August 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election

[JoeyOCanada]

Very surprised at how well Leslyn Lewis did. She certainly has a bright future in the Conservative Party, probably a future leader.

[adma]

There's also the "where would Leslyn Lewis run?" question--and for all the hoopla over her, there's no guarantee that *she'd* have sufficient Liberal-giant-killing star power, either.  (Though in a weird way, I have this notion of her running in Etobicoke North on Doug Ford's coattails.  I'm not saying it'd be a *winning* sort of big; more a reflection of where the Conservative mindset is at)

Presumably, O'Toole would just parachute her into a safe riding. Which one, who knows?

Though it's hard to think of the kind of "safe riding" where she'd be a good fit.  (Oshawa?)

For better or worse, we're at a point where Conservative leadership stars might not actually have that much star-quality half-life beyond the closed loop of Conservative politics.  Or if she has a "bright future", it's more a reflection of the kind of party it is, than of the kind of bright-future figurehead she might be...

[brucejoel99]

Why did Sloan overperform?

SoCons gonna SoCon.

Very surprised at how well Leslyn Lewis did. She certainly has a bright future in the Conservative Party, probably a future leader.

Yeah, Lewis honestly had a huge victory here, if not the final victory.

There's also the "where would Leslyn Lewis run?" question--and for all the hoopla over her, there's no guarantee that *she'd* have sufficient Liberal-giant-killing star power, either.  (Though in a weird way, I have this notion of her running in Etobicoke North on Doug Ford's coattails.  I'm not saying it'd be a *winning* sort of big; more a reflection of where the Conservative mindset is at)

Presumably, O'Toole would just parachute her into a safe riding. Which one, who knows?

Though it's hard to think of the kind of "safe riding" where she'd be a good fit.  (Oshawa?)

For better or worse, we're at a point where Conservative leadership stars might not actually have that much star-quality half-life beyond the closed loop of Conservative politics.  Or if she has a "bright future", it's more a reflection of the kind of party it is, than of the kind of bright-future figurehead she might be...

Tbf, she doesn't have to be a good fit for such a given riding's voters nevertheless casting their votes for the CPC. A safe riding is "safe" for a reason.

[adma]

Why did Sloan overperform?

SoCons gonna SoCon.

Perhaps SoCons who were too racist to vote for Lewis; or, the "PPC Lite" types of voters (how much Bernier '17/Sloan '20 crossover might there have been?).

But I'm wondering whether Sloan winning Thunder Bay-Rainy River has anything to do with that being home turf for controversial Senator Lynn Beyak (would she have been in a position to influence voting?)

There's also the "where would Leslyn Lewis run?" question--and for all the hoopla over her, there's no guarantee that *she'd* have sufficient Liberal-giant-killing star power, either.  (Though in a weird way, I have this notion of her running in Etobicoke North on Doug Ford's coattails.  I'm not saying it'd be a *winning* sort of big; more a reflection of where the Conservative mindset is at)

Presumably, O'Toole would just parachute her into a safe riding. Which one, who knows?

Though it's hard to think of the kind of "safe riding" where she'd be a good fit.  (Oshawa?)

For better or worse, we're at a point where Conservative leadership stars might not actually have that much star-quality half-life beyond the closed loop of Conservative politics.  Or if she has a "bright future", it's more a reflection of the kind of party it is, than of the kind of bright-future figurehead she might be...

Tbf, she doesn't have to be a good fit for such a given riding's voters nevertheless casting their votes for the CPC. A safe riding is "safe" for a reason.

Even so, Canada's a much more awkward place for parachuted outsiders than, say, the UK.

Somehow, I can't sense the "get Leslyn Lewis in ASAP" urgency here--or if anything, I can see her making the leap to *provincial* politics, where there's many more compatible presently-held Conservative GTA seats and she'd likely be a cinch for a Ford cabinet...

[brucejoel99]

There's also the "where would Leslyn Lewis run?" question--and for all the hoopla over her, there's no guarantee that *she'd* have sufficient Liberal-giant-killing star power, either.  (Though in a weird way, I have this notion of her running in Etobicoke North on Doug Ford's coattails.  I'm not saying it'd be a *winning* sort of big; more a reflection of where the Conservative mindset is at)

Presumably, O'Toole would just parachute her into a safe riding. Which one, who knows?

Though it's hard to think of the kind of "safe riding" where she'd be a good fit.  (Oshawa?)

For better or worse, we're at a point where Conservative leadership stars might not actually have that much star-quality half-life beyond the closed loop of Conservative politics.  Or if she has a "bright future", it's more a reflection of the kind of party it is, than of the kind of bright-future figurehead she might be...

Tbf, she doesn't have to be a good fit for such a given riding's voters nevertheless casting their votes for the CPC. A safe riding is "safe" for a reason.

Even so, Canada's a much more awkward place for parachuted outsiders than, say, the UK.

Somehow, I can't sense the "get Leslyn Lewis in ASAP" urgency here--or if anything, I can see her making the leap to *provincial* politics, where there's many more compatible presently-held Conservative GTA seats and she'd likely be a cinch for a Ford cabinet...

Eh, I don't see it being too awkward for her, if it even is at all. Chrystia Freeland was parachuted from abroad into Toronto Centre, Joe Clark (by then both the former PM & the once - & still future - Calgary Centre MP) parachuted into Kings-Hants, Kellie Leitch of Winnipeg was parachuted into Simcoe-Grey, & none other than Andrew Scheer of Ottawa was parachuted into Regina-Qu'Appelle. If it's a safe riding, people don't care.

[Hatman 🍁]

Why did Sloan overperform?

Compared to what, polling? Lewis overperformed too. Social conservatives are less likely to answer polls. In 2017, the issue was that many social conservatives were from minority communities, and so there was language and cultural barriers to polling them. However, this time the results don't show minorities backing Sloan or Lewis to the extent they did Trost and Lemieux in 2017. Based on the maps, it looks like Chinese Canadians backed O'Toole to a moderate degree, and Indo-Canadians gave MacKay some large margins. So, I'm not sure what the issue is this time. Maybe even White social conservatives don't answer polls?

[King of Kensington]

I also see little evidence that Black Canadians - perhaps the most loyal Liberal demographic in the country - really took part or embraced Leslyn Lewis.

[Vosem]

So what happened in Quebec? Why did O'Toole do so good there? Most analysis before last night predicted MacKay would be stronger there.

That's because everybody forgets that CPC members in Quebec are so different from (& so few compared to) the average Quebecois voter that they're not at all representative of what Quebec would really want.

For instance, O'Toole won the Laurier-Sainte-Marie riding last night. It's a Quebec Solidaire stronghold, so at 1st glance, this would seem quite baffling. But when you check how many CPC members there are in Laurier-Sainte-Marie, it starts to make sense: 41(!), & I'd venture a lot of them might be uprooted English Canadians. In 2019, the CPC candidate in that riding came 5th with only 2.82% of the vote. And that ain't a one off. The CPC was also 5th in the riding in 2008, 2006, & 2004, despite that being back when the NDP had next-to-no presence in Quebec & the Greens weren't even a party with an MP yet. In 2000, the PCs placed 6th because the Marijuana Party came 4th. The last time a conservative party did better than 4th was 1997, when the PCs came 3rd.

Basically, everybody forgot that appealing to people in Quebec ≠ appealing to CPC members in Quebec.

Isn't it also the case that O'Toole speaks much better French than MacKay or Lewis? I could see that mattering more in practice than naive ideological considerations.

[brucejoel99]

So what happened in Quebec? Why did O'Toole do so good there? Most analysis before last night predicted MacKay would be stronger there.

That's because everybody forgets that CPC members in Quebec are so different from (& so few compared to) the average Quebecois voter that they're not at all representative of what Quebec would really want.

For instance, O'Toole won the Laurier-Sainte-Marie riding last night. It's a Quebec Solidaire stronghold, so at 1st glance, this would seem quite baffling. But when you check how many CPC members there are in Laurier-Sainte-Marie, it starts to make sense: 41(!), & I'd venture a lot of them might be uprooted English Canadians. In 2019, the CPC candidate in that riding came 5th with only 2.82% of the vote. And that ain't a one off. The CPC was also 5th in the riding in 2008, 2006, & 2004, despite that being back when the NDP had next-to-no presence in Quebec & the Greens weren't even a party with an MP yet. In 2000, the PCs placed 6th because the Marijuana Party came 4th. The last time a conservative party did better than 4th was 1997, when the PCs came 3rd.

Basically, everybody forgot that appealing to people in Quebec ≠ appealing to CPC members in Quebec.

Isn't it also the case that O'Toole speaks much better French than MacKay or Lewis? I could see that mattering more in practice than naive ideological considerations.

Yeah, actually having a grasp of the French language certainly doesn't hurt one's appeal to people in Quebec.

[King of Kensington]

Some electoral districts outside of Atlantic Canada with a high "religious right" percentage (I used "other Christian" + Baptist + Pentecostal as a proxy measure).  2011 NHS data.

Ontario

Kitchener-Conestoga  26.6%
Elgin-Middlesex-London  24.5%
Chatham-Kent-Leamington  24.4%
Niagara West  24%
Perth-Wellington  23%
Haldimand-Norfolk  22.7%
Oxford  21%

Manitoba

Portage-Lisgar  47.5%
Provencher  41.6%

Saskatchewan

Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek  25.7%
Cypress Hills-Grasslands  22.2%

Alberta

Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner  30%
Lethbridge  29.4%
Peace River-Westlock  25.9%
Red Deer-Lacombe  23.3%
Red Deer-Mountain View  22.4%
Foothills  22.2%
Grande Prairie-Mackenzie  21.7%

British Columbia

Abbotsford  34.9%
Chilliwack-Hope  28.8%
Langley-Aldergrove  25%
North Okanagan-Shuswap  21.7%
Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies  21.2%
Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon  20.6%

[ON Progressive]

Can’t say that I expected my new home riding (Kitchener-Conestoga) to have a higher % religious right than my old riding (Oxford) at all.

[adma]

Can’t say that I expected my new home riding (Kitchener-Conestoga) to have a higher % religious right than my old riding (Oxford) at all.

Perhaps in the case of K-C, those who fall within the statistical-category proxy are more "ancestral" than ideological and likelier to be affected by the moderating influence of suburban K-W?  (Plus, some of the deeper Mennonite sects are notorious for low turnout.)


Anyway, I added up the vote totals for those Ontario seats alone

Round 1: Lewis 2213, MacKay 1308, O'Toole 1392, Sloan 1487
Round 2: Lewis 3273, MacKay 1357, O'Toole 1625
Round 3: MacKay 1695, O'Toole 3386

And the *total* votes for those seven seats is just a touch above half of those for the 25 Toronto seats.

[adma]

And also, I'm wondering if there's a "Rob Ford in reverse" argument on behalf of Leslyn Lewis--that is, just as Rob Ford (and Doug by extension) had a nonwhite/ethnoburban core following that belied his white-trash facade, Leslyn Lewis had a white-evangelical core following that belied her ethno-diverse facade.  (And which led a *lot* of armchair observers to misconstrue where their respective true strengths--or weaknesses, for that matter--would lie)

[DC Al Fine]

Can’t say that I expected my new home riding (Kitchener-Conestoga) to have a higher % religious right than my old riding (Oxford) at all.

Perhaps in the case of K-C, those who fall within the statistical-category proxy are more "ancestral" than ideological and likelier to be affected by the moderating influence of suburban K-W?  (Plus, some of the deeper Mennonite sects are notorious for low turnout.)

I'd also throw out there that the census "Other Christian" category is very messy. Per my review of the detailed breakdown of what groups and their #'s, "Other Christian is mostly Evangelical sects but it also includes non-Evangelical groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, a few mainline Protestantish groups and generic "Christian" people.

It's still a perfectly fine rough metric (it's not like I expect Kensington to manually tally 20+ Evangelical groups by riding ), but the noise in the metric may account for some of the oddities like K-C.

[DC Al Fine]

Why did Sloan overperform?

Compared to what, polling? Lewis overperformed too. Social conservatives are less likely to answer polls. In 2017, the issue was that many social conservatives were from minority communities, and so there was language and cultural barriers to polling them. However, this time the results don't show minorities backing Sloan or Lewis to the extent they did Trost and Lemieux in 2017. Based on the maps, it looks like Chinese Canadians backed O'Toole to a moderate degree, and Indo-Canadians gave MacKay some large margins. So, I'm not sure what the issue is this time. Maybe even White social conservatives don't answer polls?

Some hypotheses:

1) Pollsters are letting a significant amount of non-members into their samples, which degrades their polls into name recognition polls. Socon candidates are mostly low profile (except Jason Kenney I guess) and therefore underpoll.

2) Some conservative Christian groups, while participating in politics, are pretty insular in general (e.g. Dutch Reformed, Mennonite). People like that would vote in leadership races but not answer polls.

3) Conservative Chrisians in general are feeling pretty embattled, Canadian ones in particular, and are therefore answering polls in a more 'socially acceptable' manner.

Thoughts?

[Hatman 🍁]

Can’t say that I expected my new home riding (Kitchener-Conestoga) to have a higher % religious right than my old riding (Oxford) at all.

Probably has to do with a large Amish population. I don't think they vote in Conservative leadership elections.

[Hatman 🍁]

Why did Sloan overperform?

Compared to what, polling? Lewis overperformed too. Social conservatives are less likely to answer polls. In 2017, the issue was that many social conservatives were from minority communities, and so there was language and cultural barriers to polling them. However, this time the results don't show minorities backing Sloan or Lewis to the extent they did Trost and Lemieux in 2017. Based on the maps, it looks like Chinese Canadians backed O'Toole to a moderate degree, and Indo-Canadians gave MacKay some large margins. So, I'm not sure what the issue is this time. Maybe even White social conservatives don't answer polls?

Some hypotheses:

1) Pollsters are letting a significant amount of non-members into their samples, which degrades their polls into name recognition polls. Socon candidates are mostly low profile (except Jason Kenney I guess) and therefore underpoll.

2) Some conservative Christian groups, while participating in politics, are pretty insular in general (e.g. Dutch Reformed, Mennonite). People like that would vote in leadership races but not answer polls.

3) Conservative Chrisians in general are feeling pretty embattled, Canadian ones in particular, and are therefore answering polls in a more 'socially acceptable' manner.

Thoughts?

Maybe. You'd know better than me. I do know that Mainstreet attempted to weight for social conservatives, so in all likelihood, Sloan and Lewis supporters were even less represented in the sample. If they weighted it to 15% (Trost+Lemieux, first round in 2017), you can see where they would have a problem. Also, trying to identify who is social conservative is another issue.

[King of Kensington]

Can’t say that I expected my new home riding (Kitchener-Conestoga) to have a higher % religious right than my old riding (Oxford) at all.

Perhaps in the case of K-C, those who fall within the statistical-category proxy are more "ancestral" than ideological and likelier to be affected by the moderating influence of suburban K-W?  (Plus, some of the deeper Mennonite sects are notorious for low turnout.)

I'd also throw out there that the census "Other Christian" category is very messy. Per my review of the detailed breakdown of what groups and their #'s, "Other Christian is mostly Evangelical sects but it also includes non-Evangelical groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, a few mainline Protestantish groups and generic "Christian" people.

It's still a perfectly fine rough metric (it's not like I expect Kensington to manually tally 20+ Evangelical groups by riding ), but the noise in the metric may account for some of the oddities like K-C.

It's admittedly an imperfect (proxy) measure - but that's the most detail I can get at the riding level.

Not all "other Christians" are the same.  Dutch Canadians in Niagara region and the Mennonites of southern Manitoba are more involved in politics than the strict Amish communities in Waterloo for example.  

This measure likely overestimates social conservatism in the Maritimes and perhaps underestimates Saskatchewan.  I suspect there's a lot of "ancestral" Baptists in the Maritimes - reflecting New England English ancestry, plus MacKay really dominates there, so I didn't bother tallying those ridings up.  In Saskatchewan, only two ridings have over 20% on this proxy measure.

[MaxQue]

Here's the first round:



What do Rainy River, Kitchener Centre and Bourassa have in common? Beats me!

Kitchener Centre was the seat of Stephen Woodworth, whose single issue was abortion, may have had effects in the composition of the riding association (and may explain how a 2008 Harper seat is now a Liberal-Green fight).

[adma]

Can’t say that I expected my new home riding (Kitchener-Conestoga) to have a higher % religious right than my old riding (Oxford) at all.

Perhaps in the case of K-C, those who fall within the statistical-category proxy are more "ancestral" than ideological and likelier to be affected by the moderating influence of suburban K-W?  (Plus, some of the deeper Mennonite sects are notorious for low turnout.)

I'd also throw out there that the census "Other Christian" category is very messy. Per my review of the detailed breakdown of what groups and their #'s, "Other Christian is mostly Evangelical sects but it also includes non-Evangelical groups like Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, a few mainline Protestantish groups and generic "Christian" people.

It's still a perfectly fine rough metric (it's not like I expect Kensington to manually tally 20+ Evangelical groups by riding ), but the noise in the metric may account for some of the oddities like K-C.

Which is why I referred to it in terms of "statistical-category proxy".  And you'd probably find such overrepresentation wherever there's a heavy demographic contingent of those of "Germano-Netherlandish Protestant" background--and cultural urban/suburbanization has rendered the Waterloo Region version thereof more ideologically flexible: (politically) Promiscuous Oktoberfesters, so to speak.

Re social conservatives and polling: I wonder how much of the issue these days is that active, leadership-voting Conservative membership is being "sorted" in that direction more rapidly and thoroughly than pollsters have been accounting for.  (Similar "sorting" underlies registered Republicanism in the States, which is why Trump approval among that cohort remained cultishly high even at the worst of times--those who didn't approve, withdrew their registration.)

[adma]

What do Rainy River, Kitchener Centre and Bourassa have in common? Beats me!

Kitchener Centre was the seat of Stephen Woodworth, whose single issue was abortion, may have had effects in the composition of the riding association (and may explain how a 2008 Harper seat is now a Liberal-Green fight).

Ironically, Woodworth was an ex-Liberal (he ran in Waterloo in 1988).  And it's also worth pointing out that provincially, Laura Mae Lindo won Kitchener Centre for the NDP by a landslide in 2018--so whichever way you slice it, it'd seem as if KC's terminally strayed from its onetime Con-compatible bellwether status.  (As far as the Greens go, though, 2019's race really had to do more with Mike Morrice's star power, so it's far from certain that it portends a Guelph-style "Green shift", as opposed to a Morrice-Lindo progressive-crossover dynamic)

And I mentioned how riding-association-composition *might* explain Rainy River as well, if Senator Lynn Beyak had anything to do with it.

Speaking of Derek Sloan, I earlier dropped the notion of Oshawa as a potential "Leslyn Lewis parachute riding"--it dawned on me that Oshawa also happens to be the headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Canada, and the home of the SDA-affiliated Kingsway College which Sloan once attended.  So, who knows...

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

There's also the "where would Leslyn Lewis run?" question--and for all the hoopla over her, there's no guarantee that *she'd* have sufficient Liberal-giant-killing star power, either.  (Though in a weird way, I have this notion of her running in Etobicoke North on Doug Ford's coattails.  I'm not saying it'd be a *winning* sort of big; more a reflection of where the Conservative mindset is at)

I think she would be daft to run in Etobicoke North. Yes it's Ford country, but it's also a riding that the Liberals won by over 10 points in their 2011 collapse, and by 39.2pts last year. Not to mention, Doug Ford has said he won't even campaign for the CPC in the next election, so that will hurt anyone trying to ride his coattails.

Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North) and Diane Finley (Haldimand-Norfolk) will not be running for the next election. Both are solid Conservative ridings, and interestingly Haldimand-Norfolk was one of the few seats east of Saskatchewan that voted for her on the first ballot. The only problem is she lives in Markham, which is 1.5 hours away from Simcoe North and 3 hours away from Haldimand-Norfolk. Or she could uproot her family and move to one of those areas, but it's not clear that she actually wants to do that.

I think what's most likely is that she runs somewhere in Markham or elsewhere in the York Region. Markham-Stouffville is the only winnable Markham riding with a Liberal incumbent, so she might try there. If she wants a safer option near home, she could try Richmond Hill.

[IceAgeComing]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1298097602932748289?s=20

First poll with O'Toole as leader isn't exactly a great sign for the Tories - this sort of thing isn't a death knell for a persons leadership and shouldn't be looked at in that way but you don't want your leader burying you into a bigger hole than you were in when they get elected.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1298097602932748289?s=20

First poll with O'Toole as leader isn't exactly a great sign for the Tories - this sort of thing isn't a death knell for a persons leadership and shouldn't be looked at in that way but you don't want your leader burying you into a bigger hole than you were in when they get elected.

Way too early to objectively say what impact O'Toole will have but this isn't a good sign for any potential leadership bounce. In fact, this is the opposite of a bounce & it doesn't seem to a direct result of the WE scandal wearing off on the Liberals or anything.

Tbh, I'm still just mesmerized by that circus from the other night at the CPC shindig. I wonder if that sort of thing could also factor into killing any sort-of new leader bump. I don't think they're gonna be growing that tent any time soon with the "Take Back Canada" shtick.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Though it's hard to think of the kind of "safe riding" where she'd be a good fit.  (Oshawa?)

If O'Toole wants to parachute her into a GTA riding, the dirty Shwa' isn't the best option. The NDP regularly comes close there, and the Liberals usually aren't too far behind. Colin Carrie knows how to win Oshawa because he's done it six times now, it would be a new riding for Lewis and could cause an upset.

If we're talking safe GTA seats, why not Thornhill? It's closer to where she lives, it's a safe seat, and the incumbent Peter Kent is now 77.