Canadian Election 2019

[DL]

Keep in mind that as the incumbent PM, Trudeau doesn’t need to make any formal deal with anyone. He is PM until he is not. I assume that unless the CPC wins an actual majority, Trudeau would remain PM and would present a Throne Speech and then it would be up to the NDP, Greens and BQ to either pass the Throne Speech or vote it down in which case the GG would invite Scheer to try to pass a Throne Speech. If his Throne Speech also lost them we would have to have another election!

[DL]

FWIW, after all the hyperventilating, it seems to be that the electoral impact of Trudeau taking part in a minstrel show will be pretty marginal. If this had happened four years ago, it would have been fatal for Trudeau, but now he has a record as PM and that is something for people to balance this against. These scandals just don't seem to have the impact they once did.

The whole story likely did two things - it gave NDP leader Jagmeet Singh an opportunity to hit the ball out of the park with his reaction and to gain profile AND it torpedoes the Liberal strategy of going after Tory candidates for things they said or did in the past...but in the end i don't think it changes the fundamentals and I am still predicting what I predicted months ago - Liberals lose majority, remain largest party and a Trudeau minority gov't likely lasts a full 4 years

[DL]

FWIW, after all the hyperventilating, it seems to be that the electoral impact of Trudeau taking part in a minstrel show will be pretty marginal. If this had happened four years ago, it would have been fatal for Trudeau, but now he has a record as PM and that is something for people to balance this against. These scandals just don't seem to have the impact they once did.

The whole story likely did two things - it gave NDP leader Jagmeet Singh an opportunity to hit the ball out of the park with his reaction and to gain profile AND it torpedoes the Liberal strategy of going after Tory candidates for things they said or did in the past...but in the end i don't think it changes the fundamentals and I am still predicting what I predicted months ago - Liberals lose majority, remain largest party and a Trudeau minority gov't likely lasts a full 4 years

I agree for the most part, but why a full four years?

I should have said that a "Liberal" minority would last a full four years...its possible Trudeau himself might not stick around the whole time. I just think that it will not be in the interest of the smaller parties to force an early election. The NDP and Greens will be broke for years to come. Its possible that after three years the government could fall because the NDP doesnt want to go into the next election having backed the government every step of the way...but I think we would be in a situation similar to Harper 2008-2011 where the minority government survives for a surprisingly long time because everyone is afraid to trigger a snap election.

[DL]

  Quebec question.  Would there be a lot of potential tory voters who might vote tactically for the Bloc as a good way to defeat either a Liberal or NDP candidate, with the idea that a Bloc MP would be a potential vote for toleration of a minority Scheer government?

No. First of all very very few voters are that "strategic" and especially not in Quebec. There has been zero discussion of how the BQ would act in a minority situation and in fact if there was much discussion of the BQ being willing to tolerate a Scheer government - it would likely harm the BQ since a lot of their voters are very anti-Conservative. In any case the number of "core" Tory voters is very small in Quebec and any votes they get beyond the 15% mark are largely "non-of the-above" votes from people who might have voted NDP or BQ in the past..

[DL]

Just as an FYI, as i understand it, when Mainstreet does their riding polls they just ask a generic party vote question. They do not provide names of local candidates.

[DL]

I completely agree. The last few have seen more attention paid to climate change than ever before what with Greta Thunberg and all the climate strikes. IMHO for a couple of days you will see people saying they would vote Green as a way of expressing a sentiment that climate change is an important issue. It’s certainly not the result of people suddenly liking Elizabeth May anymore than they did before...she has actually campaigned poorly and had a lot of gaffes. I know that regional samples are small but it’s notable that in Quebec the BQ seemed to be the on the move when everyone was talking about Bill 21 and Quebec issues...but when the focus shifts to climate change the BQ drops because it’s an issue where they have nothing to say.

For the Conservatives the challenge in this campaign is that so far the issues that have dominated have been racism as a result of the blackface photos and now climate change, both issues that are very bad issues for them

[DL]

Its very ironic that the Tories are quick to denounce people as "career politicians" or to say that anyone working in the public sector are all parasites sucking on the public "teat"...but then you see people like Jason Kenney or Stephen Harper or Andrew Scheer who have never had a private sector job in their entire lives and who have been political junkies since they were children. Scheer has either been an assistant to an MP or been an Mp or been speaker since he was in his early 20s. He has no "profession" outside of politics.

Trudeau has also basically been in politics since he was born and never really had much of a career outside politics...just a few stints as a snowboard instructor and teaching drama part-time. in Contrast Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May are both lawyers and both had real careers before politics

[DL]

The Greens must have had a real outlier of a good night on Friday since they jumped two points on Saturday morning...which is a huge bump from a three day roll and then they lost almost all of that today when the Friday night results were dropped

[DL]

A big Manitoba poll by Probe show the Liberals plummeting in Winnipeg largely to the benefit of the NDP

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/federal-election/ndp-makes-gains-in-winnipeg-at-liberals-expense-poll-561908582.html

[DL]

A big Manitoba poll by Probe show the Liberals plummeting in Winnipeg largely to the benefit of the NDP

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/federal-election/ndp-makes-gains-in-winnipeg-at-liberals-expense-poll-561908582.html

I believe the NDP bump has been slowly happening in Winnipeg for a few months, probably thanks to the provincial election as well.
I still see the NDP likely holding Elmwood-Transcona, and Winnipeg Centre is looking more and more like a potential pick-up. But not much else I think. Enough though to maybe cost the LPC seats to the CPC.

IMHO, regardless of the Liberals shedding support to the NDP, the Tories are almost guaranteed to pick up Kildonan-St. Paul and Assiniboia-Charleswood-Headingley. Those are usually safe Tory seats that went narrowly Liberal in the sweep of 2015. I expect the Liberals to easily hold Winnipeg South Centre and St. Boniface. Winnipeg South could be a close race. Of course were it not for the inexplicably popular Kevin Lamoureux, Winnipeg North would almost certainly go NDP as well. But for some bizarre reason anyone with the last name Lamoureux seems to be unbeatable in North Winnipeg.

[DL]

Look what a difference it makes when a riding poll gives names of local candidates and not just party names. Ruth Ellen Brosseau of the NDP has a solid lead in her riding

https://www.lenouvelliste.ca/elections-2019/sondage-mainstreetle-nouvelliste-ruth-ellen-brosseau-en-avance-4607807cf318e4b2f98464ccb10f20fa

[DL]

FYI, it’s the local candidates whose names appear on the ballot. Usually a strong local candidate can mean a 5% premium at most but then there are cases of certain MPs who keep bucking the trend. Ralph Goodale should have lost Wascana as a Liberal in each of the last five elections and Kevin Lamoureux winning Winnipeg North for the Liberals when they were getting steamrollered is another. Why did Jean Charest survive in 1993 when every other Tory in Quebec was blown out of the water? I also wonder whether local incumbents may do better than usual in this election because the whole campaign has been so dull and listless and no one seems to have any momentum. In that context more people vote locally

[DL]

This poll can also be a self fulfilling prophecy for Brosseau. It’s an above the fold front page story in local media and it will likely drive Liberal voters to vote strategically for her to stop the BQ

[DL]

Nanos today has the Liberals moving into a three point 36-33 lead over the Conservatives AND also has the NDP up to 16% and the Greens crashing down to 7%. In Quebec in particular, CPC support has been crashing ever since Scheer's catastrophically bad debate performance on Tuesday night.

Interestingly on Nanos's tracking question where they ask people if they thing each party leader does or does not "have the qualities of a good leader"...when the campaign started Singh was in the low 30% on that measure. As of today he is at 46% and has overtaken Andrew Scheer and Elizabeth May on that measure.

Other polls like the latest from Campaign Research also show Singh's approval numbers soaring. Usually when a party's leader gets increasingly popular it is a leading indicator for that party to start to move up in vote intention. We shall see.  

[DL]

Mainstreet riding poll for Longueuil-Saint-Hubert, done September 29. The main contenders are current/former sovereigntists.

Réjean Hébert, LPC 35
Denis Trudel BQ 28
Pierre Nantel Green 17 (outgoing NDP MP)
Patrick Clune CPC 9
Eric Ferland NPD 5
Ellen Comeau PPC 3

https://www.latribune.ca/actualites/elections-2019/rejean-hebert-en-avance-dans-longueil-saint-hubert-selon-mainstreet-102a75136ee8f5906d6f209164076898

Keep in mind that Sept 29 was the day of the climate strike with Greta Thunberg in Montreal and polling nationally seemed to have given the Greens a momentary "sugar high" for a couple of days...they have dropped a lot since. If Nantel was at 17% on Sept 29. He is probably at 10% by today

[DL]

Mainstreet riding poll for Longueuil-Saint-Hubert, done September 29. The main contenders are current/former sovereigntists.

Réjean Hébert, LPC 35
Denis Trudel BQ 28
Pierre Nantel Green 17 (outgoing NDP MP)
Patrick Clune CPC 9
Eric Ferland NPD 5
Ellen Comeau PPC 3

https://www.latribune.ca/actualites/elections-2019/rejean-hebert-en-avance-dans-longueil-saint-hubert-selon-mainstreet-102a75136ee8f5906d6f209164076898

Keep in mind that Sept 29 was the day of the climate strike with Greta Thunberg in Montreal and polling nationally seemed to have given the Greens a momentary "sugar high" for a couple of days...they have dropped a lot since. If Nantel was at 17% on Sept 29. He is probably at 10% by today

Good point. But he is incumbent MP, can get NDP votes, sovereignist vote, Green vote. One of the few known Green candidate so he should do better than generic Green I imagine.

I agree. A "generic Green" would get 5 or 6 percent in Longueuil. Nantel may get 10 or 11 percent.

[DL]

In 2011 Harper showed that it was just barely possible for the Tories to get a majority with minimal (5) seats in Quebec, but that required the Tories to win Ontario by 19 points (45% CPC, 26% NDP, 25% Liberal) and capture 80-odd seats...that is clearly no where near to happening again. Most polls have the Liberals ahead in Ontario or have it as a tie.

[DL]

Singh has actually been the most disciplined and on-message leader in this election, IMO. I still think he'll be out in two weeks though. Does anyone think there's a possibility he'll find a way to stay on...?

I would say he is guaranteed to stay on as NDP leader unless he loses his own seat and the party is reduced to a single digit seat count (unlikely). My impression is that the party members love him now and the feeling is that he is a good campaigner with long term prospects. It’s a total contrast to Mulcair who campaigned badly, kept going off message and was never personally liked at all.

[DL]

Also re Singh: Lester Pearson wasn't out after the Diefenbaker landslide in 1958.

Or for that matter, Gary Doer wasn't out after the Manitoba NDP was decimated in 1988.

...and John Turner wasn't dumped after he led the federal Liberals to a disastrous defeat in 1984 and neither was Stanfield after being crushed by Trudeau in 1968...and Tommy Douglas led the NDP through four elections despite only getting 13-14% of the vote and less than 20 seats in 1962 and 1963. More recently Howard Hampton became Ontario NDP leader in 1997 and went on to lose official party status in three elections and took the NDP as low as 13% in 1999.

There are many factors that go into whether parties keep or depose their leaders - including how personally well-liked the leader is, whether people within the party feel they did as good a job as they could have under the circumstances, whether or not there is a viable alternative leader, whether or not there is a faction in the party that is organizing the get rid of the leader etc... In the case of Singh - he is personally well liked in the party, people think he is campaigning well, there is no viable alternative to him as leader and there is no faction in the party that wants to get rid of him...add to that the NDP is pretty hyper politically correct and would loath to depose the first ever leader of a party who is a visible minority who has had to withstand so much racism during the campaign.

[DL]

Re: Singh's leadership: The media is going to be relentless in saying that he should go if the NDP does poorly. I mean, they were awful to poor Andrea after the 2014 provincial election despite actually gaining seats from 2011.

Yet there was zero pressure on Howard Hampton to be dumped as ONDP leader after abysmal results in 1999, 2003 and 2007. The flak that Horwath got in 2014 was less about the result of the election than about the fact that she ran an awful campaign and people saw it as a missed opportunity...though she still got an 80% vote of confidence at the subsequent ONDP convention.

The media can say what they want - NDP delegates would have to vote to have a new leadership context whenever the next NDP convention is - likely Fall of 2020 and i think its highly unlikely they would vote to have another contest no matter what the result is of the election. 

[DL]

...and while Hampton wasn't a bad leader, he was no where near as likeable or charismatic as Singh can be at his best. Also, if Hampton had been deposed there would have been several viable successors to him in the ONDP - not requiring bilingualism makes a big difference

[DL]

Leger 10/9

LPC: 31% (-3)
CPC: 31% (-3)
NDP: 18% (+4)
GPC: 11% (-)
PPC: 3% (+1)

*Note: BQ not included in federal numbers, but polling at 29% in QC specifically. (LPC - 31%, CPC - 16%, NDP 13%, GRN - 7%, PPC - 3%)

Mainstreet 10/8

CPC: 32% (-1.1)
LPC: 31.7% (-0.9)
NDP: 14.3% (+1.1)
GPC: 10.3% (+0.2)
BQ: 6.1% (-0.4)
PPC: 4.2% (+0.8 )

Keep in mind that Mainstreet is based on a three-day roll - so only one third of their sample from the poll referred to above is post-debate

[DL]

Strategic voting has *always* happened; it's just that in this age of social media, people speak of it as if it were a new invention (oh!  gee whiz,I gotta vote strategically).  It's why the NDP has *always* been the third party, much like the Libs/Lib Dems in Britain since their "strange death".

Oh, and Nanos is continuing to show Singhmania underperforming when it comes to voter intent: in today's tracker, only up to 14.1 from 13.4--but the Libs and Cons separated 36.9-33.2.  (But Singh's approvals up from 10.9 to 12.3.)

That’s not “approval” it’s “best Prime Minister”

[DL]

It was easy for a lot of habitual Liberal voters to go NDP in 2011 because Jack Layton was so popular and Michael Ignatieff was so unpopular. Literally the only reason the Liberals were polling ahead of the NDP in the lead up to the 2011 election was a perception that the NDP had no chance. The second the NDP overtook the Liberals in the polls there was a stampede of “Layton Liberals” to the NDP

[DL]

So you are saying that it’s OK for the Tories to govern with the “separatists” (sic.) but if the Liberals and NDP do it everyone shrieks “treason”. Why the double standard?