PEI Provincial election 2019

[Harlow]

Important to note is that the next election will coincide with a referendum on electoral reform, which has been one of the main policy positions of Peter Bevan-Baker, the PEI Green Party's leader. A prior referendum in 2016 received only 36% turnout, which the Liberal government deemed illegitimate. After that referendum, the Green Party's polling numbers jumped from the single digits to the mid-20s. They now poll in the high-20s to high-30s, the best numbers of any provincial Green Party in Canada.

The Green Party stands to gain from a shift to proportional representation, since it's not clear whether their possible percentage of the vote under the current first-past-the-post system will be spread effectively and translate to enough seats to rival the Liberals and PCs. Will one of Canada's last two-party systems finally be fractured?

This election is definitely the one I'm most interested in following next year.

[Harlow]

Eagerly awaiting a Green win immediately followed by their reneging on their promise of electoral reform.

Considering it has been one of their main policy positions and how much their polling numbers increased directly after the 2016 referendum, I highly doubt they'd be able to get away with that.

[Harlow]

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/03/pei-green-party_a_23607272/

This article touches on the Greens' success, though it acknowledges that much of it may be limited to urban centers (aka Charlottetown).

The article also mentions that the PCs have been plagued by infighting for almost a decade––does anyone have more info about why that is?

New CRA poll coming later this week.

[Harlow]

Most seats Greens have ever won in any province is 3 (currently hold that in British Columbia and New Brunswick).  So if Greens win in PEI, it will be first Green government in Canada and I believe second globally.  They've been junior partners in many countries but I believe the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg is the only one they were actually the senior partner.

The centrist Farmers and Greens in Lithuania formed government with the Social Democrats as partners in 2016, and Iceland has a Left-Green prime minister although they aren’t the largest party.

[Harlow]

Wow, thanks a lot!

[Harlow]

Most seats Greens have ever won in any province is 3 (currently hold that in British Columbia and New Brunswick).  So if Greens win in PEI, it will be first Green government in Canada and I believe second globally.  They've been junior partners in many countries but I believe the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg is the only one they were actually the senior partner.

The centrist Farmers and Greens in Lithuania formed government with the Social Democrats as partners in 2016, and Iceland has a Left-Green prime minister although they aren’t the largest party.

Aren't the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens pretty much green in name only?

Yeah. Calling them a “green” party is like calling the DPRK “Democratic”. Just because ya in the name doesn’t make it so.

And yet they are members of the G/EFA (though not affiliated with the Global Greens, so point taken there).

[Harlow]

The Greens with their largest polling lead yet, as the PCs get a post-leadership election bump and seem to take from the Liberals.

https://cra.ca/pei-greens-show-lead-over-governing-liberals-as-provincial-election-looms/

Greens: 38%
PCs: 29%
Liberals: 27%

Feb. 4-24

[Harlow]

Leantossup.ca currently has the greens on 15 seats with the libs and tories on 6 each, giving the greens a 67.7% chance of winning an absolute majority (you need 14 seats for one)

Wow, great website, thanks for pointing it out.

I'm frankly surprised we haven't had any polling since the writ dropped. Maybe everyone's just focused on Alberta.

[Harlow]

I think most likely outcome is Green win, question is will it be a majority or is their vote inefficient due to huge margins in Charlottetown so only minority.

FWIW the Mainstreet poll had their Charlottetown numbers only a few points higher than their numbers in the rest of the province.