40.2%) (-7.7%)
Matt Stickland (NDP) - 11860 (23.9%) (-10.5%)
TOTAL - 49537
Rejected Ballots - 320

Majority - 8065 (16.3%)

Doesn't exactly have the drama of a declaration on the steps of City Hall on the night itself as is done in Britain, but it'll have to do.


(On a strictly personal note, I'm rather pleased to see two veterans out of five candidates.)

[DistingFlyer]

Do people speculate about coalitions every time a Canadian election produces a minority government, or is something unique about this time around?

Not usually, but given the proposed coalition back in 2008-9 (and the Tories raising the specter of it again in the 2011 campaign) it gets mentioned now more than it used to be.

Two things to that:

First, there's a much sharper Lib-Con divide now than there was back in the days of the PCs.  And secondly, a lot of the present coalition talk was contingent on the likelihood of the Cons getting a seat plurality as well as a vote plurality--which, of course, didn't happen.  So now that the Libs have a clear seat plurality, the coalition discussion's toned down--it's more likely that we'll see a reprise of the NDP contingency-support of Lib minorities in the 60s and 70s, than an outright coalition...

Agreed; that's why I brought up the 2008-9 coalition proposal.

Another period that deserves a mention when comparing to the present time is 2004-5. The 1960s are often invoked, but since the Pearson administration frequently had all-party (or at least three of four) support for its initiatives, and actually had the Socreds be the first small party to say they'd support them, I think a better comparison would be the 1970s and 2000s, where some noticeable changes in Liberal policy were brought about (Medicare, the CPP, the new flag & so on were centerpieces of the 1962 & 1963 Liberal platforms already).

[DistingFlyer]

Trudeau talks and comes off like an effeminate hippy and a hardcore SJW. That's not 100% true mind you, but those elements are there in his personality, and if you dislike thise things you will latch onto them. He is EXTREMELY minority-friendly and LGBTQ-friendly as well. You can see how some traditional conservatives will view this. His actual policy isn't noticed as much as his personality by his detractors, but they DO notice when he does controversial liberal things like giving taxpayer money to Syrian refugees and dressing full-on Indian on his trip to India.

TL;DR: He isn't a "man's man" that you want to drink beer, watch hockey and chase girls with, he's a liberal p__sy.

Though it doesn't quite explain the Cons' reach in places like Mayor Nenshi's Calgary.

When it comes to the urban West, it's a matter of being minority/LGBTQ-friendly on their own terms.  (Remember how as a federal politician, Jason Kenney was basically *the* Conservative face for multicultural outreach)

Yeah it's hard to explain running up the score in a riding like Calgary Skyview, that's <40% white, with "they don't like brown people".

The East-West split has been around for quite a few years and has taken different forms in terms of which party does well where. As a general rule, the same party doesn't do well in both urban Ontario and the Prairies (unless it's a big landslide).

After the Tories implemented the National Policy of tariffs with the US, Ontario became a strongly Conservative province in most elections to come. The West tended to swing back and forth, with each party frequently doing well there when in government.

After the First World War and the rise of the Progressives, the Tories found themselves weaker than usual on the Prairies (one reason for the 1925 & 1926 outcomes), while remaining strong in Ontario.  The Depression made that split even more pronounced, with Conservatives doing extremely poorly on the Prairies (generally coming third or fourth) while still doing well in Toronto. Looking at the safest Tory ridings from the 1920s to the 1950s, many are in urban Ontario (1921, 1925, 1926, 1940) or even Montreal (1930 & 1935).

Prairie populist John Diefenbaker brought the Prairies into the Tory fold in 1957 & 1958, but it cost him in the central cities: a lot of ridings that the Tories had seldom (or even never) lost before went Liberal or NDP in 1962 & 1963, and some have never come back. The Prairies, however, have remained very strong for the Tories (or Reformers in the 1990s) to this day. The safest Conservative/Reform ridings from 1958 to the present have always been (except 1988) on the Prairies, with Crowfoot maintaining a remarkably long winning streak (1968 through 1974, 1997, & 2004 to the present).

(In fact, the 80% majority obtained in Battle River - Crowfoot this time is the largest Tory majority at a General Election in at least 100 years, and the biggest margin for anybody since Pierre Trudeau's 86% lead in Mount Royal in 1968.)

[DistingFlyer]

Trudeau talks and comes off like an effeminate hippy and a hardcore SJW. That's not 100% true mind you, but those elements are there in his personality, and if you dislike thise things you will latch onto them. He is EXTREMELY minority-friendly and LGBTQ-friendly as well. You can see how some traditional conservatives will view this. His actual policy isn't noticed as much as his personality by his detractors, but they DO notice when he does controversial liberal things like giving taxpayer money to Syrian refugees and dressing full-on Indian on his trip to India.

TL;DR: He isn't a "man's man" that you want to drink beer, watch hockey and chase girls with, he's a liberal p__sy.

Though it doesn't quite explain the Cons' reach in places like Mayor Nenshi's Calgary.

When it comes to the urban West, it's a matter of being minority/LGBTQ-friendly on their own terms.  (Remember how as a federal politician, Jason Kenney was basically *the* Conservative face for multicultural outreach)

Yeah it's hard to explain running up the score in a riding like Calgary Skyview, that's <40% white, with "they don't like brown people".

The East-West split has been around for quite a few years and has taken different forms in terms of which party does well where. As a general rule, the same party doesn't do well in both urban Ontario and the Prairies (unless it's a big landslide).

After the Tories implemented the National Policy of tariffs with the US, Ontario became a strongly Conservative province in most elections to come. The West tended to swing back and forth, with each party frequently doing well there when in government.

After the First World War and the rise of the Progressives, the Tories found themselves weaker than usual on the Prairies (one reason for the 1925 & 1926 outcomes), while remaining strong in Ontario.  The Depression made that split even more pronounced, with Conservatives doing extremely poorly on the Prairies (generally coming third or fourth) while still doing well in Toronto. Looking at the safest Tory ridings from the 1920s to the 1950s, many are in urban Ontario (1921, 1925, 1926, 1940) or even Montreal (1930 & 1935).

Prairie populist John Diefenbaker brought the Prairies into the Tory fold in 1957 & 1958, but it cost him in the central cities: a lot of ridings that the Tories had seldom (or even never) lost before went Liberal or NDP in 1962 & 1963, and some have never come back. The Prairies, however, have remained very strong for the Tories (or Reformers in the 1990s) to this day. The safest Conservative/Reform ridings from 1958 to the present have always been (except 1988) on the Prairies, with Crowfoot maintaining a remarkably long winning streak (1968 through 1974, 1997, & 2004 to the present).

(In fact, the 80% majority obtained in Battle River - Crowfoot this time is the largest Tory majority at a General Election in at least 100 years, and the biggest margin for anybody since Pierre Trudeau's 86% lead in Mount Royal in 1968.)

Interesting that the Tories became the party most supportive of free trade with the US by 1988!  And that hurt them in the prairies I suppose?   Have the prairies always tended to be protectionist?

Not really; the Tory drop in 1988 on the Prairies was more due to the Reform intervention (which took 9% of the vote but only cost them one riding there) as well as unpopular provincial governments, particularly in Saskatchewan. The recently-ousted NDP government in Manitoba & the Liberals' taking second place there saw a repeat at the federal level too.

Additionally, the Progressives in the 1920s opposed tariffs while the Tories favored them - one reason for the results at that time. By the 1980s, tariffs largely applied to the kinds of industries found in Central Canada (read: manufacturing) while East & West had to compete at world prices without any advantage being given to them. That's one reason why Ontario swung so hard to the Liberals (from 18% down to 1% up): the special advantage they'd had for the last century was about to disappear.

Atlantic Canada also swung hard to the Liberals (19% down to 5% up), largely due to claims that regional subsidies & programs would be put at risk by free trade. That didn't happen, of course, and with the economic field leveled the GDP per capita gap between this region and the country as a whole went on to narrow.

[DistingFlyer]

BC and Alberta being politically aligned in the Reform/Alliance days seems so long ago...

BC's political tendencies make more sense when you look at who's governing provincially - more specifically, when the NDP is in power.

The 1972 federal election was held several weeks after the NDP's first provincial victory; as one would expect, the federal party received a bit of a bounce too, but only a modest one (33% to 35%). The 1974 election - held while Dave Barrett was still Premier - saw the federal party plunge to 23%, and its MPs drop from eleven to two. Even Vancouver East, one of the most reliable NDP ridings, fell to the Grits.

By 1979, the NDP was out of power, and the federal party recovered to 32%. Support remained consistent (mid-30s) for the next three elections, peaking at 37% and 19 MPs in 1988 (thanks probably to the unpopular Socred government as well as Reform intervention federally, which got 5% of the vote and handed three ridings to the NDP).

In 1991, Mike Harcourt led the provincial NDP back to power, but the government's popularity didn't last too long. The 1993 election saw the federal party drop right through the floor, falling to 15% and only two MPs. Once again, Vancouver East was grabbed by the Liberals.

This time, the NDP remained in power for a decade; the next two federal elections had the NDP remain in a poor third and never with more than three MPs.

Finally, the NDP government was turfed in 2001; the federal vote in 2004 saw the NDP recover quite well (from 11% to 27%), and while they've never reached the heights of the 1970s and 1980s, they remained consistently in the high 20s to low 30s.

The election just past is therefore a bit of an anomaly: in spite of an NDP government back in power in Victoria (albeit a minority backed by the Greens), the federal party only from 26% to 24%, and lost only three MPs, making it by far the best election they've had while simultaneously ruling the province.

This 'vote against' tendency has been remarked on before regarding BC, but more often in the context of the federal government: the Liberals did poorly there and the Tories well during the Trudeau years, while the Mulroney government saw a sharp Tory decline and the rise of the Liberals back to second place. The Reformers provided a convenient vote too, as a Western-based, anti-Ottawa party, and were able to steal a lot of NDP supporters. Once they were folded into the re-united Conservative Party, that allure faded and many Reform voters went back to the New Democrats.

[DistingFlyer]

The East-West split has been around for quite a few years and has taken different forms in terms of which party does well where. As a general rule, the same party doesn't do well in both urban Ontario and the Prairies (unless it's a big landslide).

And Manitoba takes a middling position between Ontario and Alberta/Saskatchewan.

Speaking of that, I wonder if it might be argued that a vestigial "Scheer effect" even leaked eastward into Northern Ontario--obviously with the Kenora pickup, but also in the Conservatives being second *everywhere else* except Sudbury and Nickel Belt--yes, even unexpectedly versus the NDP's Angus and Hughes...

It's not a "Scheet effect", no. Trudeau's not really too popular in Northern Ontario compared to 2015, and Singh's not as popular of a leader that past NDP leaders were because of reasons (guess which ones!). That being said, the Liberals still did pretty well in the region. And Kenora has a history of electing Conservatives too, both federally and provincially.

Only a recent history of doing so at the federal level: when Greg Rickford won there in 2008, he was the first Conservative to do so since 1917; apart from 1984-88, when the NDP held it, that riding was always Liberal. A number of northern ridings (such as the two Thunder Bay ones) haven't been held by Tories for similar lengths of time. Northern Ontario as a whole has been largely immune to Tory charms since the 1920s, even in the sweeps of 1958 & 1984.

Now, provincially it's a different story, as Leo Bernier held the seat for more than two decades. However, his 1987 loss marked thirty-one years of Tory defeats until Greg Rickford (again) won the seat back last year.


On a somewhat unrelated note, for the statistically-minded folks like myself the official count for Edmonton – Wetaskiwin has come in and a new record has been set: Mike Lake's majority of 52544 has exceeded Maurizio Bevilacqua's 51389-vote margin in York North back in 1993.

The Tories are racking up some very large margins (both in absolute and percentage terms) in Alberta, so I suspect the list of largest-ever numerical margins may change quite a bit when the final counts are completed. Pre-2019, these were the times that a winner's majority exceeded 40000:

51389 - Maurizio Bevilacqua (Lib) (York North) (1993)
47763 - Bobbie Sparrow (PC) (Calgary South) (1984)
42928 - Benoit Sauvageau (BQ) (Terrebonne) (1993)
42047 - Kevin Sorenson (Cons) (Battle River – Crowfoot) (2015)
41691 - Jason Kenney (Cons) (Calgary Southeast) (2011)
40480 - Monique Begin (Lib) (Saint-Leonard – Anjou) (1979)
40189 - Don Boudria (Lib) (Glengarry – Prescott – Russell) (1993)

So far, ten Tories in Alberta have exceeded that threshold in the official counts, with nine results left to come (including Battle River – Crowfoot). From this we can see a big reason why the Tories, for the first time since the King-Meighen days, did not win government in spite of receiving more votes.

[DistingFlyer]

I think it's interesting how divergent the traditional grouping of Manitoba and Saskatchewan has become. For future elections, it probably makes more sense to group SK with AB or at least poll SK and MB separately. Winnipeg clearly is a larger influence in MB than any city by itself in either SK or AB, with the Winnipeg region electing 8/14 ridings. Only 5 ridings in MB are truly rural small-c conservative, compared with 8 in SK (not to mention Regina and Saskatoon combined aren't even close to Winnipeg). Each province has a northern riding which I think can have very strange politics. With that said, I'm still surprised Ralph Goodale lost by the margin that he did and that the NDP couldn't salvage anything out of SK.

I guess it shouldn't be too surprising the Liberals in Alberta all faced defeat, but Calgary really went back to its roots (pretty sure all majority Conservative wins). I would've predicted at least a hold in Edmonton Centre. It shows how much of a one-off 2015 was for the left in Alberta: NDP provincial majority and the Liberals holding 2 seats in each of Edmonton and Calgary (not to mention the NDP in Edmonton Strathcona).

Also, I'm almost certain Battle River-Crowfoot and Foothills are the first ridings in Canadian history with a winning majority of over 50,000 votes (Calgary Shepard looks to be 30 votes shy of that margin, although I'm not sure if there are any uncounted votes remaining).

A majority of fifty thousand has been obtained before, but only once (Maurizio Bevilacqua in 1993). It's now been done four times.

Earlier in this thread I'd listed all the occasions where an MP had won by more than forty thousand; here is an updated list that includes winners from 2019 in bold (there's still one riding on the list that hasn't produced an official count, so I'll amend that number when it comes in).

52544 - Mike Lake (Cons) in Edmonton – Wetaskiwin (2019)
51389 - Maurizio Bevilacqua (Lib) in York North (1993)
50124 - Damien Kurek (Cons) in Battle River – Crowfoot (2019)
50016 - John Barlow (Cons) in Foothills (2019)
49970 - Tom Kmiec (Cons) in Calgary Shepard (2019)
49819 - Earl Dreeshen (Cons) in Red Deer – Mountain View (2019)
47831 - Blaine Calkins (Cons) in Red Deer – Lacombe (2019)
47763 - Bobbie Sparrow (PC) in Calgary South (1984)
47079 - Blake Richards (Cons) in Banff – Airdrie (2019)
46953 - Chris Warkentin (Cons) in Grande Prairie – Mackenzie (2019)
46295 - Dane Lloyd (Cons) in Sturgeon River – Parkland (2019)
44733 - Garnett Genuis (Cons) in Sherwood Park – Fort Saskatchewan (2019)
44586 - Shannon Stubbs (Cons) in Lakeland (2019)
43106 - Martin Shields (Cons) in Bow River (2019)
43052 - Stephanie Kusie (Cons) in Calgary Midnapore (2019)
42928 - Benoit Sauvageau (BQ) in Terrebonne (1993)
42047 - Kevin Sorenson (Cons) in Battle River – Crowfoot (2015)
41691 - Jason Kenney (Cons) in Calgary Southeast (2011)
41425 - Gerald Soroka (Cons) in Yellowhead (2019) (PRELIMINARY ONLY)
40480 - Monique Begin (Lib) in Saint-Leonard – Anjou (1979)
40189 - Don Boudria (Lib) in Glengarry – Prescott – Russell (1993)

From seven times (three in 1993, one apiece in 1979, 1984, 2011 & 2015; three Liberals, three Tories & one Bloquiste) to twenty-one now. Two-thirds of the people on the list are Alberta Tories from this year's election.

Additionally, with the official result for Battle River – Crowfoot in, one can confirm the 85.5% of the vote and 80.4% margin won by Damien Kurek. While not the largest-ever Tory margin (probably the all-time records for both Tories & Liberals will remain in 1917), it is the biggest in a century, breaking the 75.2% margin won by Kevin Sorenson in Crowfoot in 2006. It's also the biggest margin of any candidate for any party in half a century - you have to go back to Pierre Trudeau's 86% majority in Mount Royal in 1968 to find a bigger one.

Although Alberta has been solidly for the Tories (or the Reformers or Socreds) for many years, it's only recently that the kinds of huge, Quebec-Liberal-style margins that we're seeing this time have become a regular fixture there. To wit, the biggest majority in a General Election - no matter what the overall outcome was - was usually a Quebec or Newfoundland Liberal (for decades rural NL was even better Liberal territory than Quebec). The average Liberal margin of victory was also generally larger than the average Tory margin.

However, from 2004 to the present the biggest majority has always been a Tory one. The exception was 2015, when Judy Foote just barely edged out Kevin Sorenson, 71.7% to 71.5%, and the average Tory margin has been bigger than the average Liberal one from 2004 to now without exception. This could be a sign that the Tories will need to get appreciably more votes than the Liberals to win government on a regular basis (just as the opposite was the case for many years due to Liberal dominance in Quebec).

Overall, twenty-five ridings still have not produced official counts. Most are large rural constituencies where you'd expect them to take a while; exceptions are the seats of two party leaders (Beloeil – Chambly & Papineau) as well as Vancouver Centre & Victoria.

[DistingFlyer]

Additionally, here are all the times from 1921 to the present that a candidate has gotten 85% of the vote or more; this will show the longtime Liberal dominance of Quebec & rural Newfoundland in a proper way, as the only Tory on the list is the freshly-elected Mr. Kurek:

93.5% - Joseph Demers (Lib) in St. Johns – Iberville (1921)
92.3% - Ches Carter (Lib) in Burin – Burgeo (1949)
90.8% - Pierre Trudeau (Lib) in Mount Royal (1968)
90.0% - Henri Severin Beland (Lib) in Beauce (1921)
89.6% - Edouard-Charles St.-Pere (Lib) in Hochelaga (1921)
89.2% - William Kent (Lib) in Humber – St. George's (1949)
89.0% - Edouard Lacroix (Lib) in Beauce (1935)
88.5% - Peter Bercovitch (Lib) in Cartier (1940)
88.2% - Ches Carter (Lib) in Burin – Burgeo (1953)
87.8% - Alcide Cote (Lib) in Saint-Jean – Iberville – Napierville (1953)
87.6% - Joseph Fontaine (Lib) in Saint-Hyacinthe – Bagot (1949)
87.6% - Fernand Rinfret (Lib) in St. James (1921)
87.4% - Martial Rheaume (Lib) in St. Johns – Iberville – Napierville (1935)
87.3% - Frederick Bradley (Lib) in Bonavista – Twillingate (1949)
87.2% - Jack Pickersgill (Lib) in Bonavista – Twillingate (1957)
86.7% - Thomas Ashbourne (Lib) in Grand Falls – White Bay (1949)
86.3% - Ernest Lapointe (Lib) in Quebec East (1921)
85.9% - Henri Bourassa (Ind) in Labelle (1926)
85.5% - Damien Kurek (Cons) in Battle River – Crowfoot (2019)
85.3% - Fernand Rinfret (Lib) in St. James (1926)
85.2% - Pierre Trudeau (Lib) in Mount Royal (1979)

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Kind of weird to think that until this week, the largest margin of victory was in Vaughan. Goes to show how much of a difference trends and demographic changes can make over time.

It was more a reflection of how large & rapidly the riding had grown - 113,000 votes were cast there, up from the already-oversized 88,000 in 1988. In percentage terms, that 51,000-majority ranked only 39th among Liberal margins for 1993 (though a still-impressive 45.5%). It was also a big improvement personally for Mr. Bevilacqua over 1988, when his 77-vote margin was overturned and a by-election was ordered (though it was in 1990, when the Tory government had hit the depths of unpopularity, so he won very easily). He never had much difficulty in the years since - winning by 47.8% in 1997, 50.1% in 2000, 39.3% in 2004, 33.7% in 2006 & 14.8% in 2008. He was always quite popular locally, though as he was on the right wing of the Liberal Party, he didn't advance much under Jean Chretien. Once he retired, the seat became competitive again (as evidenced by the subsequent Tory by-election victory).

York – Scarborough had a similar rapid growth throughout its existence (1953 through 1965): 34,000 votes cast in 1953, 75,000 in 1957 (the winning Tory got more votes, 42,000, than had been cast in total in 1953), 88,000 in 1958 (his majority of 35,000 was the first to break 30,000), 122,000 in 1962, 131,000 in 1963 and 148,000 in 1965 (an all-time record; the third-place New Democrat got 33,000 votes - almost as many as were cast in total in 1953).

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Big swing to the Tories in Cape Breton.

Both ridings were contested by two provincial MLAs, both of whom were quite popular locally; given the federal history of those seats it was still unlikely that they'd win, although they'd probably do much better than the Tory normal there. That both Liberal MPs weren't running again would also help them. I'd expected Alfie MacLeod to come closest to winning, given the rural riding & the fact that he'd been around much longer than Eddie Orrell had, but the narrow Liberal win in Sydney is probably down to the controversy surrounding their candidate there.

Incidentally, Chris d'Entremont is another MLA who ran in West Nova (marginal, but usually Liberal); he won, but the narrow margin is indicative of the poor Tory showing provincewide. Lenore Zann, the NDP-MLA-turned-Liberal-MP in Cumberland, also narrowly pulled out a victory in a normally Tory riding.

I've often said that the individual candidate matters a great deal in Nova Scotia (generally more so than elsewhere in the country), and all four of these results are indicative of that.

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Here are maps for the 2019 election; the first indicates the winners' % margin of victory and the second the winners' % of the vote.

(There are still twenty-five constituencies that have yet to post official counts; as they probably won't do so before Monday, I've gone with their preliminary tallies for the moment. Will adjust the colors for those ridings later if necessary.) (EDIT: Finally completed!)






To compare, here are maps for 2015:

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I figured percentage margins haven't been broken this year, but some of those rural Alberta seats are really pushing it and that's with the PPC shaving a 2-3% off the Conservative margins.

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain the overall Conservative vote percentages in AB and SK are records (at least for the modern era). SK hasn't historically been strongly Conservative, but getting over 69% in AB even exceeds Mulroney's win in 1984.

The vote share in Alberta is an all-time record, while the Saskatchewan result is bested only by 1917 (when the Tories got 74%). The Tory vote of 64% on the Prairies is also a record since then (when they got 72%).

The 1917 election set a number of records - nationwide vote (57%), vote share in Ontario (62%), vote share in Quebec (73%), vote share in the West (71%) and even vote share in Toronto (72%), not to mention record constituency shares - that will probably never be broken.

The 85.5% racked up in Battle River – Crowfoot isn't an all-time record, nor even a record since 1917, but it is the best Conservative result since the time of Borden (in both percentage of the vote and percentage majority).

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Looking over some of the more apparently anomalous results, what's with the big Conservative wins in Thornhill and Richmond Centre? Obviously very different reasons I'm assuming apart from perhaps incumbent popularity. I'm assuming Richmond Centre has a fairly large Chinese population and I know the Tories have historically done well with Chinese voters, but I'm sure there have to be a number of other heavily Chinese seats that didn't go their way. Also, the lone NDP seat in Montreal was held by a pretty substantial margin as well.

Conservative success (since 2008) in Thornhill has generally been attributed to the big Jewish population there (the largest of any riding), given that that demographic has been very good to the Tories for the last decade. It also helps to explain the strong Tory showing in Mount Royal four years ago.

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Twenty-three ridings left to make official declarations now; curiously, the PM's is still among them.

Here are the safest seats for each party this time (biggest vote & biggest majority):

Largest Margin of Victory:

Cons - Damien Kurek wins Battle River – Crowfoot by 50124 (80.4%)
Lib - Patricia Lattanzio wins Saint-Leonard – Saint-Michel by 22443 (49.4%)
BQ - Louis Plamondon wins Becanour – Nicolet – Saurel by 20321 (38.8%)
NDP - Jenny Kwan wins Vancouver East by 19151 (34.4%)


Largest Share of the Vote:

Cons - Damien Kurek wins Battle River – Crowfoot with 85.5% of the vote
Lib - Gary Anandasangree wins Scarborough – Rouge Park with 62.2% of the vote
BQ - Gabriel Ste.-Marie wins Joliette with 58.2% of the vote
NDP - Jenny Kwan wins Vancouver East with 52.6% of the vote


The safest Liberal seat in terms of margin ranks below thirty-three Tory ridings; the safest in terms of vote share ranks below thirty-six. I can't recall such an imbalance in the Tories' favor before (though one has seen such avalanches in the other direction during the Liberals' heyday in Quebec).

Mr. Plamondon is not only the longest-serving Bloc member (he was one of the original founders back in 1990), but is also the longest-serving current MP, having first been elected for Richelieu in 1984.

Vancouver East, along with northern Winnipeg, ranks among the most consistently loyal NDP (& CCF & Labour before that) areas. Ms. Kwan also has the distinction of being one of only two NDP MLAs to survive the big provincial defeat of 2001, when she also represented an eastern Vancouver riding.

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Yellowhead has finally reported its official results (twenty left now). No other riding is remotely likely to post a majority of forty thousand or more now, so here's the updated list:

52544 - Mike Lake (Cons) in Edmonton – Wetaskiwin (2019)
51389 - Maurizio Bevilacqua (Lib) in York North (1993)
50124 - Damien Kurek (Cons) in Battle River – Crowfoot (2019)
50016 - John Barlow (Cons) in Foothills (2019)
49970 - Tom Kmiec (Cons) in Calgary Shepard (2019)
49819 - Earl Dreeshen (Cons) in Red Deer – Mountain View (2019)
47831 - Blaine Calkins (Cons) in Red Deer – Lacombe (2019)
47763 - Bobbie Sparrow (PC) in Calgary South (1984)
47079 - Blake Richards (Cons) in Banff – Airdrie (2019)
46953 - Chris Warkentin (Cons) in Grande Prairie – Mackenzie (2019)
46295 - Dane Lloyd (Cons) in Sturgeon River – Parkland (2019)
44733 - Garnett Genuis (Cons) in Sherwood Park – Fort Saskatchewan (2019)
44586 - Shannon Stubbs (Cons) in Lakeland (2019)
43106 - Martin Shields (Cons) in Bow River (2019)
43052 - Stephanie Kusie (Cons) in Calgary Midnapore (2019)
42928 - Benoit Sauvageau (BQ) in Terrebonne (1993)
42066 - Gerald Soroka (Cons) in Yellowhead (2019)
42047 - Kevin Sorenson (Cons) in Battle River – Crowfoot (2015)
41691 - Jason Kenney (Cons) in Calgary Southeast (2011)
40480 - Monique Begin (Lib) in Saint-Leonard – Anjou (1979)
40189 - Don Boudria (Lib) in Glengarry – Prescott – Russell (1993)

[DistingFlyer]

With all the talk of votes vs seat pluralities, it's interesting how when it comes to Student Vote Canada, the third place party in votes got the most seats, and the party with the most votes was third place in seats.  (And nobody got more than 25.1% of the vote.)
 https://studentvote.ca/canada/results/

Interesting to see it broken down by province; the low Bloc total in Quebec (both votes and ridings) is encouraging.

[DistingFlyer]

With all the talk of votes vs seat pluralities, it's interesting how when it comes to Student Vote Canada, the third place party in votes got the most seats, and the party with the most votes was third place in seats.  (And nobody got more than 25.1% of the vote.)
 https://studentvote.ca/canada/results/

Interesting to see it broken down by province; the low Bloc total in Quebec (both votes and ridings) is encouraging.

We have known for a while that separatism is a dead issue among the younger generations, with the exception being the 'radical-on-everything' types that are lockstep with the QS. Those born recently only have memory of the Bloc as a separatist party, so even their movement away on that issue might not help with the youth. There are different battles to be fought, so why bother picking up the banner left by your parents when the Bloc doesn't own your issues the best. Additionally rural Quebec has that rural problem where the youth are heading for the Liberal/NDP cities and not staying in communities more tied to the Bloc.

Agreed on all points - just having same confirmed by the figures was very nice to see.