The riding is about 1/5th Cree, this on its own is not enough to elect anyone. Another 12% are Inuit, they may or may not vote for a Cree person, I have no idea how his relations are with the Inuit. Close to 1/3 of the riding population is from those two aboriginal groups.
Traditionally aboriginal people in Canada have voted Liberal federally. With the Romeo Saganash running for the NDP, the Liberals are likely to lose most of their aboriginal support. They are no longer an issue in this riding.
The Bloc seems to have a grip in about 10,000 to 13,000 votes in the riding. The 'federalist' vote is about 16,000. In the last election less than 50% voted
There are about 17,000 Inuit and Cree voters in the riding. I am going to look at turnouts in the aboriginal communities, but I suspect there were some low turn outs. Romeo Saganash should be able to boost that a lot. Let us assume he can get to 70% aboriginal turnout - 12,000 votes. I am assuming 6500 did vote in the last election.
Where we are at:
- Bloc 10,000 - 13,000
- Cree/Inuit vote - 12,000
- Other federalist vote - 9500
Romeo Saganash could win this riding for the NDP with the aboriginal vote alone if they vote.
Let us assume the federalist voters understand that Saganash can win, he should be able to get another 3000 to 5000 votes. This now places him at 15,000 to 17,000, comfortably high enough to defeat the Bloc.
He needs to get to 10,000 votes to have a chance. Even if he does not get a better turnout among the Cree and Inuit, he is still on course for 9500 to 11,500. That places him level with the Bloc.
4 comments:
Word is spreading quickly about Romeo's run for the NDP here in the ABJNE riding. The Cree turnout on my community was about 20-25% in the last election but I'm sure it will be quite high this time around. Candidates never visit our communities and the Bloc MP already says he won't campaign in the north... There are also 2 Algonquin communities in the riding that people forget to mention. The Cree also have strong ties with the non-native business community in the area and have voted in an aboriginal mpp before.
Unless you have a poll stating otherwise, I don't believe it for one second.
Unless you have a poll stating otherwise, I don't believe it for one second.
The riding is not one you can poll. Rural and northern ridings can not not be polled by the southern companies.
I can asure you from many years of working for First Nations, I have a good sense of the voting patterns. If the Cree have the chance to elect an MP they will do it, especially the Bloc has a long term anti-aboriginal stance.
Very high Cree turn out alone could be 10,000 votes
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