Pundits' Guide: NDP Nominates First By-Election Candidate

Sunday, June 28, 2009

NDP Nominates First By-Election Candidate

Via Twitter comes news of the contested nomination meeting going on this afternoon in British Columbia:

New Westminster – Coquitlam, BC - Coquitlam city councillor Fin Donnelly has won the NDP nomination in this riding, and will now try and replace former M.P. Dawn Black in the next election or by-election, whichever comes first. Donnelly defeated fellow Coquitlam city councillor Barry Lynch and New Westminster city councillor Lorrie Williams on the first ballot, as we learned from another reader report. Next to nominate may be the Green Party, whose nominations close on Tuesday June 30. Conservative Party nominations have closed, and although we don't know all the candidates whose papers may have been accepted, we do know that former Conservative M.P. Paul Forseth was out of the country for the deadline, and that Port Moody city councillor Diana Dilworth and former municipal candidate Lorraine Brett have both announced their candidacies. Port Moody mayor Joe Trasolini had been approached to run for the Liberals and was at least report said to be considering it, while a former Liberal candidate in a neighbouring riding, Gerry Lenoski, is now actively organizing for the nomination himself.
Thornhill, ON - In a story by Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press on Liberal and Conservative approaches to the Jewish community, former Liberal M.P. Susan Kadis says that she is "looking at running again". Thornhill, which in the 2001 census had the highest percentage of adherents to the Jewish faith in the country (religion data was not collected in 2006), was a key target of the Conservative pre-election campaign last time around, and Kadis ultimately lost the seat to first-time Conservative M.P. Peter Kent, who also by the way massively outspent her, 96% of the expense limit to 65%. Thanks to another reader for passing along this clipping.

Meanwhile in New Brunswick, the Christian Heritage Party is also getting ready for the next election, reports the Miramichi Leader. While the party has not run candidates in New Brunswick for some time, it is now hoping to run a candidate in every riding in that province during the next election. Already identified as a candidate is Jason Farris, who will be running in Tobique – Mactaquac against Conservative M.P. Mike Allen, and Farris says there are two additional candidates identified to date.

Send the latest nomination news to the Pundits' Guide, and we'll pass it along to others. You can follow all the latest details by following us on Twitter as well.

Labels: 41st General Election Nominations, NDP, New Westminster – Coquitlam

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...: not sure what to think about the race developing in new westminster , bc . it looks like it will be a competive race for that seat . it will also be interesting to see who the conservatives and liberals nominate here . still not really sure if the ndp will hold this seat though , without dawn black its going to be much closer i suspect .; June 30, 2009 4:39 PM
The Pundits' Guide said...: Anon, I think both the NDP and Conservatives are keen to see how they do, and whose vote any Liberal resurgence might cut into.

The federal riding of New Westminster – Coquitlam appears to include most of these three provincial ridings:

* New Westminster - won rather decisively (56% vs 35%) by Dawn Black for the provincial NDP
* Coquitlam-Maillardville - a narrow NDP victory (48% vs. 45%)
* part of Port Moody-Coquitlam - a strong BC Liberal win (52% to 40%)

Readers will have to help me, because I don't know what the estimated rate of transfer for the NDP's provincial vote to its federal counterpart is in this part of the province. If the horse-race numbers for BC can be believed and the federal Liberals are indeed up, then whose vote are they taking here? Because they fell back very badly in this riding in 2008, as you're no doubt aware (raw vote of 5,600 or so, or around 11%, even as Black's vote increased ... although not as much as the Conservatives' did).

Also, the NDP's candidate comes from the Coquitlam side of the riding. The Conservative nomination candidates so far are from Port Moody (Diana Dilworth) and New Westminster (Lorraine Brett), while the Liberals were apparently courting the Mayor of Port Moody (Joe Trasolini), and have another candidate gearing up presumably from New Westminster (Gerry Lenoski).

What any of this means I'm not sure, but perhaps some local readers out there might offer their opinions.; July 1, 2009 12:23 AM