2016 BC by-elections compared to the 2012 BC by-elections

On April 19th 2012 BC had two by-elections, Port Moody-Coquitlam and Chilliwack-Hope.  Both were held by the BC Liberals and in both cases the NDP won the seats.   The Greens did not run any candidates in the races but the BC Conservatives did and put a lot of effort into winning the Chilliwack-Hope by-election.

The BC Liberal melt-down was heralded by many (and yes by myself as well) as a sign of a government on the way out.   It was also an indication of how weak the Greens were and the rising strength of the BC Conservatives.   As it turned out, the by-election had no connection to the provincial election a year later.   The Liberals won a majority, the NDP lost both seats, the BC Conservatives melted away and the Greens won one seat, came very close in a second and pushed the BC Liberals into third place in two more.

Four years later and we have two by-elections, Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and Coquitlam-Burke Mountain.   This time not only are the Greens running candidates, the Greens are actually putting effort into the campaigns.   The BC Conservatives have not nominated any candidates.   So far I have not heard anyone suggesting that the party that last held the seat is not going to win it again.

Is there anything the 2016 by-elections can tell us about the 2017 election?   Here is my take:

• If the Liberals hold Coquitlam-Burke Mountain and come in second in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant I think they are well positioned to realistically win in 2017
• The Greens deliberately did not run in 2012 for financial and resource reasons.   The BC Conservatives are not running candidates in 2016 because I do not think they could find anyone willing to run for them.   It says to me the BC Conservatives will be a non factor in the 2017 election unless something dramatic happens like a serious former MP were to take over the leadership.   
• If the NDP can win the Coquitlam-Burke Mountain by-election it would say to me the party is better organized than I think or the mood of the public is much more anti-Christy than I am hearing.   It is what the NDP needs to get some momentum 
• I think for the Greens a success would be breaking 20% in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant and 10% in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain.   A good result would be coming second in either seat, a very good result would be to come second in both of them, and a stelllar result would be to win either one.   Though I have trouble seeing Joey Keithley winning in Coquitlam-Burke Mountain and the NDP losing Vancouver-Mount Pleasant would be stunning.   The Liberals could not take it in 2001.
• Interesting is that the BC Libertarians have managed to nominate a candidate in both seats.   I still do no think they will get much more than 1% to 2% of the vote.

We are 21 days till the by-election and they are getting almost no media whereas the 2012 by-elections were getting headline news.   No one seems to care and for that reason I think the results will not really matter.

With Brian Jean resigning in Fort McMurray-Athbaska we have the 11th federal by-election

We are now up to the 11th federal vacancy since the May 2011 federal election which is getting up there in total number of by-elections within a single parliament.   If there are two more resignations or deaths before the general election in October 2015, the 41st parliament will have seen the most by-elections since the late 1970s.

We have seen a drop in by-elections in part because MPs no longer die in office which was once much more common.   Two generations ago you could expect two MPs to die every year.   We have only had four deaths in the last 20 years, once every five years.  Given that we have 16% more MPs now than several generations ago, the drop in MPs deaths is that much more remarkable.
 
With the resignation of Brian Jean, that is the sixth member of the government caucus to step down, that is also higher than has been the norm over the last decade but still short of a record.  If two more Conservatives resign this will tie the first Chretien term.  If three resign or die, this parliament will see the highest level of government held by-elections since the late 70s.

By-elections by parliament since World War II
Parl          # of    Govt  Off opp deaths
             by-elect Seats Seats
41st 2011-14   11      6      2       1     
40th 2008-11    7      1      1       0
39th 2006-08    9      0      6       1
38th 2004-06    1      1      0       0
37th 2000-04   12      7      1       0
36th 1997-00   10      4      2       1
35th 1993-97   10      8      2       1
34th 1988-93    6      2      3       2
33rd 1984-88    6      4      1       0
32nd 1980-84   12      4      5       4  
31st 1979-80    2      1      1       1
30th 1974-79   25     14      8       3
29th 1972-74    0      0      0       0
28th 1968-72   11      6      2       5
27th 1965-68   11      8      3       2
26th 1963-65    6      4      2       4
25th 1962-63    1      0      0       1
24th 1958-62   14     11      3       9
23rd 1957-58    3      2      1       1
22nd 1953-57   17     13      3       9
21st 1949-53   30     25      5      11
20th 1945-49   18     11      3       7

Is there any chance the Conservatives could lose Macleod?

In November Ted Menzies resigned as the MP for Macleod in Alberta.   Macleod is one of the safest Conservatives seats in Canada, one they have won with around 75% of the vote in the last four elections.   Is there any possible scenario in which they could lose?

In the Provencher by-election in November the Conservatives went from 27,820 votes (70.6% of the vote) to 13,046 (58.2% of the vote), still more than enough to win but a loss of more than half the Conservative supporters    The non Conservative vote went from 11,075  to 9,371, only a drop of about 15%.   No one was paying attention to this race still it was much closer than expected.

In 2012 in Calgary Centre was saw a similar dramatic fall in Conservative support but a much steadier support for the other three parties.

The margin of victory for the Conservatives in Macleod is even higher than Provencher or Calgary Centre which means the chances of losing are significantly lower making it more less impossible for the Conservatives to lose.   Everything in Macleod will come down to voter turnout in the by-election.  A low turnout will benefit a non Conservative that is running hard but even then the chances are very astonishingly small that the Conservatives could lose.

For the last several years I have been doing in depth analysis of federal by-election turnouts to see what patterns I can find among them, one of the biggest is that in safe seats the incumbent party supporters stay home.   When I look at the last 64 by-elections,  my estimate for the voter turnout in Macleod would be for 27,500.

Based on past election results for the non Conservatives, in the by-election they likely to achieve about 9,000 to 10,000 votes, which leaves the Conservative candidate with about 18,000 votes.   This would be a landslide win for the Conservatives.

The gap between the nadir of the Conservative support and the combined non Conservative vote is huge and I do not think there is any chance the Conservatives could lose this.

If in the by-election the turnout was worse than average for this sort of riding it could go as low as a 22,000.  If the non Conservatives could retain 90% of their 2011 vote, this would still leave the Conservatives with 12,000 votes and a large win.

For the Conservatives to lose this seat something dramatically different would have to happen - a whole bunch of red necks would suddenly have to embrace Justin Trudeau, something that the Manitoba by-elections indicated did not happen.

 

Federal by-election analysis

I know it has been a few days, but life is busy so I only got around to this today.

On the surface, nothing much changed in the four by-elections.   The Liberals and Conservatives both retained their seats but when we look at the numbers it was not a good night for anyone, but it was a really bad night for the Conservatives.

I tend not to look at the percentage of the vote in by-elections because they are odd electoral creatures due to low voter turnout.   What I look at is total votes and how they changed from the last general election.  

In these by-elections the Conservatives lost the most votes of any party and their vote drops in  Brandon-Souris, Provencher and Toronto Centre were the three largest on the night.   The Toronto Centre drop is interesting because the Conservatives had come third in Toronto Centre in 2011 so started much lower.  Overall the Conservatives dropped from 66,164 votes in 2011 to only 29,102 in the by-elections.  56% of the people that voted Conservative in 2011 did not vote for them in the by-elections.  

The NDP took a big hit as well losing 51% of their 2011 vote.  If their Manitoba vote losses are strategic voting the night looks bad but not awful for the NDP.  The loss in votes in Toronto Centre and Bourassa are moderately proportional with the Liberals in those ridings.

The Liberals were up overall on the night by 1,459 votes from 2011, but 2011 was the worst election for the Liberals, ever.  2011 was 11,789 lower than 2008 which was lower than 2006 which was lower than 2004.  The by-election results would indicate a level of support for the Liberals similar to 2006 or 2008.  The by-elections may signal an end to the Liberal decline but it is not signalling a strong return.    The Liberals gained a large amount of votes in Brandon-Souris and Provencher but saw significant drops in Toronto Centre and Bourassa.

Without Brandon-Souris and Provencher, the Liberals would have had an OK night.   The question for me is who voted for the Liberals in Manitoba and why?

In Brandon-Souris the voter turnout was the highest of all four by-elections.   Did a sense that the Conservative might be defeated increase the turnout and did people flock to the Liberal candidate as the best choice to defeat the Conservative?  Did a lot of Conservatives choose to stay home?    If these are the factors at play, then I suspect in the next general election it will be hard for the Liberals to come as close to the Conservatives again.  Also, it if it was an anti-Harper strategic voting phenomena, the NDP could be the beneficiary in 2015 instead.

In Provencher some of the same factors may be at play, but the Conservative margin was so large going into the by-election that no one gave anyone a hope that the Conservatives would lose.   Provencher is where the Conservatives had their biggest overall vote drop with loss of 14,799 votes or 53% of their 2011 vote.

What I think happened in Provencher and Brandon-Souris is that the anti-Harper vote came out to vote and lined up behind the Liberal candidates while at the same time the Conservative voters stayed home.   In 2015 the anti-Harper voters could just as easily line up behind the NDP than the Liberals but I think the voter turnout from Conservatives will rise significantly.

In Toronto Centre many people thought the race would be much closer between the Liberals and the NDP but in the end Freeland won for the Liberals by a comfortable margin.   The NDP not only held their ground, proportionally they did slightly better than the Liberals, but given that the party had a star candidate, this is not good enough.  The NDP needed to have a win here to show a clear path to government in 2015.

For me the big surprise in Toronto Centre was the collapse of the Conservative vote.  More than 3/4s of the people that voted for the party in 2011 did not vote for them in the by-election.  

Toronto Centre is a good example of why looking at percentages can mislead people.  If the Conservatives had maintained a proportionally similar level of the vote as the Liberals and NDP, they would have had about 9,500 votes.    If these people had voted it would have meant a 44.8% voter turnout instead of 38.0%, which is what the NDP and Liberal votes seemed to indicate is what it should have been.   It says to me that most 2011 Conservative voters simply stayed home.   If they had voted in proportion to the NDP and Liberals, the percentage of the vote NDP and Liberals got in the by-election would have been almost unaltered from 2011.

So why did all these voters stay home and can the Conservatives bring any of them back in 2015?

Bourassa had the lowest turnout of any of the by-elections with only 26.2% voting.   I think this is because the Bloc and CPC put no energy into the race and the Quebec NDP is still not a strong electoral machine.   I assume that this seat will comfortably remain Liberal in 2015.

Biggest vote loses in the four by-elections

Change in vote from 2011 General Election

1. -14,799 CPC     Provencher
2. -10,181 CPC     Brandon-Souris
3.  -9,580 CPC     Toronto Centre
4.  -6,808 NDP     Brandon-Souris
5.  -6,783 Liberal Bourassa
6.  -6,554 NDP     Bourassa
7.  -5,751 Liberal Toronto Centre
8.  -5,214 NDP     Provencher
9.  -4,175 NDP     Toronto Centre
10.  -3,718 Bloc    Bourassa
11.  -2,502 CPC     Bourassa
12.  -1,769 Green   Toronto Centre

What I find interesting is that the top three are all Conservatrives.  Also interesting is that in all four by-elections the winning party, which had held the seat in 2011, lost more vote than their main opposition.

The Liberals were the only ones to gain votes anywhere, they increased their vote by 9,932 in Brandon-Souris and 4,061 in Provencher

Ranking By-election Candidates by votes

I think it is important to see how well all the candidates did in the by-elections compared to each other.   I highlight this because once MPs are in Ottawa they are all treated the same even though many of them have much less support than others.   There is something inherently wrong with our system when 12,642 people can vote Linda McQuaig and she loses by Emmanuel Duborg with 8,767 votes is now an MP.

1. 17,081 Chrystia Freeland Lib Toronto Centre
2. 13,021 Ted Falk CPC Provencher
3. 12,642 Linda McQuaig NDP Toronto Centre
4. 12,205 Larry Macguire CPC Brandon-Souris
5. 11,814 Rolf Dinsdale Lib Brandon-Souris
6.  8,767 Emmanuel Dubourg Lib Bourassa
7.  6,706 Terry Hayward Lib Provencher
8.  5,716 Stéphane Moraille NDP Bourassa
9.  3,024 Geoff Pollock CPC Toronto Centre
10.  2,387 Daniel Duranleau Bloc Bourassa
11.  2,037 Cory Szczepanski NDP Brandon-Souris
12.  1,837 Natalie Courcelles Beaudry NDP Provencher
13.  1,354 David Neufeld Green Brandon-Souris
14.  1,027 John Deverell Green Toronto Centre
15.    852 Rida Mahmoud CPC Bourassa 
16.    849 Janine Gibson Green Provencher
17.    460 Dorian Baxter PC Toronto Centre
18.    368 Danny Polifroni Green Bourassa
19.    271 Frank Godon Libertarian Brandon-Souris
20.    250 Judi Falardeau Libertarian Toronto Centre
21.    140 Serge Lavoie Rhino Bourassa
22.     89 Kevin Clarke Ind Toronto Centre
23.     75 John Turmel Ind Toronto Centre
24.     53 Leslie Bory Ind Toronto Centre
25.     44 Michael Nicula Online Party Toronto Centre
26.     29 Bahman Yazdanfar Ind Toronto Centre

A quick look at last night's by-election numbers

Bourassa
Party       2013         2011     difference
Liberal  8,767 48.1% 15,550 40.9%  -6,783
NDP      5,716 31.4% 12,270 32.3%  -6,554
Bloc     2,387 13.1%  6,105 16.1%  -3,718
CPC        852  4.7%  3,354  8.8%  -2,502
Green      368  2.0%    613  1.6%    -245
Others     140  0.8%    121  0.3%     +19
Turnout 18,230 26.2% 38,013 54.1% -19,783

Brandon-Souris
Party        2013         2011     difference
CPC      12,205 44.1% 22,386 63.7% -10,181
Liberals 11,814 42.7%  1,882  5.4%  +9,932
NDP       2,037  7.4%  8,845 25.2%  -6,808
Green     1,354  4.9%  2,012  5.7%    -658
Other       271  1.0%      0  0.0%    +271
Turnout  27,681 44.7% 35,125 57.3%  -7,444

Provencher
Party        2013         2011     difference
CPC      13,021 58.1% 27,820 70.6% -14,799
Liberals  6,706 29.9%  2,645  6.7%  +4,061
NDP       1,837  8.2%  7,051 17.9%  -5,214
Green       849  3.8%  1,164  3.0%    -315
Other         0  0.0%    725  1.8%    -725
Turnout  22,413 33.6% 39,405 63.4% -16,992

Toronto Centre
Party        2013         2011     difference
Liberals 17,081 49.1% 22,832 41.0%  -5,751
NDP      12,643 36.4% 16,818 30.2%  -4,175
CPC       3,024  8.7% 12,604 22.6%  -9,580
Green     1,027  3.0%  2,796  5.0%  -1,769
Others    1,000  2.9%    619  1.1%    +381
Turnout  34,775 38.0% 55,670 65.7% -20,895

Overall
Party        2013         2011     difference
CPC      29,102 28.2%  66,164 39.3% -37,062
Liberals 44,368 43.0%  42,909 25.5%  +1,459
NDP      22,233 21.6%  44,984 26.7% -22,751
Greens    3,598  3.5%   6,585  3.9%  -2,987
Bloc      2,387  2.3%   6,105  3.6%  -3,718
Other     1,411  1.4%   1,465  0.9%     -54
Turnout 103,099 35.6% 168,212 60.5% -65,113

Advance Vote Stats from the Four Federal By-elections

It is hard to know if advance voting tells us much about the likely turnout overall.   The number of people choosing to advance vote has been rising significantly over the last ten years as Elections Canada encourages people to advance vote.

ED             2013   2011        2008   2006   2004
Bourassa  2,210  4,401 50.2% 3,888  3,823  3,404
Brandon–Souris 2,422  2,754 87.9% 2,093  2,162  1,780
Provencher  2,313  3,218 71.9% 2,261  2,522  1,742
Toronto Centre 5,241  7,834 66.9% 5,321  5,220  4,977
The percentage in the third column is the ratio of by-election turn out to the 2011 general election.

So how does the compare to other by-elections?  Here are four of the by-elections since the 2011 general election. 

ED                2012   2011        2008   2006   2004
Calgary Centre   2,667  6,754 39.5% 4,551  5,134  4,656
Durham           4,890  8,404 58.2% 5,370  6,776  4,683
Toronto Danforth 4,865  6,946 70.0% 4,254  5,154  4,885
Victoria         5,749 10,092 57.0% 7,063  7,204  6,471
(I left Labrador off of this list because voter turnout in that riding is very much out of sync with most of the rest of the country)

It seems clear that the trend in the four current by-elections is for higher advance voter turn out ratios than the four by-elections in the second set.   Does this mean the voter turn out will be higher for these by-elections?   I am not sure.

There has been a trend over the last decade to actively encourage people to advance vote.   In the past you could only advance vote if you had a reason why you could not vote on general election day.   It has taken some time for people to believe they were allowed to vote in advance polls without any reasons.  Still, the preponderance to vote in advance should be no higher as a trend in 2013 than in 2012.

To go out on a limb, I do think we will see higher voter turnouts in the current by-elections than the 2012 ones.  Here is my current estimate of voter turnout:

ED         Current est change from last est
Bourassa       23,500      (+3,000)
Brandon-Souris 29,000      (+2,750)
Provencher     22,000      (+6,000)
Toronto Centre 42,000     (+10,000)

For the record, the Labrador results
ED                 2013  2011        2008  2006  2005  2004
Labrador          1,560   990 157.6%  401   483   589   660
The voter turnout in Labrador has been higher in by-elections than General Elections - this is the only riding in Canada where this has happened in the last generation

My Current Prediction of the 4 Federal By-Elections being held on November 25th

I still believe that all the seats will be retained by the party that won it in the last election, though compared to the last prediction I made on October 25th, I now see Brandon Souris as much closer.  I have the Liberals doing significantly better in Provencher as well.

I am using what data I can get - past election results, past by-election turnouts, impact of candidates, riding level polls, current political scene, candidates, and local media.

Bourassa
Emmanuel Duborg    Libs 10,000 48.8%
Stephanie Moraille NDP   4,100 20.0%
Daniel Duranleau   Bloc  3,800 18.5%
Danny Polifroni    Green 1,500  7.3%
Rida Mahmoud       Cons    800  3.0%
Serge Lavoie       Rhino   300  1.5%

Brandon Souris
Larry Maguire    Cons 11,000 41.9%
Rolf Dinsdale    Libs  9,900 37.7%
Cory Szczepanski NDP   2,750 10.5%
David Neufeld    Green 2,000  7.6%
Frank Godon  Libertarian 600  2.3%

Provencher
Ted Falk                  Cons  8,000 50.0%
Terry Hayward             Libs  5,600 35.0%
Natalie Courcelles Beaudry NDP  1,600 10.0%
Janine Gibson             Green   800  5.0%

Toronto Centre - I made an error last time and overestimated voter turnout
Chrystia Freeland Libs 14,750 46.1%
Linda McQuaig     NDP  11,000 34.4%
Geoff Pollock     Cons  4,150 13.0% 

John Deverell     Green 1,500  4.7% 

The rest                  600  1.9%

Overall
Liberals      40,250 42.5%
Conservatives 23,950 25.3%
NDP           19,450 20.5%
Green          5,800  6.1%
Bloc           3,800  4.0%
Others         1,500  1.6%

Polling and by-elections

Forum Research has been regularly polling all the federal by-elections in the last few years but how seriously should we take this polling?    The big difference between a general election and a by-election is voter turn-out.

The polling does not seem to capture this reduction in voter turn-out which I think means the majority of people answering the poll are not likely to vote.    The other option is that people who are unlikely to vote are not answering the poll.   Either one means that statistically the sample used in the poll is flawed and may not be much of a good reflection for what will happen on election.   The sample Forum used may be a realistic reflection of the public but it could also be far off.    Their current polling trends in the four by-elections are very stable so may be the sample is a good reflection of reality but I could not answer why the sample is correct and how one would duplicate it.

The reason I raise all this is because three of four by-elections Forum has polled have results that are broadly expected based on past electoral performance but one is out of sync.  Forum has found the Liberals leading in Brandon Souris by a measurable margin in each of the three polls they have done.  Not only are the Liberals leading, they are polling at levels in the riding significantly higher than they have ever achieved in past elections.    I can not tell how the voter turnout in this by-election will impact the results.

When we look at the voter turnout of the last 60 federal by-elections we get an average of 37.16% turnout Expressed in terms of the previous general election, 62.47% the turnout in the by-election compared to the last general election.    If the race in the by-election is close, the turnout trends higher but still significantly lower than the previous general election.   Realistically Brandon Souris will see between 24,500 and 28,000 voters instead of the 35,095 voters in 2011.

What the data says is that we should expect the turnout in the current federal by-elections to be down, this means a lot of people that voted in 2011 will not be voting in the by-elections, in Brandon Souris it means between 7,000 and 10,500 fewer voters .  Who are these non-voters?

Data sources I can access indicate that age, education and wealth are the best predictors of who is most likely to vote or not.   A 65 year old university educated home owner is much more likely than a 30 year old waiter.  It means that the population that votes is not    Older people seem to be still treat voting as a societal norm they should do.

As it stands, Forum polling tends to skew very strongly towards older voters, David Coletto of Abacus Data has some issues with this tendency and what it might mean.  The latest poll they have done in Brandon Souris had 68.7% of their respondents aged 55 or older which is not demographically representative of the general public but might be a reflection of the actual voters.

If I could understand who the non-voters are and how they are captured in the polls, or not, and why the polling consistently skews old, I would have more trust that the data from the polls are a reflection of the likely outcome in the by-election in Brandon Souris.  As it stands, I take the poll results with a grain of salt.

Rhinoceros Party YouTube Video for the Bourassa by-election

It is French, but even if you can not speak French, it is worth watching

November 25th by-election predictions

I currently believe that all the seats will be retained by the party that won it in the last election.  I am using what data I can get - past election results, past by-election turnouts, impact of candidates, riding level polls, current political scene, candidates, and local media.

Bourassa
Emmanuel Duborg    Libs 10,000 46.5%
Stephanie Moraille NDP   5,000 23.3%
Daniel Duranleau   Bloc  4,000 18.6%
Danny Polifroni    Green 1,500  7.0%
Rida Mahmoud       Cons  1,000  4.7%

Brandon Souris
Larry Maguire    Cons 10,000 45.5%
Rolf Dinsdale    Libs  7,500 34.1%
Cory Szczepanski NDP   3,150 14.3%
David Neufeld    Green 1,250  5.7%
Frank Godon  Libertarian 100  0.5%

Provencher
Ted Falk                  Cons 10,000 62.5%
Terry Hayward             Libs  3,600 22.5%
Natalie Courcelles Beaudry NDP  1,600 10.0%
Janine Gibson             Green   800  5.0%

Toronto Centre
Chrystia Freeland Libs 17,000 48.6%
Linda McQuaig     NDP  11,350 32.4%
John Deverell     Green 3,500 10.0% 
Geoff Pollock     Cons  3,000  8.6% 
Dorian Baxter     PC       75  0.2%
Leslie Bory       Ind      75  0.2%

Overall
Liberals      38,100 40.3%
Conservatives 24,000 25.4%
NDP           21,100 22.3%
Green          7,050  7.5%
Bloc           4,000  4.2%
Others           250  0.3%

Federal by-elections

There are four federal by-elections to be held on November 25th:

Toronto Centre - was held by Liberal Bob Rae
Bourassa - was held by Liberal Denis Coderre
Provencher - was held by Conservative Vic Toews
Brandon Souris - was held by Conservative Merv Tweed

Bourassa - Liberal Hold
With Georges Laraque stepping down as the Green candidates in Bourassa that race no longer seems to be an interesting one.   There is little chance Emmanual Duborg will not be elected as the new Liberal MP for the this riding.  The latest Forum poll for the riding has the Liberals with almost half the support.   I can not see much polling evidence of a swell because of Trudeau.

I do not see much strength with the Bloc and the NDP seems to be playing to come second and not to win.   This race will be as exciting as the eventual winner.

Provencher - Conservative Hold
Provencher is a very safe Conservative riding and the Forum poll has them with a big lead over the Liberals in second place.   Is the high Liberal support an indication of support for Trudeau?

The Green candidate, Janine Gibson, is running here for the Greens for the fifth time in a row.

Toronto Centre = Liberal Hold
Toronto Centre has an interesting race between the NDP, Linda McQuaig,  and the Liberals, Chrystia Freeland.   The Forum poll has Freeland with a decent lead over the NDP.    I am not sure the NDP can gain enough ground here in the campaign to be able to win.   I honestly had expected any poll to show the NDP and Liberals within five points of each other.  The NDP gained ground from the June 19th Forum poll but not nearly what I thought the impact of a well known name like McQuaig would have had  

One thing that I do find interesting is that the polling does not show the Liberals doing any better than they have historically done in this riding.   I had expected any Trudeau impact to be highest in this seat but the polling does not seem to indicate he is having a strong impact.

The only wildcard here is voter turnout.   If the NDP can get their 2011 vote to come out and the Liberals get roughly what they have in past by-elections, there is a potential for an upset.  

Brandon Souris - tossup
The interesting riding in these four by-elections is Brandon Souris.   The Forum poll only had a rather small sample from the riding, 372 decided voters, but the results show the Liberals with a small lead over the Conservatives.   If the Liberals can win this seat, that would be a dramatic in Canadian politics.  Even if they just come a competitive second would indicate the Conservatives and the NDP are in some trouble.

In 2011 the Liberals came fourth in this riding for the second election in a row.   The Liberals won this seat in 1993 with less than 1/3 of the vote.   For them to even get anything close to 39% of the vote would be a dramatic change.   Is this an example of the popularity of Trudeau?

I have to wonder how much of their support comes from the fact their candidate is the son of long time MP for the riding Walter Dinsdale.   He was the PC MP for the riding from 1951 till his death in 1983.  Rolf Dinsdale seems to have an impact on the public but it has been 30 years since his father was MP.

Meanwhile the Conservative candidate Larry Maguire was the PC candidate here in 1993 so it seems this race is really about old school PC politics more than anything else.

I do not have enough information to figure out how this seat will go.  

Predicting the Four Federal By-Elections

At some point this fall there will be four federal by-elections in Boursassa, Brandon-Souris, Provencher and Toronto Centre.  Two of them were held by the Liberals and two of them by the Conservatives and in all four there has not been a serious competitive race in a long time.

We still do not know who many of the candidates will be or when they by-elections will be held, but here is an attempt to predict the outcomes of these four federal by-elections:

       Bourassa   Brandon Souris Provencher Toronto Centre Total
CPC     1,500  4%  10,000 50%    12,000 69%   3,000  8%    26,500
NDP     6,000 24%   5,000 25%     3,750 21%  15,000 38%    29,750
Liberal 8,000 32%   2,000 10%     1,250  7%  17,000 43%    28,250
Green   7,500 28%   3,000 15%       500  3%   5,000 13%    16,000
Bloc    3,000 12%                                           3,000
total  25,000      20,000        17,500      40,000       102,500

As you can see I do not think that any of the four will change hands but I do think the Liberals have the potential to lose both Bourassa and Toronto Centre.

In the case of Bourassa the most important factor in the race is Green Georges Laraque.   Without him as the candidate I think the total turnout would only about 19,000.   His entry into the race as a well known name and a Green seriously trying to get elected will have a significant impact on voter turnout as happened in London North Centre in 2006 and in Victoria 2012.

I am not yet sure how to call Toronto Centre now that we know who the NDP and Liberal candidates are.   It will be a hard fought race and take up a lot of the resources of both parties.   It is only because the NDP nominated Linda McQuaig that I think they have any chance here.   

Georges Laraque as the Green Candidate in the Bourassa Federal By-Election is very interesting

The Bourassa by-election will have one major change from past elections that will make it very interesting -  the Greens are running Georges Laraque, a former player for the Montreal Canadians.   The impact of the by-election could be very interesting.

Since the last federal election there have been five by-elections, the Greens have run in four of them but only really campaigned like a major party twice - Victoria and Calgary Centre.   In those two by-elections the Greens spent more money than anyone else in the race and managed to come a close second in Victoria and a competitive third in Calgary Centre.

Not everything has gone well for the Greens in by-elections since 2011.  In Toronto-Danforth the party spent close to $58,000 but did not manage to do well at all.

Here are the factors why the Greens could come out of nowhere and do well in Bourassa:

• The Greens will be actively campaigning and spending on a scale of a major party, they have not done that in Bourassa in the past.   Past candidates have only been paper candidates.  If they spend anywhere over $60,000, that would be the first time since 2000 that anyone will have spent anything close to what the Liberals have spent in past elections.
• The party is sending some of the more experienced campaigners they have to run things.  
• Running a former Hab player who is a franco-phone in Montreal has got to be worth some votes.  Many people in politics do not pay much attention to hockey players, but anyone that can play 695 games in the NHL is a serious household name in the towns where he played. 
• Bourassa is the riding in Canada with the highest population of Haitian decent at 13.2% of the people identifying as such.  Though if Larry Rousseau is the NDP nominee that would be two candidates of Hatian descent in the race.
• The riding is about 50% Quebecois, 5% Anglo-phone and 45% Allo-phone
• Laraque has a history of activism and not it is not just the more recent animal rights and veganism, he has always been community minded.   In 2007/08 in Pittsburgh he won the Community Service Award from the Penguins even though he was there for only a bit more than a season.
• He is not a dumb jock.  Laraque has managed to write a book, his autobiography "Georges Laraque: The story of the NHL's unlikliest tough guy".   You can listen to him talk about the book he backed in Canada Read 2011
• Laraque has an entrepreneurial streak in him - having two raw vegan restaurants is not easy and they are not his only business ventures since leaving the NHL
• At 36 Laraque is old enough to be taken seriously but young enough to still connect with youth voters
• If the by-election is not called till the fall, this gives the Greens the time to organize a strong team on the ground

There are factors that will work against him and the Greens

• The Greens have no history of running any serious campaigns in Quebec.  It is still very much a fringe party federally and provincially in Quebec.
• Race seems to matter more in Quebec politics than elsewhere in Canada
• Hatians are not seen as pure laine francophones
• People still see hockey players as dumb jocks especially enforcers
• He may be too rich from playing a game.  He earned about $12,000,000 from hockey from 1996 to 2010, though with taxes, agent fees etc his take home over those 14 years is likely about $6,000,000 or not quite $500,000 a year.  I am not sure how this plays in Quebec, though Justin Trudeau does not seem to suffer from being one of the 1% in Canada
• The ad he chose to do for alcoholic energy drink Octane 7.0 in 2009 is "interesting"

The negatives are not going to stop the Greens from doing much better in this by-election than they have ever done before but they will be reason the Greens have no realistic chance of winning the seat.   If the Greens managed to come second in the by-election, this would change media coverage of the party and assumptions of how well it can do in the 2015 election.  However you look at it, Georges Laraque running for the Greens in the by-election will be an unpredictable wildcard for the results.

Much will depend on who the other parties run, though I suspect Laraque will be the best known of all the candidates.   What will also matter is how much money the other parties spend and how many volunteers they can find.  I am not sure the Conservatives or Bloc will even try to put much effort in,   The NDP, I have no idea who might run for them or how much effort they can muster for the race.   In 2011 the NDP put in very little effort and came a competitive second to the Liberals.

Election Night Results in Westside-Kelowna

First off, Christy Clark increased the Liberal margin of victory.   It was clear that when the advance votes were counted that the BC Liberals were well organized on the ground in the riding and got their vote out.

Second, the turnout was good, I expect that once the final count is over about 20,000 people will have voted, more than in 2009.  I had not expected to see this high a vote turn out in the by-election, this would the best voter turnout in a by-election compared to the previous general election in decades.

You can compare the by-election results with the two previous general elections in this table
pre=preliminary count                                         fin=final count

Electoral History of Westside-Kelowna
Elect       Libs         NDP          BCCP      Green/other Total
2013 by pre 10,666 62.7% 5,045 29.7%   989  5.8%   312 1.8% 17,012 
2013 GE fin 12,987 58.4% 6,790 30.5% 2,466 11.1%     0 0.0% 22,243
2013 GE pre 11,442 58.9% 5,852 30.1% 2,147 11.0%     0 0.0% 19,441
2009 Ge fin 10,334 53.3% 5,656 29.2% 1,772  9.1% 1,617 8.3% 19,379
2009 GE pre 9,777  53.6% 5,282 29.0% 1,672  9.2% 1,495 8.2% 18,226

Final count for the by-election will start on July 17th.   Somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 special ballots will be counted then.

I am amazed the NDP could not manage to improve on their May results.

The BC Conservatives I think can be put out to pasture.  Given the chance to marshal all their resources in the Okanagan into one race and a leader with 24/7 free time, it is amazing the party did so badly.  I really have to wonder what is going to happen with them now.

Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair by-election in Newfoundland

I am very surprised the NDP did as well as they did in this by-election.  
The NDP only ran once before in Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and that was in the 2011 election when the party garnered all of 44 votes, though this riding has only been around since the 1996 election .  

In the federal riding of Labrador the NDP strength is not in the Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair part of the riding, but in Labrador City and Happy Valley/Goose Bay.  In the recent Labrador by-election the NDP held their ground but did no better which gave no reason to expect the NDP to do particularly well in this by-election.

Party   Candidate      Votes    %     +-% change from 2011
Liberal Lisa Dempster  1,141  53.54%   -17.78
NDP     Jason Spingle    703  32.99%   +30.93
PC      Dennis Normore   287  13.47%   -13.32

One important impact of this by-election was that whomever out of the NDP or Liberals won the seat also would be the Official Opposition.  By holding onto the seat the Liberals retained their Official Opposition.   It should concern the Liberals that the NDP did as well as they did.   If the NDP are this strong a factor here where the party has no history of any strength of any sort the NDP could very well be a threat to be government in Newfoundland after the next general election.

The NDP seems to have gained equally from the Liberals and the PCs.

One interesting quirk, the total valdid vote was 2,131, which is exactly the same number of votes in the 2011 general election.



.  

Can the NDP win Westside Kelowna? Maybe

The latest election results look rock solid for the Liberals but by-elections are strange creatures.   In a by-election Westside Kelowna is not nearly as safe as people think it might be.   We have to consider the likely drop in voter turn out and then there is a the "government curse" in BC by-elections - in 31 by-elections in the last  50 years, only three have been won by the government, 10 were seats the government held but then lost in the by-election.

2013 Election Results
Ben Stewart   Liberal 12,987 58.39%
Carole Gordon NDP      6,790 30.53%
Brian Guillou BCCP     2,466 11.09%
The total vote        22,243

What comes into play in a by-election is lower voter turnout.  In the last 30 years the norm in Canada has been by-elections with significantly lower voter turnout than the previous general election.   Over the last nine by-elections in BC, voter turnout has average 2/3s of the previous provincial election.    This is roughly the same results over the last 50 federal by-elections so it would be seem to be a trend.   I think we can safely assume that the turnout will be lower than the recent election and that a 2/3s turnout is a good starting point.

A turnout of 2/3s of of the provincial election would leave us at 15,000 valid votes but how will that play out in the by-election?   Everything depends on who will come out and vote, if the NDP gets their supporters to vote they can win the by-election.

Too often people focus much too much energy on the percentage of the vote a party will get and not on the raw absolute numbers which I think are more important.    When we look at the results in Chilliwack-Hope for New Democrat Gwen O'Mahony we can see this at play.   She ran in the 2009 and 2013 provincial elections and the 2013 by-election

2009   5,638  33.43% - lost by 3,347
2012   6,022  41.89% - won by  1,429
2013   7,364  36.01% - lost by 2,689

She managed to increase her vote in every election but only won in the 2012 by-election when the voter turnout was low overall.   This sort of pattern repeats itself in many by-elections.   A party that should not be competitive manages to get their supporters to vote in a by-election and they then win or come close simply by not suffering a drop in votes when the other parties do.

The 6,790 votes the NDP recently managed to achieve is enough to have a chance to win the seat if only 15,000 people vote.

A notional vote split with 15,000 voters assuming the NDP manages to get their vote out:
NDP   6,750
Libs  6,250
BCCP  1,500
Others  250
(this is not a prediction, just an illustration to show how voter retention by the NDP could allow them to win)

For the Liberals to be certain of winning they need a high voter turnout and they need to have people that voted NDP  recently decide not to go to the polls.

I do think Christy Clark will win but I think it will be much closer than people expect it to be.

Labrador By-Election - a good Liberal win but not a sign of Conservative Weakness

Labrador has seen eight general elections and three by-elections since it has existed as a riding unto itself.   In 11 elections only once, 2011, has it not been won by the Liberals.

I had expected to see the Liberals take 60% of the vote give that they had Yvonne Jones as their candidate. She has been a very popular MHA for her part of Labrador and I thought this would mean a significant increase in her vote.

I also thought that Penashue would have seen a significant fall in his vote, he only lost 600 votes over all.  I am not sure what the motivation was for people to want to re-elect Penashue, but he obviously has some sort of decent following.

With 5,814 votes, the Liberals did not really preform all that well when you look at the history of their vote in Labrardor.   Here is the history of the election results

Election Liberal   Conservative    NDP       Others     total  
2013by  5,814 48.2% 3,922 32.5% 2,273 18.9%    50  0.4% 12,059 
2011    4,177 39.1% 4,526 39.8% 2,120 19.8%   139  1.3% 10,744
2008    5,426 70.3%   615  7.8% 1,378 17.9%   302  3.9%  7,787
2006by  5,768 50.5% 4,528 39.7% 1,037  9.1%    82  0.7% 11,467
2005    5,438 51.5% 3,415 32.3% 1,045  9.9%   666  6.5% 10,564
2004    5,524 62.2% 1,400 15.8%   856  9.6% 1,097 12.4%  8,877
2000    7,153 69.0% 1,254 12.1% 1,284 12.4%   677  6.5% 10,368
1997    6,182 50.6%   842  6.9% 4,615 37.8%   573  4.7% 12,212
1996by  4,032 40.5% 3,027 30.4% 1,974 19.8%   730  9.3%  9,963
1993    8,724 77.1% 2,146 19.0%   444  3.9%     0  0.0% 11,314
1988    7,126 53.5% 4,400 33.0% 1,508 11.3%   286  2.2% 13,320

The NDP should be mildly happy, even with Yvonne Jones as their candidate and Justin Trudeau as leader, the Liberals did not get the NDP vote to collapse, in fact the NDP increased their raw vote.  

With the right candidate there is no reason to consider either the NDP nor the Conservatives to be out of the race in this riding in the next general election.

Labrador by-election

Labrador holds the distinction of having the smallest population of any riding in Canada with only 26,728 people in the 2011 census.   This is lower than all three territories and all four PEI seats.

Labrador is not one place but really several rather disconnected locations.  Labrador City and Wabush  together they represent about a 1/3 of the population in the riding and are more than 500 kilometers from Happy Valley - Goose Bay which has 28% of the population.   The remaining 38% of the people are spread out over a number of small communities along the coastline no closer than 330 kilometers from Happy Valley-Goose Bay.  At least the Trans-Labrador highway exists now.

What this means is that there are very different populations that have no real reason to be in a single riding and therefore it is hard to find an individual that is well known in all the areas.

Elect   Liberals    Cons 2004-11   NDP         Greens    Other
                   PC 1988-2000
2011   4,177 39.07% 4,256 39.81%  2,120 19.83% 139 1.30%
2008   5,426 70.28%   615  7.97%  1,378 17.85% 302 3.91%
2006   5,768 50.53% 4,528 39.67%  1,037  9.08%  82 0.72%
2005By 5,438 51.48% 3,415 32.33%  1,045  9.89%  68 0.64% 598  5.66% Ind
2004   5,524 62.23% 1,400 15.77%    856  9.64% 178 2.01% 919 10.35% Ind 
2000   7,153 68.99% 1,254 12.09%  1,284 12.38%           677  6.53% CA
1997   6,182 50.62%   842  6.89%  4,615 37.79%           573  4.89% Ref
1996By 4,032 40.47%   867  8.70%  1,974 19.81%         3,027 30.38% Ref
1993   8,724 77.11% 2,146 18.97%    444  3.92%
1988   7,126 53.50% 4,400 33.03%  1,508 11.32%           286  2.15% Ind
Before 1988 Labrador was part of a riding with areas on the island of Newfoundland

Provincial Election results for the four Labrador seats - NDP only ran in two of the four seats in 1999-2007
Elect  Liberals          PCs       NDP          Labrador Party
2011  3,383 31.48%  4,741 44.12%  2,622 24.40%
2007  4,299 34.91%  5,910 48.00%  1,995 16.20%   109  0.89%
2003  3,997 30.22%  4,074 30.81%  2,762 20.88% 2,392 18.09%
1999  7,327 58.30%  2,307 18.23%  3,023 23.88%

The NDP has done well in two of the ridings on the provincial level.  They won Labrador West, the area with Labrador City and Wabush, in 1984, 1999, and 2003 and were competitive there in 2007 and 2011.  In Lake Melville, the riding with Happy Valley-Goose Bay they were a competitive second in 2011.

Peter Penashue, the recently resigned Conservative MP, is from an Innu community.  Liberal Todd Russell, MP from 2005 to 2011, is of Inuit decent.  Neither one of them comes from the two largest population centres in Labrador.     The Liberal MP from 1996 to 2004, Lawrence O'Brien, was a former town councilor from Happy Valley-Goose Bay.   Lawrence O'Brien was the first MP to come from Labrador, before his time the riding was one that spanned the Strait of Belle Isle and the MPs all came from the Island of Newfoundland.

So where does this all leave us in looking at what may happen in the by-election?

1. The Liberals should win this, they should not have lost it i n2011, but I am not sure how well organized they are or if they have a good candidate in mind.  If I were the Liberals I would try to entice former Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Leader Yvonne Jones to run.  I think it would be mistake for them to run former MP Todd Russell again.   This by-election could very likely happen during a Trudeau honeymoon which would boost the Liberal's chances of winning.
2. The Conservatives are not out but much depends on who the candidate is - as I understand it at the moment Peter Penashue may not be the candidate.
3. The NDP is not dead in Labrador and a strong candidate coming from Labrador City could possible win this seat for them.   
4. Can the Greens have an impact?   I am not sure about that, they would have to choose their issues well and mange to recruit someone with some standing in the area.