Canadian by-elections 2021-2022

[lilTommy]

As expected, PSPP will not run to replace Catherine Fournier in Marie-Victorin because he'd have lost, probably badly. Legault said he'll give Longueuil voters a break and won't call it till the new year. Martine Ouellet will be running there for her new greenish splinter party, PLQ isn't contesting it. CAQ and QS will be contesting.

Why aren't the PLQ not contesting? Seems odd for a major party to not even run a paper candidate.

Originally they didn't want to run against the leader of a different party (per the tradition of not running in by-elections where the leader is trying to gain entry into the assembly. However, if PSPP isn't actually running, I'm not sure why the Liberals wouldn't run someone after all.

It seems odd; the PLQ did come 4th, behind QS, but they still pulled in 15% in 2018. PQ IS going to run a candidate though?
October polling has the PLQ down, the PQ way down, QS about the same and funny enough CAQ is about the same.

[lilTommy]

NDP"s biggest problem in Saskatchewan is lack of rural support.  In most provinces you can win just by sweeping the cities, but in Saskatchewan that is not enough.  Only silver lining is Saskatoon and Regina fast growing while rural areas losing people so may mean NDP out of power for a few more terms but once those two cities have more than half the population, I think they can win again.  Off course need to sweep both which is not easy but can be done plus some in Prince Albert, Moose Jaw and two Northern ones.

Of course, it wasn't such a problem before there came to be so much monolithic urban/rural electoral sorting.  What might also help is expanding the scope of "available" urbanity (i.e. returning to the days of Swift Current or Yorkton or Battlefords targetability)--and, of course, echoing Alberta in '15, a re-fragmentation on the right..

Outside of these, the SNDP does have a few rural seats they can target, where they have a solid base (25%+) as of 2020 election.
- Meadow Lake (26%)
- Batoche (27)
- Saskatchewan Rivers (26%)
These are Northern seats, but "transition" seats if you will, with southern rural influences. ML and SR were held by the NDP before 2007.

- Indian Head-Milestone (28%)
- Last Mountain-Touchwood (25%)
Both in the southeast, the rural seats surrounding the north and east of Regina.

If the SNDP is looking to target to at least gain a caucus of 20+, these are their best bets in rural SK
As of the last June poll the NDP are up, but not much, 34% vs 31% at the election. They did poll as high as 39% in January, but the "other" vote (PC, Buffalo Party) was 10% then... the split on the right is starting to some degree while the Liberals are still a non-factor at 2%.

[lilTommy]

Calgary-Heritage should be easy Tory win, but be interested to see if any UCP MLAs with the mess party is in jump ship or if held after provincial election may have one that loses their seat.

Calgary-Heritage is one riding of the I think three in Calgary where the NDP came second to the CPC, now the LPC and the NDP were basically bringing in the same vote in 2021, 17% vs 16% while the CPC still took almost 60% of the vote.

It looks like two provincial districts make up most/all of Calgary-Heritage; Calgary-Glenmore held by Whitney Issik and Calgary-Lougheed which is held by... Jason Kenney! (could he try and go back to Ottawa?). Calgary-Glenmore might be the only one of the two that the ANDP has a shot at, held during 2015 government and they seem to have a strong candidate in place from the energy sector... so Issik may be at risk.

[lilTommy]

Dominique Anglade is resigning Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne effective Dec. 1.

Could be a potential QS target/gain. Anglade as PLQ leader only won with 36% (-2% vs 2018) vs QS at 27% (+4 vs 2018).

Funny, of the last 7 elections (since 2007), in 5 of them the PLQ won 38% (45% in '08, 52% in '14)

I'd assume the PLQ floor may be close to that 30%, it's getting there. But with the PLQ loss of the neighbouring riding of Verdun to QS (the PLQ vote was 29%), this is a target for QS to win now.

[lilTommy]

Wouldn't be surprised if the Alberta Party also got a fair bit of "anti-Danielle" vote.

Maybe, but keep in mind the candidate there (so not to be censored again) wasn't just the Alberta Party leader but is also the past mayor of Brooks which is about 30% of the riding's population.

So while it was an almost 10% increase for the AP, given the above, 16% is still rather "meh" for the party. If the Premier wasn't running here, the AP might have done better though

I don't see that increase translating provincewide; a 2-3% increase for the party? coming from anti-smith-but-can't-vote-NDP-ever-UCPers, sure that seems reasonable. Just enough to benefit the NDP in very close races, mostly in Calgary but perhaps, like mentioned, in Red Deer, Grande Prairie or Lethbridge

[lilTommy]

There will be a Manitoba provincial byelection on December 13 in Kirkfield Park. It could be one to watch. Although it went to the PCs by a 49% to 25% margin in 2019, the PCs have become extremely unpopular since then and polls show a huge PC to NDP swing compared to 2019. Kirkfield Park is relatively upscale and has historically been a PC stronghold but the NDP won it in 2007 and again in 2011 so its not outside of the realm of possibility that they could win it again under the right circumstances.

I think and NDP win would be a bit of an upset - but the likely PC margin will be worth watching

MNDP are running Logan Oxenham, local resident, former folk musician, currently juvenile correctional officer and counsellor at the Manitoba Youth Centre. Seems fairly solid.

But PCs are running Former Winnipeg city councillor and mayoral candidate Kevin Klein. But, he is facing a lot of negative pushback from the NDP and Liberals for his time working for, twice, Peter Nygard. 

[lilTommy]

With just over 2/3 of the polls, the percentage gap has closed somewhat between the Liberals and the Conservatives to 51.1-35.6%.

It is possible the Conservatives will not decline significantly from 2021 when all the votes are counted.

Looks like a minor decrease, 38% in the 2021 general, and 37% in the by-election. It's the Liberal vote that has increased to 51% from 44% in the general. It was the decrease in votes for the other parties here; People's, NDP, Green that looks to have gone Liberal in this two-horse race.
Turnout looks like 23K votes vs the general at 56K.

[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.