Canadian by-elections 2021-2022

[trebor204]

The PCs (Kevin Klein) won the Kilkfield Park (Manitoba)  by-election.
The NDP had a 100 vote lead with just the advance poll remaining, and PCs overtake the NDP on the advance polls.


PC 2,356
NDP 2,196
Liberal 1,741
Green 70

[lilTommy]

The PCs (Kevin Klein) won the Kilkfield Park (Manitoba)  by-election.
The NDP had a 100 vote lead with just the advance poll remaining, and PCs overtake the NDP on the advance polls.


PC 2,356
NDP 2,196
Liberal 1,741
Green 70

PC - 37% vs 2019: 50%, -13%
NDP - 34% vs 2019: 26%, +8%
LIB - 27% vs 2019: 16%, +11%
votes cast: 6372 (37% turnout), 2019 votes cast: 10,895

PCs have to be breathing a sigh of relief, they won but barely. That is not a good sign, but in the end they still held it and that gives them the advantage going into the next election. But with this strong of a candidate, in a seat that has a mostly Tory voting history, the results should not have been this close.

NDP are probably happy enough but disappointed. Kirkfield Park is not in their top tier target ridings but this was close and that should embolden them (Assiniboia to the north would much more of a target). They may need to win this one to win gov't though; during the last NDP gov't from 1999-2016, they did not hold KP for the first two terms, but won the seat for the last two.  It's once again the Liberal vote that held them back, and that is something that the NDP will need to work on in Winnipeg in order to win more seats.
The last provincewide polling had the NDP leading 46% to 35%, in Winnipeg that was 55% to 27%. If you look at the NW breakdown, where KP is, the polling is tight with the PCs at 42% vs NDP 41%. This by-election result reflects that.

Liberals have be be happy they increased their vote, this shows they are still a competitive party that the PCs and NDP can't ignore.

[Hatman 🍁]

Worst vote share for the Tories ever in Kirkfield Park, but they still managed to win due to vote splitting.

[CumbrianLefty]

Vote Liberal, get Tory

[MaxQue]

The PCs (Kevin Klein) won the Kilkfield Park (Manitoba)  by-election.
The NDP had a 100 vote lead with just the advance poll remaining, and PCs overtake the NDP on the advance polls.


PC 2,356
NDP 2,196
Liberal 1,741
Green 70

PC - 37% vs 2019: 50%, -13%
NDP - 34% vs 2019: 26%, +8%
LIB - 27% vs 2019: 16%, +11%
votes cast: 6372 (37% turnout), 2019 votes cast: 10,895

PCs have to be breathing a sigh of relief, they won but barely. That is not a good sign, but in the end they still held it and that gives them the advantage going into the next election. But with this strong of a candidate, in a seat that has a mostly Tory voting history, the results should not have been this close.

NDP are probably happy enough but disappointed. Kirkfield Park is not in their top tier target ridings but this was close and that should embolden them (Assiniboia to the north would much more of a target). They may need to win this one to win gov't though; during the last NDP gov't from 1999-2016, they did not hold KP for the first two terms, but won the seat for the last two.  It's once again the Liberal vote that held them back, and that is something that the NDP will need to work on in Winnipeg in order to win more seats.
The last provincewide polling had the NDP leading 46% to 35%, in Winnipeg that was 55% to 27%. If you look at the NW breakdown, where KP is, the polling is tight with the PCs at 42% vs NDP 41%. This by-election result reflects that.

Liberals have be be happy they increased their vote, this shows they are still a competitive party that the PCs and NDP can't ignore.

NDP better hope the Liberal vote get squeezed next time, on uniform swing, it leads to NDP 29, PC 24, Lib 4.

[DL]

The Manitoba Liberals have a history of having flash in the pan robust results in byelections followed by annihilation at the subsequent provincial election. The latest province wide poll released last week has them at a paltry 13%. If there was anything "real" about the MB Liberals strong showings in Fort Whyte and Kirkfield Park - you would expect to see at least a teeny-weeny bump in province-wide numbers.

Sure you can extrapolate from this byelection, but if you extrapolated the next UK election from a couple of recent byelections in Tory/Lib Dem contests the universal swing model would suggest a Lib Dem majority government in the next election - meanwhile they poll in single digits 

https://probe-research.com/polls/ndp-lead-inches-slightly-higher-december-2022-omnibus

[Hatman 🍁]

The Liberals doing well was a surprise, but they've done well in the riding in the past (just not for a long time). Interestingly, they also won the seat in the 2021 federal election if you look at just the votes in Kirkfield Park itself. 

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I wonder if King-Vaughan will stay with the CPC.  It's more Italian Canadian/Russian "new money", in contrast to the more "old money WASP" lakeshore suburban ridings.

I could easily see "new money second-generation immigrant" ridings trend right, and "old money WASP" ridings trend left, similar to what happened provincially

[adma]

The Liberals doing well was a surprise, but they've done well in the riding in the past (just not for a long time). Interestingly, they also won the seat in the 2021 federal election if you look at just the votes in Kirkfield Park itself.  

And also, when it comes to the insufficiently-foreseen 3-way dynamics of this particular byelection, don't write off the Libs as a Tory-thwarter independent of anything NDP.

When it comes to the past, the Carstairs blip of '88 is the most immediate barometer--that year's version of Kirkfield Park went 47.25% PC vs 44.96% Lib, and even in defeat the Libs did better than *winning* by 2 points in Assiniboia next door.  PC and Lib did a lot of shadowing of one another in Winnipeg's western ridings that year--even Premier Filmon only won by 47-46.

So the record low Tory share might, in fact, reflect a split in the middle rather than a split in the left.  (And remember that 1988 was pre-Reform/Alliance, i.e. a lot of what was encompassed under the Tory label then was already primed for subsequent centre/leftward shifting.)

And speaking of 3-way dynamics, *maybe* we should allow for the potential same in a federal Winnipeg South Centre byelection.

[Hatman 🍁]

Final results of Mississauga-Lakeshore by-election (last poll reported last night):

Lib: 51.2% (+6.3)
Cons: 37.4% (-1.3)
NDP: 4.9% (-4.9)
Grn: 3.1% (+0.9)
PPC: 1.2% (-3.0)

Liberal HOLD (Swing: +3.8%)

Turnout: 27.6% (-36.3)

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1603422140941815808

[adma]

Final results of Mississauga-Lakeshore by-election (last poll reported last night):

Lib: 51.2% (+6.3)
Cons: 37.4% (-1.3)
NDP: 4.9% (-4.9)
Grn: 3.1% (+0.9)
PPC: 1.2% (-3.0)

Liberal HOLD (Swing: +3.8%)

Turnout: 27.6% (-36.3)

And Alain Lamontagne remained mired at 1 vote for last place.  (Followed by Ysack Dupont and Pascal St-Amand w/2 votes apiece, and M.A.C. Jubinville with 3.  So, 14 of the independents got single-digit vote numbers.)

[adma]

https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1603422140941815808

Presumably bedrock-safe CPC.  But the growth of the auto economy has made for a surprisingly peppy NDP machine lately (they were 2nd in '11, of course, as well as '19, and within 2 or 3 points of 2nd in '08 and '21), so expect them to put on a more competitive-esque show than in Mississauga-Lakeshore.  Of course, if things were still like 2021, PPC would stand a chance of 2nd; but judging from Mississauga-Lakeshore, Poilievre's nuked that likelihood...

[Benjamin Frank]

I see this hasn't been mentioned. The NDP acclaimed a young 'woke' activist to run in the provincial riding of Hamilton Centre back on November 3.

Disability activist Sarah Jama to be acclaimed as Ontario NDP candidate for Hamilton Centre
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-centre-mpp-ndp-candidate-sarah-jama-acclaimed-1.6618438

She's also well known for her activism, which has prompted criticism from some in the community, including current Mayor Fred Eisenberger and police.

Keep in mind that Fred Eisenberger endorsed Andrea Horwath as his successor.

On the broader point, not only do I not think that her sort of confrontational activism achieves anything positive, I suspect that most of these so-called activists don't even really care, as I think most of them are motivated by a desire for excitement, confrontation and attention far more than the serious issues involved. Of course, I don't know specifically in the case of Sarah Jama.

Still, I suspect that Marit Stiles isn't exactly thrilled to have a person with this background as the first person to run under the NDP banner during her tenure. I also question the direction the NDP might be going acclaiming a candidate like this in a very winnable riding, but also a riding where the Liberals might attempt a comeback.


The Liberals are already in a position to make a major comeback. I think the 2022 election showed that when Ontario voters vote for an opposition party, they are fine voting for the NDP (especially over the Liberals) but that very few people want the Ontario NDP in government.

The 'greenbelt' is shaping up to be a major scandal for the Doug Ford P.C. The 'greenbelt' is an area near Toronto (I think mostly Dufferin County) where the P.C government proposed massive new housing developments to address the growing population and the housing shortages.

When I first heard about it, and based on the earlier polling, when most Ontarians heard about it, it seemed to be an ideological dispute between those who favor greater density and protecting farmland, and those who favor lower density and '(sub)urban sprawl.'

Although most people, according to the polling, oppose this development, when faced with the actual choice between developing the greenbelt and having greater density in their neighborhoods, I'm not sure this would have become much of a ballot box issue.

However, it now seems that many of the planned Greenbelt developers have long standing connections with the Progressive Conservative Party, which makes it a likely major scandal and also fits into the preexisting views of Premier Doug Ford as corrupt.

So, the Liberals are already well placed to make a big comeback and the Hamilton Centre byelection could be their start, as much as its demographics favor the NDP.

[Krago]

The 2018 Provincial Liberal candidate, Deirdre Pike, is running for the Liberal nomination for the Hamilton Centre by-election.

https://www.facebook.com/516592276/posts/pfbid021jfNAp1JAs3mvPv6UkmzMz6WonhNkuCdBGNsWqS51pEC14QhD4u9HjFAS168v6U6l/?app=fbl

[adma]

*If* the Liberals made a comeback, it'd practically bring things full circle back from when Andrea Horwath won by byelection in 2004 following the death of Liberal MPP Domenic Agostino--which brought the ONDP back to official party status after losing it in '03.

I also have a certain measured skepticism about putting *too* many eggs in the OLP basket for the next general election--even re the present scandalesque whirlwind of the Ford Gov't being in the developer's pockets.  It'd really depend upon whether the Libs are capable of pulling a "winning" leadership miracle out of the hat; but also, Ford's minions have a supple way of "compartmentalizing" these scandals so that concern over them becomes rather too inside-baseball to be a major electoral factor.  (Changes in media and media-consumption habits also factor in, sadly.)  But conversely, I'd never *totally* rule out Ontarians' generic amenability to the NDP in government--a lot of *that* hypothetical circumstance has been "induced from without", anyway, the repeated "NDP can't win" party line, or the tendency of pundits to emphasize the negative even when the NDP manages a positive relative to past patterns or relative to expectations.

And as for Sarah Jama: I can't rule out the likelihood of her losing; but by that measure, Joel Harden should have been a goner upon nomination to Ottawa Centre in '18--and he was reelected by a landslide in '22.  (He also might have been Stiles' likeliest viable leadership opponent on the left, had he not been reprimanded by acting leader Peter Tabuns for perceived anti-Semitic statements)

[adma]

And actually, when I think of it, it's most remarkable how in the previous Ontario legislature, there were only 2 byelections--both in Liberal incumbent ridings where they had a built-in advantage.

While the Libs might surely be *eyeing* Hamilton Centre for opportunity, I'd think that an outer-416 or 905 seat, or one where the sitting NDP's more obviously pinch-hitting for the Libs, is a stronger goal in the event of a byelection.  It just happens to be that Horwath's seat is first up on the plate; but regardless of the candidate, the Dippers would *really* have to drop the ball on this one, and the Libs here aren't in the same shape as the Tories were going into the general in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek or Windsor-Tecumseh.  Of course, knowing Doug Ford's anti-democratic instincts, he might just as well be tempted to appoint an partisan MPP for Hamilton Centre and do away with a byelection altogether...

[DL]

And as for Sarah Jama: I can't rule out the likelihood of her losing; but by that measure, Joel Harden should have been a goner upon nomination to Ottawa Centre in '18--and he was reelected by a landslide in '22.  (He also might have been Stiles' likeliest viable leadership opponent on the left, had he not been reprimanded by acting leader Peter Tabuns for perceived anti-Semitic statements)

FYI: Joel Harden announced he would not seek the ONDP leadership for personal reasons, long before that brouhaha about his perceived anti-Semitic comments.

I suspect the NDP will easily hold Hamilton Centre. Its a much much more NDP seat than Ottawa Centre is and the NDP has a new leader who is about 100 times more appealing than Horwath was. Also, the Liberals have to deal with a tarnished brand both provincially and federally. Running the same grade Z candidate who was squashed like a bug in 2018 is not the way i would imagine a Liberal upset win there would happen. They'd have to come up with some "supernova" of a candidate - and Deirdre Pike is more of a smouldering ember

[adma]

Of course, one thing that's different is that said "100 times more appealing" new leader does *not*, unlike her predecessor, represent this riding--all the same, as it now stands, for the Libs to win there would require a Simon Hughes Bermondsey '83 kind of earthquake--and the ONDP to make a calamitous botch of things the way that Labour did in '83.  Right now, other than "woke" candidacy (and there's an argument to be had that even using the "woke" label by way of condemnation is a double-edged sword), the only argument against the NDP and for the Liberals is if you *really* want to play up the case that historically, the Liberals have had more of a record as a "governing party" than the NDP has.  So we might as well be full circle back to the "unite the left under the Liberals" dork argument.

The one thing for certain is that the PCs can't win in a seat like this--yet paradoxically, given the nature of the seat and the state of the parties, they might also presently be the biggest spoiler for the Grits, as long as the Grits remain DOA relative to blue-collar Steeltown populism.  It ain't the Sheila Copps or Domenic Agostino days any longer, IOW...