Yukon Territorial Election - April 12, 2021

[Alcibiades]

How will they resolve the tie? I know in the UK the procedure is drawing lots. Will they do that here or will they re-run the election in that riding?

[adma]

Btw/this and N&L, seems like a pattern of NDP waaay underperforming breakthrough/consolidation expectations, perhaps through polling-booth resolve that "hey, they're irrelevant"...

[Hash]

How will they resolve the tie? I know in the UK the procedure is drawing lots. Will they do that here or will they re-run the election in that riding?

There's a recount, and if there's still a tie after the recount, the winner is determined by drawing of lots by the returning officer.

The last tie in a Canadian provincial/territorial election was, I think, in PEI in 2015, and they break ties by coin toss.

[beesley]

The last tie in a Canadian provincial/territorial election was, I think, in PEI in 2015, and they break ties by coin toss.

Yes - Vernon River-Stratford (I think) where the Liberal incumbent Alan McIsaac was tied with PC challenger Mary McInnis and won the toss. McInnis is the PEI version of Dino Rossi.

[Hatman 🍁]

The popular vote results are infuriating. Doesn't match the seat totals at all

YP 39%
Lib 32%
NDP 28%

In terms of the popular vote, the NDP only moderately under-performed expectations. Winning only 2 or 3 seats with 28% is just painful.

[mileslunn]

Btw/this and N&L, seems like a pattern of NDP waaay underperforming breakthrough/consolidation expectations, perhaps through polling-booth resolve that "hey, they're irrelevant"...

Polling Yukon is tough so the one poll there I wouldn't read too much in.  Nonetheless my guess is due to age factor.  I've found while NDP tends to underperform polls, it seems conservative parties tend to outperform them so guessing since NDP skews heavily towards younger voters who are less likely to show, that is a big reason.  Housing affordability was a huge part of NDP's platform and while matters to all ages, it was probably especially important to younger people who are more likely to be renters or just buying their first home than older voters who likely bought many years ago.

[Benjamin Frank]

The popular vote results are infuriating. Doesn't match the seat totals at all

YP 39%
Lib 32%
NDP 28%

In terms of the popular vote, the NDP only moderately under-performed expectations. Winning only 2 or 3 seats with 28% is just painful.

1.The popular vote totals relative to the riding results are skewed by 3 ridings.

There were right around 19,000 votes in the 19 ridings for an average of 1,000 votes per riding.  Yukon Party leader Currie Dixon received 717 votes to a combined opposition of 664 and Yukon Party MLA Scott Kent received 726 votes to a combined opposition of 548.  

More important than the vote difference was that the Yukon Party received somewhere around 7,400 votes in total, but those two candidates alone received 1,443 votes.  So, 2 of their 18 candidates (just over 10% of candidates) received nearly 20% of their total votes.

Kate White for the NDP similarly 763 votes to a combined opposition of 442. Her 63.5% of the vote or so was the highest vote share of the winning candidates.

2.While the NDP did go up to 28% of the vote and may gain a 3rd riding, they still only won 2 or 3 ridings and were within less than 10% of the winning candidate in another 4 or 5 ridings.  The NDP is still a distant third party in Yukon.

3.The Liberals did as well as they did with such a small percentage of the vote because of the votes their incumbents received.  While most of them dropped (no Liberal received over 50% of the vote, except for, obviously, possibly in Vuntut Gwitchin), their incumbents, especially the cabinet ministers and the speaker were popular enough in their own ridings to be reelected.  No defeated Liberal non incumbent came within 10% of the vote of the winning candidate (possibly not within 20%, I don't remember.)

[mileslunn]

Anybody know why Liberals did so poorly.  Yukon largely avoided the worst of pandemic and on vaccines over 50% of adults have received their first shot so I would have thought strong handling of pandemic would have helped them.  Or were there other issues that hurt them?  Or perhaps is it just many voted how they traditionally do as Yukon Party since 2000 has on average generally done better than Liberals while NDP is usually in the high 20s to low 30s so winning a majority meant squeezing out some who normally vote Yukon party and/or NDP.

[DC Al Fine]

We're talking less than 20k votes total. Is it even meaningful to talk about parties and their performance like we would for a larger entity?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We're talking less than 20k votes total. Is it even meaningful to talk about parties and their performance like we would for a larger entity?

Only to the extent that you might for a local election in a single district.

[Benjamin Frank]

We're talking less than 20k votes total. Is it even meaningful to talk about parties and their performance like we would for a larger entity?

This is how one or two riding results can skew the entire territorial result.

[mileslunn]

We're talking less than 20k votes total. Is it even meaningful to talk about parties and their performance like we would for a larger entity?

This is how one or two riding results can skew the entire territorial result.

Absolutely, you wouldn't see a party win by 7% in popular vote but end with fewer seats nationally.  Possible one could win by 7% and not form government if coalition to oust it was although unlikely considering how poorly the 2008 botched one went over.

Still while I wouldn't read a lot into the 2021 Yukon election and its impact federally, it is first sign that doing well in handling pandemic is not a guarantee to re-election.  Off course likely other reasons too for the rseults.

[Benjamin Frank]

We're talking less than 20k votes total. Is it even meaningful to talk about parties and their performance like we would for a larger entity?

This is how one or two riding results can skew the entire territorial result.

Absolutely, you wouldn't see a party win by 7% in popular vote but end with fewer seats nationally.  Possible one could win by 7% and not form government if coalition to oust it was although unlikely considering how poorly the 2008 botched one went over.

Still while I wouldn't read a lot into the 2021 Yukon election and its impact federally, it is first sign that doing well in handling pandemic is not a guarantee to re-election.  Off course likely other reasons too for the rseults.

The New Brunswick Liberals won the popular vote by about 6.5% in 2018 but lost the seat count 21-20 to the Progressive Conservatives.  These sorts of results can happen on occasion. 

[Hatman 🍁]

I made some rough maps of the results by PD:

[beesley]

I made some rough maps of the results by PD:

Ah - I see Vuntut Gwitchin there's only one polling division - so where it is described as three polls, that referred to the e-day vote, the advanced vote and the special/mail-in ballots?

[Hatman 🍁]

I made some rough maps of the results by PD:

Ah - I see Vuntut Gwitchin there's only one polling division - so where it is described as three polls, that referred to the e-day vote, the advanced vote and the special/mail-in ballots?

Yes, and in reality there were no special votes, so just 2 polls. E-Day (which as you can see, the NDP won) and advance.

[Benjamin Frank]

The first recount in Vuntut Gwitchen confirmed the tie.

[skbl17]

Annie Blake of the NDP wins Vuntut Gwitchin after the drawing of lots.

https://twitter.com/SteveCSilva/status/1384290114273087489

[Hatman 🍁]

Brilliant! The NDP needed some luck.

[Benjamin Frank]

Yukon Liberals, NDP strike agreement to govern after election tie

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/yukon-liberals-ndp-strike-agreement-to-govern-after-election-tie-1.5406609

Longer article covering what's in the agreement:
https://www.whitehorsestar.com/News/deal-will-keep-liberals-in-power-until-at-least-2023

[Babeuf]

From the article seems like the NDP got a lot in the agreement (assuming the Liberals stick to it and implement it).

[mileslunn]

Be interesting how it works out.  For safe injection site, most cities that have them are much larger, I don't believe any community as small as Whitehorse has one so may get some pushback whatever neighbourhood it is in.  Only good thing is Whitehorse is pretty spread out so probably less pushback than you would see in a more dense community its size.

For programs, real question is how will they fund them?  Yukon did have a good year and possible increased federal transfers, but will probably mean taxes need to go up and that is the challenge.  Kate white proposed a 1% increase on those making over 250K, but not sure how much revenue that will bring.  I am guessing most in Yukon in this category are just over so only taxing final dollar not majority of income.  Considering its size and industry, I suspect there are very few people making over a million a year there.  Most of those live in Vancouver, Calgary, or Toronto. 

Other is a 2% payroll tax on fly in workers which other two territories have, but unlike those it would only apply to non-residents not everyone (smart electorally as they cannot vote, apply to everyone like NWT and Nunavut do and risk voter backlash) but I don't think Yukon relies as heavily on them as other two territories.  Nunavut in particular relies a lot more on them, but Nunavut is far remote and far harsher climate than Yukon.

There is off course introducing a sales tax and while most economists would love idea, with high costs of living, I see that as a no go.  It would probably be even a tougher sell than it is in Alberta where still majority against one.

So quite possible deficit gets larger or Liberals seeing this decide to put off some of the promises and then hope to win a majority and can ignore them.

In terms of how it impacts next election, I see three possibilities:

1.  Goes badly so Yukon Party wins a majority

2.  Goes well and Liberals take credit thus win back their majority

3.  Liberals stonewall on many promises and NDP plays an outsized role in getting them implemented and those promises very popular so NDP benefits and wins.