Canadian Election 2019

[King of Kensington]

Beginning to wonder if that's true.

[King of Kensington]

Given the close calls in York Region last time (and 50%+ PC vote there provincially last year) what's the likelihood it'll be blue while the rest of the 905 GTA stays mostly red?

[King of Kensington]

Keep in mind, though, w/Durham Region, the best PC result there last year was lower than the worst PC result in York Region.

Ajax/Pickering has increasingly become a suburban extension of (non-Chinese) Scarborough.

[King of Kensington]

Conservatives drop Heather Leung in Burnaby North-Seymour.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/heather-leung-campaign-media-strategy-1.5308429

[King of Kensington]

Conservatives = 337 candidates

[King of Kensington]

337.5

[King of Kensington]

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".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[King of Kensington]

How much of Singh's support coming from the "metropolitan left" vs. the traditional blue collar NDP electorate? 

[King of Kensington]

Yes, Brampton is (after Oshawa) the most "working class" municipality in the GTA.

[King of Kensington]

We're talking about the federal Liberals here. Do they have the courage to lead a minority government if they win fewer seats than the Tories? I wouldn't bet on it.

What do you mean "do they have the courage?". For the Liberals being in power is the be all and the end all. It takes zero courage for them to stop at nothing to keep power. What would take courage would be to voluntarily let Scheer become PM without having exhausted every possibility! The worst day in power is a hundred times better than the best day in opposition. Why wouldn't they do absolutely ANYTHING to cling to power damn the torpedoes. The last time the Liberals lost their plurality in 2006, they reassured themselves that Harper would have no luck leading a minority government and that his government would collapse just like Clark's in 1979 and that the Liberals would be back within a year...ten years later Harper was still PM and the Liberals came extremely close to being killed off by the NDP. They wont let that happen again.

Yeah the NDP partisan talking point of "Liberals would rather let Tories govern than share any power with the NDP" isn't really true at all. 

[King of Kensington]

If the NDP hits 25% in Ontario, then the dam breaks and the second tier target seats come into play.   

[King of Kensington]

I thought EKOS didn't lump Manitoba and Saskatchewan together.

[King of Kensington]

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.

[King of Kensington]

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

[King of Kensington]

BC is still under the present electoral arrangement a conservative province. Vancouver's growth is hampered by geography and it's votes are fragmented. As long as the non-tory vote keeps getting cut into 20-20-20 (a simplification) chunks, the Tories will  waltz to popular vote victories thanks to the interior and seat count victories via vote splits in the suburbs. They did it under Harper and they did it this week. BC though is one of those places though if you forced people to pick a loyal-left or a loyal-right, when they both have realistic shots at power unlike 2011, they will pick loyal-left. The BC liberals provincially have a distinct brand from other local provincial conservative parties which allows them to win the two-party contests with the NDP.

Technically true the Conservatives won a plurality of the vote and seats but I doubt too many British Columbians feel a "shared destiny" of any sort with Alberta these days.  "The West" basically means Alberta and Saskatchewan now.

[King of Kensington]

I would highly recommend reading this:

John Conway, The Rise of the New West

[King of Kensington]

Yes, the East-West divide is sharp in Canada in a way American observers may not be able to comprehend (we have no "Midwest" equivalent).  Also the Great Plains isn't a cultural region in the US but the Prairies very much is one in Canada.

[King of Kensington]

Scheer really isn't a Trump-type firebrand or populist.  He's a very stiff social conservative and someone who champions the regional grievances of the Prairies.

[King of Kensington]

It's also strange that the CPC ran a Christian conservative anti-abortion activist in York Centre and non-Italians in both Vaughan ridings.  Scheer was a terrible fit for the GTA. 

[King of Kensington]

Big swing to the Tories in Cape Breton.

[King of Kensington]

In Alberta and Saskatchewan there were only 5 ridings the Conservatives received less than 50% of the vote: Edmonton-Strathcona (37.3% - went NDP), Edmonton Centre (41.7%), Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River (41.7%), Saskatoon West (48.3%) and Regina-Wascana (49.6%).

[King of Kensington]

You're misunderstanding what occurred! There were gargantuan swings towards the Conservatives in Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton. There was basically no such swing in most of rural Ontario.  Canada isn't a country where one can easily discuss "trends" by urban/rural patterns because farmers in Saskatchewan or Alberta share nothing in common with rural residents of New Brunswick, many of whom speak French (!) or who, at the very least, are very exposed to the French language and are the 10th generation descendants of Anglo settlers. Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, immigrant heritage is of fairly recent vintage.

Unlike in the US, region trumps demographics in voting patterns.  Scheer is in effect Moe and Kenney's puppet on the federal scene.

[King of Kensington]

Let's put it this way: What is the "Calgary" of the USA?

[King of Kensington]

Robert Brym, a University of Toronto sociologist and co-author the 2018 Survey of Jews in Canada, said he’s not surprised that Canadian Jews appear to have tilted toward the Liberals.

The survey “suggested that a Liberal bias exists in Canada’s Jewish community, not just in term of party preference, but in terms of attitudes toward income redistribution, same-sex relationships and Israeli settlement policy,” Brym told The CJN.

The Orthodox community, he went on, tends to lean more toward the Conservatives, in terms of party preference and attitudes, so “it is not a shock that Thornhill, with its substantial Orthodox population, tilted Conservative,” he added.

https://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/how-the-jewish-vote-will-shape-canadas-43rd-parliament

[King of Kensington]

Six non-Alberta/Sask Conservative ridings had higher vote shares than the top Liberal, NDP, Bloc or Green ridings (albeit five are in Manitoba): Portage-Lisgar (71%), Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies (69.9%), Provencher (65.9%), Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa (64.5%), Brandon-Souris (63.5%), Selkirk-Interlake (62.7%).