The November By-elections By the Numbers
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The governing Conservatives and opposition Liberals each narrowly picked up a seat from their next weakest opponent in Monday's by-elections, in a set of results that confounded many pundits, took the pressure off Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, and will be sending NDP strategists back to the drawing board.
Taking a look at the party scorecard, the two largest parties gained vote-share, while the NDP and Greens fell. While I am also showing the raw vote and percent of the electorate (percent of eligible voters) in this summary, given the huge disparity in size between the different ridings (e.g., there were 120,864 electors in Vaughan, versus 53,549 in Dauphin–Swan River–Marquette and 51,198 in Winnipeg North) the Vaughan values dominate those measures.
The Liberals lost a seat to the Conservatives, but gained one from the NDP, returning to rebate-eligible status in all three ridings contested. The Conservatives gained a seat from the Liberals, but lost another second-place finish in Winnipeg. The NDP gained a second place finish the way you don't want to: by losing their seat in Winnipeg North to the Liberals. They did remain rebate eligible in the same seats as 2008 however. While the Conservatives clearly had the better night, it's noteworthy that both parties lost comparable numbers of raw votes last night, although in much different ridings.
Here's the bar + line chart version.
| 2010 By | Lib | NDP | Grn | BQ | Cons | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vote Pct |
39.0% (+7.7%) |
15.8% (-6.7%) |
2.0% (-4.3%) |
|
41.9% (+2.7%) |
1.3% (+0.7%) |
| Seats | 1 (–) |
- (-1) |
|
|
2 (+1) |
|
| 2nds | 1 (+1) |
2 (+1) |
|
|
- (-2) |
|
| Rebate Eligib. |
3 (+1) |
2 (–) |
|
|
3 (–) |
|
| Raw Vote |
27,050 (-6,926) |
10,966 (-13,487) |
1,401 (-5,462) |
|
29,081 (-13,474) |
892 (+199) |
| Vote Pct |
12.0% (-3.7%) |
4.9% (-6.4%) |
0.6% (-2.6%) |
|
12.9% (-6.7%) |
0.4% (+0.1%) |
Let's take a closer look at the ridings now, working from east to west.
Vaughan posted the highest turnout of the three by-election ridings (and probably also had the best weather, a fact that may not be unrelated). A couple of things are really jumping out at me from the numbers:
- The Conservatives held on to all but 130 of their raw votes in Vaughan, in spite of turnout dropping by nearly 20 points. In saying this we of course acknowledge that these aren't exactly the same voters as before. But the point is that in "turnout politics", as opposed to "percentage politics", that is the key to their ability to win these narrow contests.
- The Liberals came much closer than anyone predicted to keeping this seat, in spite of their late start and rather public candidate search saga. It will take some analysis to see which possible explanation is most plausible, but it could be
- because Mr. Fantino was not as « imbattabile » as first thought, or was limited in his growth potential by the controversies surrounding Caledonia, his non-participation in an all-candidates meeting, and his refusal to grant media interviews to the CBC and Toronto Star;
- because the Liberals' putative coalition partners stepped back from or became irrelevant in the war between the two main competitors;
- because of the enduring identification of many voters in the area with the Liberal Party;
- and certainly in significant part because of the all-out effort they waged to try and hold on to the seat in spite of overwhelming public doubts emanating from the punditocracy. No mean feat.
Of course, we won't know how many polls each party won or tied in for awhile, nor will we know what they spent for several months.
Moving on to the riding with the next highest turnout, Winnipeg North at 30.8%, Kevin Lamoureux was able to out-perform former Liberal M.P. Rey Pagtakhan in vote-share, although not in raw vote (but that part is hardly surprising in a by-election). The former Inkster MLA posted 46.6% of the vote to Pagtakhan's 36.5% in 2000 and 2004, finding 7,300 votes compared to the earlier Liberal's high watermark of 9,500 or so. The Conservatives, meanwhile – some of whom had boasted that the riding was winnable because of the crime issue and/or that they had the numbers to win it – lost both vote-share and two-thirds of their 2008 raw vote in the riding. And to the extent that their goal had been to cut into the Filipino vote to harm the Liberals, that effort would have to be rated a disappointment as well. To put this in perspective, Ms. Javier earned a lower vote share than any Conservative candidate in the riding since 2000.
But clearly, the ones with soul-searching to do on E+1 in this riding are the NDP, which managed to recruit an up-and-coming aboriginal candidate in their safest seat on the prairies and yet could not manage organizationally to get him over the finish line. The party dropped some 21 points in vote share from Judy Wasylycia-Leis' zenith in 2008, but also 5 points from her nadir in 2000. They now need to figure out if their own folks switched to the Liberals or stayed home, or whether it was the unusually weak Conservative candidate whose performance saw protest votes they had won from the Liberals in 2008, return home again in the by-election.
While noting that turnout here was 30.8% in Monday's vote, in fact that represented less of a drop from the 2008 general election than any comparable drop posted in the other two ridings, mainly because the turnout here in 2008 was already so very low to begin with (42.8%).
Finally, turning to Dauphin–Swan River–Marquette, MB, which on account of the weather could be forgiven for having the lowest turnout at 26.9%, we do note the one sliver of a silver lining for the NDP, which jumped nearly 10 points in vote share over 2008, in spite of a late start to their nomination and campaign. Their candidate shed the smallest number of supporters over 2008 totals, while her Conservative opponent shed over half of his. Liberal Christopher Scott Sarna was able to keep his party in the rebate-eligible zone, while the Green candidate did not appear to benefit from the endorsement of the previous Conservative M.P. Inky Mark, although she did significantly out-perform both her Green colleagues who were also running in yesterday's by-elections.
Now, being able to lose over half your party's earlier raw vote and still post a vote-share of 57% is a very robust indicator of Conservative Party support. (I argued the Conservatives would come in significantly below the 66% and then 63% they were being projected with, on the other hand, so I'm definitely counting this shortfall as significant enough for that purpose.)
Party Scorecard – 2010 By Riding-by-Riding Baseline
| 2010 By | Lib | NDP | Grn | Cons | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vaugh | TO: 32.4% (-19.5%) Spending Limit: $114,412 |
||||
| Raw Votes | 18,263 (-9,510) |
673 (-4,769) |
477 (-3,393) |
19,260 (-130) |
523 (+523) |
| PctVote | 46.6% (-2.6%) |
1.7% (-7.9%) |
1.2% (-5.7%) |
49.1% (+14.8%) |
1.3% (+1.3%) |
| PctElec | 15.1% (-10.2%) |
0.6% (-4.6%) |
0.4% (-3.1%) |
15.9% (-1.8%) |
0.4% (+0.4%) |
| Polls Won+Tied | <unk.> (234+2) |
<unk.> (47+2) |
|||
| Rank | 2 (1) |
3 (3) |
4 (4) |
1 (2) |
5 (-) |
| Reb | Y (Y) |
Y (Y) |
|||
| % Limit Spent | <unk.> (34%) |
<unk.> (2%) |
<unk.> (12%) |
<unk.> (49%) |
|
| EDA '09 NetWrth | $11.3K | $2.9K | $1.4K | $9.4K | |
| DSRM | TO: 26.9% (-27.8%) Spending Limit: $97,155 |
||||
| Raw Votes | 1,481 (-2,647) |
3,785 (-1,129) |
809 (-1,114) |
8,176 (-9,956) |
160 (-292) |
| PctVote | 10.3% (-3.7%) |
26.3% (+9.7%) |
5.6% (-0.9%) |
56.7% (-4.7%) |
1.1% (-0.4%) |
| PctElec | 2.8% (-4.8%) |
7.1% (-2.0%) |
1.5% (-2.0%) |
15.3% (-18.1%) |
0.3% (-0.6%) |
| Polls Won+Tied | <unk.> (5+0) |
<unk.> (25+1) |
<unk.> (195+1) |
||
| Rank | 3 (3) |
2 (2) |
4 (4) |
1 (1) |
5 (5) |
| Reb | Y (Y) |
Y (Y) |
Y (Y) |
||
| % Limit Spent | <unk.> (26%) |
<unk.> (5%) |
<unk.> (1%) |
<unk.> (45%) |
<unk.> (1%) |
| EDA '09 NetWrth | $2.6K | $2.6K | $2.2K | $82.4K | |
| WpgN | TO: 30.8% (-12.0%) Spending Limit: $77,061 |
||||
| Raw Votes | 7,306 (+5,231) |
6,508 (-7,589) |
115 (-955) |
1,645 (-3,388) |
209 (-32) |
| PctVote | 46.3% (+37.1%) |
41.2% (-21.4%) |
0.7% (-4.1%) |
10.4% (-12.0%) |
1.3% (+0.2%) |
| PctElec | 14.3% (+10.4%) |
12.7% (-14.0) |
0.2% (-1.8%) |
3.2% (-6.3%) |
0.4% (-0.1%) |
| Polls Won+Tied | <unk.> (1+0) |
<unk.> (152+0) |
|||
| Rank | 1 (3) |
2 (1) |
4 (4) |
3 (2) |
5 (5) |
| Reb | Y |
Y (Y) |
Y (Y) |
||
| % Limit Spent | <unk.> (18%) |
<unk.> (75%) |
<unk.> (1%) |
<unk.> (6%) |
<unk.> (7%) |
| EDA '09 NetWrth | $6.8K | $48.8K | $1.7K | $3.8K | |
Overall, the Liberals running the by-elections were able to keep their heads, while all the punditocracy around them, and more than a few "nervous nellies", were losing theirs. Granted it took a herculean effort by a lot of people to take Winnipeg North and wind up so close in Vaughan, but they got it done — while the NDP did not in the one seat where it really mattered to them. For the Conservatives, they can notch up another win for their low-ball, under the radar approach to campaigning in the Toronto/GTA suburbs
We'll return later to the mass failure of the punditocracy to realistically assess the battleground in these races, except to remind readers of the prime directive of the Pundits' Guide:
Past Performance Does Not Predict Future Outcomes
- The close races last time are not necessarily the close ones this time.
- Huge leads last time could be party leads or candidate leads, or signify unusual weakness on the part of a third party, but they do not predict or guarantee large leads next time.
- As "percentage politics" gives way to "turnout politics", simply focusing on vote-shares is not on its own enough to properly understand what's happened in a riding – or is about to.
- The results of incumbents who have been in office for a long time are the wrong starting point to use for poll projections in their seats after they retire – especially for by-elections.
- Projections are not polls, no matter how nice the doughnut chart looks.
Objects (and political opponents) are closer than they appear in the rear-view mirror. So, don't get cocky.
These are just some of the lessons that should be learned from last night's by-election results. We'll see what else we can glean from them later in the day.
Tags: Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette, Nov 29 2010 By-elections, Vaughan, Winnipeg North
Dean… as in Dean Koshelanyk One of your council candidates in the most recent civic election. :(
Although I am fairly certain you were not home the day/time I was by your house I only remember talking to 5 people on your street and only one of them that far east.
I’m verklempt. You two finally found common ground, and it only took, what, 100 comments or so? :-)
As to provincial websites, I tried one for New Brunswick this past fall, and it got a bit of use. There seems to be enough data to do a Manitoba one and an Ontario one for next fall, but I may have to clone myself. We’ll see. I am interested, though, for sure.
HELLOOOO! Most (if not all) people who choose to work on a candidate’s campaign – do so because they think highly of that candidate and believe that he or she would be the best person to vote for. I assume that Liberals campaigning for Lamoureux probably also believe that he is God’s gift to the world etc… (in fact his followers have been described several times as being “cult-like”) big deal – tell me something i didn’t already know.
“People like to feel that their votes are appreciated. The NDP campaigned as if everyone was going to vote for Chief because Chief is Chief and he’s the only person worth voting for and nothing else matters.”
Alice do you know if a date has been set for the CPC nomination in PG yet ?
I see “nominate dan davies” all over the google ads still.
I wonder how Jerrilyn Schembri is doing ? Any word ?
She has an interesting background that would dovetail nicely with Fantino’s win and those victims ads running on the tv.
She’s the RCMP Victim Services Coordinator for the region.
It would go great with the Fantino win and help draw a big picture message out of these by-elections.
Haven’t seen one yet, Shadow, but if you see one, please let me know. I’ve been a bit absorbed in the computer programming for that by-election page, and then covering the by-elections themselves, and am a bit behind on the other nominations.
Also, I may have to actually earn some money at some point. Ha.
I would agree with Dean’s assessment that Julie was the least active of three main candidates.
Art you have a habit of stating election outcomes as a foregone conclusion. You have used it at least 2x in WPG north.
Re: Oshawa, Ontario and general view of NDP political messaging and why it does not work.
I am curious why you think “working” people/families would vote for the NDP with numerous general election results available.
Do you think closing our Oil sands, raising our energy costs to build “Green Energy” through a redistribution of wealth are priorities for working families?
Jack is popular but his message (policies) are not. Same with Ed Broadbent always good numbers on trust and leadership but policies are not viewed as credible.
Well, regarding my post.
Okay, well, the NDP isn’t getting enough votes to form a government. I will concede that. But I won’t concede it is because of the ideas the NDP proposes.
First of all, given that the media is hardly friendly to the NDP, and ignores both the NDP and the Greens, it is not all that surprising that working people don’t really understand the NDP’s, or the Green’s ideas. Adding to the forces lined up against the NDP are the farce personlaities who pass for “radio journalists”, including Charles Adler, Lowell Green, Dave Rutherford, Roy Green, Rex Murphy (yes, Rex Murphy). Add into the mix faux journalistic organs such as the Globe and Mail, the Sun chain of newspapers, papers such as the Winnipeg Free Press, and organisms such as Macleans “magazine”.
Next you can add faux objective bloggers and journalsits such as Ezra Levant, Lorne Gunter, Tom Broadbeck, Dan Lett, Mia Rabson, Nicholas Hurst, et al.
Finally add to the mix one more toxic element, the so called “think tanks”, the Fraser Institue, The Frontier Center for Public Policy, the CD Howe institute, blah, blah, blah. It is thus no wonder frankly, that people draw the conclusions that they often do; there are just to many forces with arrayed against them. They simple don’t really get exposed to many ideas which might cause them to think more about many of the things which they believe are driving their vote.
So, my point, well, given these facts, it is hardly suprising that a large majority of working people conclude that things that are contrary to their interest are in their intrests. For example, the belief that somehow the pursuit of Green technologies is a bad idea, and silly to persue. This debate is always framed by green movement detractors as about short term cost, when really the real debate should be about the horrendous long term costs that people are being gaurded from learning about. For example, a study was released today and discussed on the Huffington Post that notes that owing to Global warning, food costs will double in the not too distant future. Peole will not hear hear about this in what passes for the Canadian Main stream media, as it goes contrary to the existing “common wisdon” narrative. It simply will not get into the mainstream of public conciouness for discussion on an equal basis with the existing narrative.
My grandfather told my father when my father was a young boy in the 30s that given the opportunity, working men and women will naturally vote against their own best interests. My grandfather was an old English Labour socialist who came to Canada at the turn of the last century and saw this scenario play it out over and over again. He was a carpenter and cabinet maker who kept his employees working during the depressin by cutting his own wages so these people would be able to live. He knew what kind of lives working people lived, and understood their prejudices. My father of course carried on this tradition and talked to me about these people and their struggles and prejudices.
Given the many forces arrayed against the outing of the truth, it is hardly at all surprising that many people vote the way they do, and against their own interests.
You might think I sound pretty smug that I think this way, and overly full of myself. I don’t because these are things that are a central part of my political and social pysche that has molded my view of the world, and my decision to become a New Democrat. It also has helped me in developing my understanding of the political world, and how things are manipulated and contorted to fool and take advantage of people.
So, yep, its true that many working people don’t vote for the NDP, but it doesn’t affect either my own committment to the NDP and to fighting for working people, or my continued belief that the NDP really best represents the interests of working Canadians.
So, the NDP will just keep banging away. There will be ups and downs, but the NDP will go on. And that is why I think some working people will continue to hear their message in the NDP’s message, and that the NDP will go on. And that is also why I know that the NDP is the only real voice for working people in Canada.
This is a long answer and I apologize.
“the horrendous long term costs”
funny thing is, thats what many people feel the NDP miss all the time.
My great grandkids are going to be paying off the debt we are encountering right now from our governments borrowing frenzy. What will be the cost to them because of our borrow and spend ways?
The idea that the working class doesn’t vote their interest because they are either uninformed or uneducated is certainly not new.
Nor is it new to think that an enlightened and benevolent elite must advocate for them. Reminds me a lot of the Fabian society actually.
However, I think this analysis is seriously lacking in at least 2 areas.
1) Mr. Cramer first there is the question of how you define “interest”.
It might be in my narrow short term interest to be given all kinds of amazing benefits from the government.
But as Dean points out if the long run consequence is a bankrupt nation than it doesn’t benefit me at all.
Working people need to balance a budget at home. They know the value of a dollar and often support parties that seem like good fiscal stewards while punishing those that are not.
2) We have no permanent “working class” in this day and age.
Factors like a solid education, a tumultuous job market, and cheap and plentiful bank financing have created a lot of self employed individuals during this downtown. Small business people dream of making it big.
The idea of class mobility is stronger than ever.
Working people are often turned off class warfare aimed at punishing the rich for their benefit because many of them one day aspire to be rich themselves.
Well, I tried to respond to this yesterday, but I accidently deleted what I wrote, and I went out.
So here is the bottom line. I did some real cursory research and found all sorts of info that speaks with WHY we have a deficit, not the fact we DO have a deficit.
The answer is tied to over excessive tax cuts, bad monetary policy, and pursuit of disaterous industrial development policy at the provincial and federal levels. As for the rest, when people only hear one side in the media as “common wisdome”, and are more interested in what the score of last night’s hockey game was, it isn’t any wonder that you can’t talk to them about issues.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, our grand kids are going to owe money blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone wants to be rich, and anyone can make it, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, people vote as a majority against the NDP so the NDP policies are stupid, blah, blah, blah.
Ok, that is what you guys feel and seem to believe. I don’t, and I know what I believe.
Great Grand Kids Art.. And its not a belief, its the truth :) as it is the best case scenario that our governments can offer for paying off the debt they have accumulated.
Well, the whole issue of the deficit and its reduction revolves around how to reduce it.
Linda Mcquaig and Jim Stafford have written a great deal on this. They have made the point over and over that a number of factors have contribued to the size of our budget. The fact is that it was bad monetary policy, in combination to refuse to tax properly that has led to most of the deficit we have. Spending has not had the impact in creating the magnitude of the deficit we have.
We for example, are owned literraly 100s of billions of dollars in deferred taxation on the part of corporations created through the use of write offs. We have made tax changes that allow coupon clippers to get away with paying ridiculously low, to no existent amounts of tax.
What I am afraid is gong to happen is that as has been the case in the US, there will be deliberate pressure to cut expenditures that first of all hurts the middle class, transfers the burden of our fiscal largese onto the middle class, and that will victimize the poor.
Right now, the greatest protion of our discussion in the common forum revolves around cutting spending without any consideation of how we are actually manging the impostion of taxes and collection of revenues.
I don’t trust that common wisdom will get it right, and I don’t trust parties of the center and political right to get it correct either.
A certain person is leaving comments that need to be rephrased before they’re going to be approved.
Well, I tried to respond to this yesterday, but I accidently deleted what I wrote, and I went out. So here is the bottom line. I did some real cursory research and found all sorts of info that speaks with WHY we have a deficit, not the fact we DO have a deficit. The answer is tied to over excessive tax cuts, bad monetary policy, and pursuit of disaterous industrial development policy at the provincial and federal levels. As for the rest, when people only hear one side in the media as “common wisdome”, and are more interested in what the score of last night’s hockey game was, it isn’t any wonder that you can’t talk to them about issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, our grand kids are going to owe money blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone wants to be rich, and anyone can make it, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, people vote as a majority against the NDP so the NDP policies are stupid, blah, blah, blah. Ok, that is what you guys feel and seem to believe. I don’t, and I know what I believe.