Canadian by-elections, 2020

[King of Kensington]

They just more polls, Liberal is up by 500 votes

Yeah, that was weird; in an instant, went from a dead heat to a healthier Lib margin.  Must have been an advance poll in the W part of the riding, or something.

As for Toronto Centre--I sort of had the inkling the Greens wouldn't just be battling the NDP for a distant second.  But it's definitely interesting how despite Annamie's gains, the NDP share didn't *really* crater relative to last year--that is, it was the "Justin progressive" vote she *really* cannibalized.  And I already anticipated this could wind up the worst Lib result (save 2011) since the 1980s--and that's exactly what happened...

Both the Liberals and NDP were down about 25% from their vote share.

[King of Kensington]

Re: York Centre, Ya'ara Saks is more of a progressive Zionist and it's a largely Orthodox and Russian constituency. 

[Hatman 🍁]

Today's the big by-election in Charlottetown-Winsloe. If the PCs win it, then they will turn their minority government into a majority.

Candidates:
Zack Bell, PC: Minor hockey coach, oil salesman
Zac Murphy, Liberal: Financial advisor
Chris van Ouwerkerk, Green: Lawyer, small business owner
Lynne Thiele, NDP: Writer, former teacher

2019 result:
Liberal: 42%
Green: 31%
PC: 26%
NDP: 1%

MLAs since 1996:
Don MacKinnon, PC (1996-2003)
Wayne Collins, PC (2003-2007)
Bush Dumville, Liberal (2007-2019)
Robert Mitchell, Liberal (2019-2020)

The PCs are enjoying a large lead in the polls, though there hasn't been any public polling since the Spring. I feel like the PCs will probably win this, but it could go to either of the three main parties.

[Hatman 🍁]

Advance poll is in (worth probably 60% of the vote)

PC 951
Grn 482
Lib 442
NDP 23

So yeah, the PCs have almost certainly won.

[Hatman 🍁]

Results:

PC: 49.1% (+23.5)
Grn: 27.4% (-3.8)
Lib: 22.3% (-19.7)
NDP: 1.3% (+0.1)

PC GAIN from Liberal (Swing: 21.6%)

And just like that, the PCs have a majority government over a year after the election.

[CumbrianLefty]

To state the obvious, that is quite a swing. Bigger than expected?

[DC Al Fine]

To state the obvious, that is quite a swing. Bigger than expected?

Yes, but keep in mind, this is PEI where there are only 3-4000 voters on the roll in each district. It's closer to a council election in some small town, than a normal partisan election.

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, the last province-wide poll from the Spring had the PCs up 17 points, so not that surprising, I guess. Though, the poll had this increase coming at the expense of both the parties, which did not happen last night (probably because the Greens tried hard to pick this seat up).

Charlottetown has also been a hard nut to crack for the Tories. They did win  a seat there last year, but before then had been shut out since 2003.