Canadian Election 2019

[Hatman 🍁]

A lack of wanting to make a deal with the separatists by the Liberals/NDP is a big reason why the Conservatives were able to get away with governing with a minority from 2006 to 2011. As soon as a coalition was proposed with the support of the Bloc, the idea fell on its face. If Cons+BQ > Lib+NDP+Green, then I'd imagine the Conservatives would 'win' and govern with a minority, throwing bones to Quebec along the way. We'd be back at the polls in 2 years.

[Hatman 🍁]

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?

It's not a double standard, it's about the number of seats. I wasn't clear about this in my last post, but who ever "wins the most seats" will be treated as "the winner".

If the Liberals win more seats than the Conservatives, they probably wouldn't need the Bloc's support, because they would have the NDP/Greens to rely on. If not, then yes the would need the Bloc too. All this to say, if the Bloc is the balance of power, the party with the most seats will probably form government.

[Hatman 🍁]

I wonder if the NDP can sustain their growth beyond a solid 20% this election..

I think we'll see whether the poor NDP organization before the campaign started in terms of lack of fundraising and slowness in nominating candidates will end up hurting them. 

This morning's Nanos shows mild portent of such a glass-ceiling "sobering up"; the NDP back down from 19.7 to 19.2, the Libs back ahead at 32.3 from 31.5 (the Cons from 32.3 to 32.1, the Bloc and Greens down and up respectively by .3).  Also wonder how much of that is a Justin-security-threat "sympathy bump"; but still, it's a sign that the Liberal free-fall isn't necessarily infinite...

Not sure if I would put that much faith into polling from Thanksgiving Sunday.

[Hatman 🍁]

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?

It's not a double standard, it's about the number of seats. I wasn't clear about this in my last post, but who ever "wins the most seats" will be treated as "the winner".

And yet in the BC 2017 election the Liberals took two seats more than the NDP and when the NDP turned the tables on Christy Clarke and formed a minority government with support for the Greens - all these pundits shrieked bloody murder because the second place "loser" party was taking power and  everyone predicted that the Horgan government would have no legitimacy and wouldnt last two months...well two and a half years later the BC NDP is still in power and seems reasonably popular and no one seems to care that they actually have fewer seats than the BC Liberals. Similarly when the Ontario Liberals under David Peterson took power in 1985 despite having fewer seats than the PCs, they became very popular and won the next election in a landslide.

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.

However, if Lib+NDP+Green = majority, then I think Trudeau will entertain continuing on as PM, even if he has fewer seats than the Tories.  But if they need the Bloc's support, then I don't think he will try it.

[Hatman 🍁]

Voted Tory in the advance poll yesterday.

I toyed with voting People's or spoiling my ballot, but my ultimately decided that Scheer and my local candidate were better fits for my views.

You didn't wait until election day? Don't you want to see your vote contribute to the maps?

What I'm finding from my social-media feed is that an *awful* lot of people are "selfie voting" in advance--sort of like a forthright declaration of a commitment to exercise their franchise, the earlier the better; and in a way that implicitly encourages others to follow suit.  And reports are that advance turnout's up 25% from last time, which I think is all about advance turnout, rather than turnout in general.  (And the phenomenon seems particularly common among the "fashionably left"; thus, some of last year's Ontario NDP landslides were even *more* landslidish in the advance polls.)

Which, of course, is hell to those of us who use the polling-map barometer--almost as if good old-fashioned voting on Election Day is becoming a Luddite anachronism a la land lines and print newspapers...

Eh, I have little kids and difficulty finding babysitters. I'm not risking having to entertain a cranky toddler in an Election Day line

Bring them with you! When my daughter was just 13 months old, she even "helped" me "scrutineer" at a local polling station. I've taken her voting ever since. Gotta start them young!

[Hatman 🍁]

Voted Tory in the advance poll yesterday.

I toyed with voting People's or spoiling my ballot, but my ultimately decided that Scheer and my local candidate were better fits for my views.

You didn't wait until election day? Don't you want to see your vote contribute to the maps?

What I'm finding from my social-media feed is that an *awful* lot of people are "selfie voting" in advance--sort of like a forthright declaration of a commitment to exercise their franchise, the earlier the better; and in a way that implicitly encourages others to follow suit.  And reports are that advance turnout's up 25% from last time, which I think is all about advance turnout, rather than turnout in general.  (And the phenomenon seems particularly common among the "fashionably left"; thus, some of last year's Ontario NDP landslides were even *more* landslidish in the advance polls.)

Which, of course, is hell to those of us who use the polling-map barometer--almost as if good old-fashioned voting on Election Day is becoming a Luddite anachronism a la land lines and print newspapers...

It's almost like you are trying to convince people that this is a bad thing?  Good on those people for voting early and sharing it.

if you're on this site, there's an assumption that you like election maps, no? When you vote advance your vote doesn't go in to the poll by poll maps.

[Hatman 🍁]

Agreed, but not people voting in advance polls' fault.  That's all.  The impression I got from the post was kind of like a "Who are they to think they should be voting in advance polls" nonsense.  I'm happy people are sharing they are voting, and encouraging others to do the same, even if it means fewer maps / less accurate maps.

Though keep in mind, too, how fewer/less accurate maps also does a disservice to future electioneering/canvassing by providing an ambiguous impression of ground-level conditions.

And yes, it's good that more people are voting.  But this phenomenon of advance voting stealing the electoral oxygen is actually quite new and yet ill-pinpointed; and yes, in many ways truly a double-edged-sword product (even if higher-operating) of a viral-social-media "selfie age".  Sort of like those towns and places and sunflower and lavender fields that open their arms to the selfie crowd, only to be overrun by the same; and said selfie crowd so eager to play follow-the-leader that they develop little incentive to dig deeper than the perfect selfie.  In this case, the "digging deeper" means that no, you don't *have* to vote in advance; it doesn't make you any less of a citizen; and you don't have to follow-the-leader in that respect.  And at this rate, it might actually be no less crowded on e-day--I've heard of people surprised by advance-polling lineups.

So, psephologically speaking, it's a real unexpected-consequence circumstance that's yet to be fully absorbed--who knows if we might have ridings this time where over half the vote is cast in advance.  And really--for the sake of this forum or for geographic political science in general, that's not good...

PEI regularly has more than 50% vote in advance polls. It's gotten to the point where a party will win every poll on election day, but still lose the riding.

The discrepancies between election day voting and advance voting also has implications when you watch the ballots come in on TV.  People may go to bed thinking X party did terrible, and not really think about the election again - when in reality said party may have done quite well thanks to later counted advance votes.

[Hatman 🍁]

Why have the Liberals lost so much ground in the Atlantic since their sweep last time? Dogsh**t provincial governments?

Probably a small sample size in the Angus Reid poll. We still have them well ahead. Not quite as much as in 2015, but as DC mentioned it's more of a reversion to the mean.

[Hatman 🍁]

https://mobile.twitter.com/VoiceOfFranky/status/1185768465623334913
https://mobile.twitter.com/voiceoffranky/status/1185768930939416577
https://mobile.twitter.com/VoiceOfFranky/status/1185769552585596929

Fun fact: Frank's "seat model" is just me, and I doubt I'll be saying majority. Will find out what today's numbers show though.

[Hatman 🍁]

Wait....if I am reading this right, center right and right-wing parties in canada will barely combine for 1/3 of the vote? That is embarrassing.

It's Canada not Louisana

I get that, but the U.K., Germany, etc are also not Louisiana and center right parties combine for way more there than Canada.

Many center-right voters vote for the liberals.

Indeed, despite their reputation, the Liberals are Canada's centrist party.

Election models are pretty good at the national leevel, but maaaann are they bad at the riding level. Seeing a lot of predictions that the NDP will pick up Acadie-Bathurst despite not running Yvon Godin. The models really need some sort of adjustment for candidates.

They are running Daniel Thériault, long time president of the Acadien Festival, which is considered a star candidate.

Hmm, may have to eat crow tonight then.

Don't worry, the NDP has no chance in Acadie-Bathurst. "Star candidate" or not.

[Hatman 🍁]

Weather is beautiful right now in my neck of the woods. 17 degrees and sunny. No excuses to not vote!

[Hatman 🍁]

I'm going to be contrarian, and suggest that this is a very good result for the NDP in that it will be a great opportunity for them.

The result is very similar to Jack's first election in 2004. 4th place, 16% of the vote, Liberal-led minority government. The big difference was the gain in seats, but they only won a paltry 19 seats. Another difference was that the NDP didn't quite hold the balance of power. But, now they do. The NDP has more power now than they did in 2011 when they were opposition.

The minority governments of the 2000s were great for the NDP, and ultimately led to the Orange crush in 2011. The same could happen now.

Not too long ago, the NDP were poised for a single digit election night, but Jagmeet pulled them out from that. Sure, it fell rather short from what we hoped, but it's still a relief. Jagmeet is a great campaigner, he's not going anywhere.

[Hatman 🍁]

One has to remember that in Northern Ontario, much of the vote shifting is on the right, not on the left. So when the Liberals go down, the Tories go up.

As for BC, the NDP government is actually popular right now (relatively speaking), so makes sense that the federal party wouldn't be hurt because of them.

[Hatman 🍁]

As I said at the beginning, one can't even come close to saying that there's a long-term shift going on there, but the results are anomalous enough to make me very interested to see what happens in that region next time.

And perhaps a leapfrog hint of that is in how Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke--probably the most "Northern/Rural-Prairie-esque" of the Southern Ontario ridings, demographically and economically--went from being a Liberal holdout in 1984 to a Cheryl Gallant Conservative stronghold in this century.  (Though the NDP's never really been a factor there, though there were hints of that provincially as recently as the 1970s)

Yes, and John Yakabuski was able to do the same thing at the provincial level: he made it the only riding to switch from Liberal to Tory in 2003, and turned it into the safest Conservative seat in the province in 2011 (as well as the safest seat for any party in 2011 & 2018). Personal popularity has a lot to do with both members' successes, I'm sure, but it could also be a hint of something more. Certainly the more populist tone of the post-reunion Tories (and their Alliance predecessors) seemed to do reasonably well in these areas, though curiously the Prairie-based populism of Diefenbaker did not work its charms here six decades ago.

On the contrary. Cheryl Gallant is not popular at all in her riding- or at least not as popular as her vote share would indicate.

[Hatman 🍁]

Ottawa

Liberals  261,475  47.5%
Conservatives  155,132  28.2%
NDP  90,587  16.4%

16.4% is usually good enough for the NDP to win Ottawa Centre (our polling had the NDP even higher in Ottawa, which is why I went out on a limb and said they'd win the riding), but this time they didn't come close. However, the NDP increased their vote share in every other riding in Ottawa, mirroring their good showing in the provincial election. I'm not sure why this is. I know in my riding (Ottawa South) we had a very good candidate, in fact it was the first time ever the NDP beat their national vote share in this riding.

[Hatman 🍁]

Since 2015 the NoVA-ization of Ottawa is very much evident.

It's interesting then that the Tories were able to hold Carleton, when they lost the other 'bedrooming communities' of Milton and Kitchener-Conestoga, with Milton being the notable target of the  three. It's also interesting with the context of the CAQ victories in the Outaouais last year.

The Liberals had a star candidate in Milton, which is why they won it.

Conestoga has been known to give us surprise results in the past. In the 2007 provincial election, it was supposed to go PC, but the Liberals picked it up. I believe the Waterloo Region as a whole is also trending heavily away from the Tories.  It is after all dominated by the Tech sector.

As for Carleton, it's mostly an exurban riding, and also still has a large rural population, so it is still voting Tory. As Riverside South, Stittsville and Findlay Creek get bigger, the riding will trend Liberal, but by that point it will probably be split up again with the rural parts probably joining a Lanark or Leed-Grenville based district.

[Hatman 🍁]

Since 2015 the NoVA-ization of Ottawa is very much evident.

It's interesting then that the Tories were able to hold Carleton, when they lost the other 'bedrooming communities' of Milton and Kitchener-Conestoga, with Milton being the notable target of the  three. It's also interesting with the context of the CAQ victories in the Outaouais last year.

The Liberals had a star candidate in Milton, which is why they won it.

Conestoga has been known to give us surprise results in the past. In the 2007 provincial election, it was supposed to go PC, but the Liberals picked it up. I believe the Waterloo Region as a whole is also trending heavily away from the Tories.  It is after all dominated by the Tech sector.

As for Carleton, it's mostly an exurban riding, and also still has a large rural population, so it is still voting Tory. As Riverside South, Stittsville and Findlay Creek get bigger, the riding will trend Liberal, but by that point it will probably be split up again with the rural parts probably joining a Lanark or Leed-Grenville based district.

Pollievre is still pretty young. If he spends his whole career in Parliament it'd be funny to see how far away his riding is from Ottawa in the end, after several rounds of moving to better seats in redistribution.

He'll have to hope he doesn't get lumped into an adjacent rural riding that already has an MP.

[Hatman 🍁]

Makes sense, Peterborough is a very good bellwether. Provincially, it's voted for the winning party since 1977.

How much swing would they need to get a majority?

[Hatman 🍁]

Ipsos conducted an exit poll which included a question about how you would vote under straight PR. Actual poll results only added up to 95%, so I pro-rated the extra 5% by vote share. Seat change is vs actual FPTP results.

Tory: 31.6%, 107 seats (-14)
Liberal: 27.4%, 93 seats (-64)
NDP: 21.0%, 71 seats (+47)
Green: 8.4%, 28 seats (+25)
Bloc: 7.4%, 25 seats (-7)
People's: 4.2%, 14 seats (+14)

Tl;dr: PPC enters parliament (or narrowly misses out if we have a 5% threshhold), Liberals would have tremendous difficulty forming government on their own, and would need the support of the NDP + Bloc and/or Greens to pass anything. We probably see a coalition or at the very least a more formal arrangement with the NDP.

One wonders what seats would flip if people voted their true intentions under FPTP. Obviously there are many people who "vote strategically" despite not living in a riding where it's necessary.

Of course, even under PR people would vote strategically, as a lot of people think most seats=winner. (This explains why otherwise smart people vote strategically in ridings that the Tories have no chance in).

[Hatman 🍁]

How come the NDP seems to routine be overrated by the polls? This election, Alberta 2019, Ontario 2018, and arguably the 2015 election all come to mind as examples of the NDP underperforming their poll numbers. It can't all be late swings surely?

Part of it is that the NDP are more reliant on younger voters than other parties, and another part of it is the NDP GOTV infrastructure is a lot weaker than the Liberals or Conservatives. I'm sure there's other reasons too though.

I think in Ontario 2018, the NDP peaked earlier and then failed to capitalize on it, but they were polling about 30-35% in that last few days and got about 33%. I think the party made a few mistakes that last week and many anti-OLP voters who were polling ONDP moved to the OPC. Again strategic voting always hurts the NDP, even when the NDP/ONDP were polling ahead of the OLP, the OLP was pushing strategic voting against the ONDP.
That was a different case then we saw here in Fed2019. Here we did see the NDP peak at a good point, a few days earlier would have been nicer but, the last weekend we saw a massive push to vote strategically, and many Progressive voters who lean NDP voted LPC...you can see that in the cities, particularly in Toronto.

Which was lolworthy given the poor NDP results in Toronto seats the Tories had no chance of winning. I'd love to know how many people voted tactically when it didn't matter or voted tactically in the wrong direction

You would be surprised! It was infuriating, particularly in the NDP targets that people legit thought they have to vote LPC to stop the CPC... the issue is they did not understand the local vs national polling and voting.

Time for the NDP to make some misleading "Lib Dem" style bar charts and send them to voters in Downtown Toronto ridings!

[Hatman 🍁]

And in each of those cases, incumbency matters.  (Remember: the NDP netted no Ontario gains.)

Correct. Incumbency is the #1 reason.

Also, the NDP was short on cash, so didn't put up much of a fight in Toronto.

[Hatman 🍁]

Kenora swung to the PCs provincially too; it's not really that surprising.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think proximity to Manitoba must explain it partially. The riding is on Central Time, and I'd imagine is in the Winnipeg media market.

[Hatman 🍁]

Northern Ontario is very "populist" or "WWC". One of my fears about having Singh as leader was that he would not appeal at all to Northerners. And on the same note, Trudeau's brand of Liberalism doesn't play well in the North either. Nonetheless, both parties held their own in terms of keeping their seats (Kenora notwithstanding), but did tread water to the Tories in most ridings. The Tories don't have much history winning seats in the North, so probably have little ground game.  I'm sure a better campaign in the Soo could've flipped it though.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think proximity to Manitoba must explain it partially. The riding is on Central Time, and I'd imagine is in the Winnipeg media market.

The other unspoken issue is race. The NDP almost won Kenora in 2015 running former Ontario leader Howard Hampton. But this time the NDP ran First Nation chief Turtle - and while he likely did very well on a lot of FN reserves - there is a large chunk of WWC voters in northern Ontario who will vote for white NDP candidate but will go Tory if the NDP nominates an "Injun" (sic.)

Well, I was alluding to that with Singh being leader, but yes - racism against Indigenous people is far worse up north than any other group.

Northern Ontario is very "populist" or "WWC". One of my fears about having Singh as leader was that he would not appeal at all to Northerners. And on the same note, Trudeau's brand of Liberalism doesn't play well in the North either. Nonetheless, both parties held their own in terms of keeping their seats (Kenora notwithstanding), but did tread water to the Tories in most ridings. The Tories don't have much history winning seats in the North, so probably have little ground game.  I'm sure a better campaign in the Soo could've flipped it though.

What is it about the Soo that causes the Tories do so much better there than other Northern ON towns?

I wonder if it has to do with with the city's right wing populist streak? There's a whole Wikipedia article dedicated to the controversy over making English the city's only official language in 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sault_Ste._Marie_language_resolution (the same year, the CoR got 21% of the vote in the provincial election there)

Not many Francophones live there any more. I wonder why...