Toronto-Danforth

The final results should be in shortly for the Toronto-Danforth by-election, with 172 of 196 polls reporting, the NDP has very comfortably won the seat.

This by-election was a race between two parties, the NDP and the Liberals.  No one else seems to be have put much effort in.   The Liberals really seem to try and win this seat as opposed in 2011 when they effectively conceded it to Jack Layton.

Craig Scott of the NDP is just a hair under 60%, which places him just about the same level Jack Layton achieved in his best election which was the Orange Wave of last year.   This says to me the NDP has a stronger base here post Orange Wave than ever before.  

The Liberal Grant Gordon could not even achieve 30% of the vote.   This is not their worst result federally or provincially, but it is their second worst in the last eleven elections in this riding.  The only time they did worse was last year federally.

The Liberals should have been competitive - meaning were within 10 percentage points of the NDP.   This landslide win by the NDP is a strong testament of how utterly weak the federal Liberal party has become.  

Should the NDP choose Thomas Mulcair as leader, I think the space on the political spectrum for the Liberals will completely disappear.   I have to assume the politically smart and ambitious Liberal MPs are considering seriously of crossing the floor to the NDP if Mulcair is elected, though I look at the list of sitting Liberal MPs and I expect 20 to 25 of them to retire from federal politics.    There is nothing on the horizon that says to me the future of the federal Liberal party is anything other than dim.