Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Nov 29th Federal By-Elections

The results in Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette are roughly want I would have expected, an easy Conservative win.

In Vaughan the by-election ended up a race that was only two candidates at all.   Julian Fantino (Conservative) and Tony Genco (Liberal) took more than 95% of the vote.   It seems as if all the Greens and New Democrats voted for the Liberals but this was not enough to win.   This is an important and crucial win for the Conservatives.  It points to there being a better chance for Conservative majority in the next election than most of us would expect.

The surprise of the night was in Winnipeg North.  I really did not think that Kevin Lamoureux (Liberal) had any chance of coming close to Kevin Chief (NDP).  Instead he wins the day.    Early on it looked like he would do well but come second.   As the evening wore on he gained more and more ground and then passed Chief and continued to build more of a lead.

The NDP has come off the night with a loss in one of their safest seats and with their vote in Vaughan at numbers that could only be called a complete embarrassment.   Kevin Bordian (NDP) seems to not to be able to even get his friends and family to vote for him.   Jack Layton should be considering retirement as leader after an awful evening like this.

The other big loser on the night was the Green Party.   It polled at levels that are utterly craterlike.   The Greens had a chance to get some good results and build teams for the next federal election, instead the party has disappeared in these by-elections.   The results confirm the rumours that the Green Party of Canada is nothing more than a shell and has no ability to a serious political party.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Bernard, you know that Julian Fantino losing this election would have been a bigger political earthquake than the Liberals losing. Name recognition alone should make Fantino the overwhelming favourite, besides he has always been known as the law and order man. Vaughan has always voted for celebrity candidates.