2008 Election Results in Nova Scotia
November 30, 2008 - 1:07pm
Here's an interesting summary of the province-wide results in the 2008 Federal Election in Nova Scotia:
29.8% Liberal Party candidates
28.9% NDP candidates
26.1% Conservative Party Candidates
8.0% Green Party candidates
6.3% Bill Casey
0.5% Christian Heritage Party candidates
0.4% Every other candidate in Nova Scotia
Hmmmm.
And, IIRC, the provincial NDP tends to do better than the federal NDP.
Hmmmm.
Sure, but I was thinking that the fact that Bill Casey got almost as many votes as Green candidates did running in the ten NS ridings (all other than Casey's) was the interesting point. Remembering of course that one of those ten was the Green Leader's attempt to get elected. I guess I should have been more explicit...
I doubt the federal race has much impact on the provincial, if any. Perhaps there is a minute amount for people who actively belong to political parties, an estimated five per cent of those who vote. So, I really do not think those stats are meaningful to the provincial campaign. What ARE are those from the last provincial election and that is where the NDP has to look at the seats where we came a close second or won closely and need to work to keep them!
We cannot ignore the Liberals as much as last time (sigh!) if only because the media plays up their Leader and Francis MacKenzie last time was a bit of a gift - tho that gift went to the Tories. That seat is in metro so I do think it can be won.
Not too long ago, we held a federal CB riding and now we do not. So we need to work there more than we have and I do think it is possible to win there. Not easy but possible. But I would not compare federal to provincial because people not aligned with one party vote for so many reasons that it is not a valid comparison.
It really indicates squat. Among other things:
The invisible NSGreens will be doing well to even keep the 2% they got last time. Even if they spend some of their cash hoard from taxpayers on advertising, it only might have a slight effect.
The fed Cons do not track the vote share of the NS PCs.
Nor the NS Liberals that of the feds.
And while the NDP support is highest province federaly, the NSNDP always does better [let alone this time], and the support is spread more around the province.
And when it comes to the federal results, Peter Stoffer (whose astronomical 61.4% share was by far the highest of any non-Casey in NS) skews the picture a touch...
The same re skewing can be said for Peter MacKay and also the fact that Bill Casey did so well as an Ind. changes how the stats end up federally. The Conservatives do poorly at the federal level and the Liberals so better than they do provincially. There is no correlation at all between the results from one level to the other. If there was. The NS NDP would have far more seats in Ottawa and the Liberals might be on the political map provincially. No, this data is useless - except when it comes to diehard party members - ie, a very small portion of the voters.
The same re skewing can be said for Peter MacKay
Actually, MacKay had a much more "normalized" 46.6% result, hardly a landslide. The only thing skewing anything there was the Ellie-May-in-lieu-of-the-Liberals issue...
Peter McKay sits pretty strong in his seat. But the NDP is too strong in Pictou county for him to win by a landslide... and when May finally limps away, he'll be back to being at risk of tight races and being beaten despite his very strong personal popularity.