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The fact that both the NDP and the Conservatives don't have a candidate yet in Vancouver Centre seems to mean that both parties are basically conceding the race to Hedy Fry this year. In 2008 it was a much more high-profile race because the NDP had Michael Byers and the Cons had Lorne Mayencourt.
Perhaps when Hedy retires stronger candidates will come forward from other parties. For now it seems like only Hedy Fry and Adrienne Carr are prepared in Vancouver Centre.
Star candidates seem to put up weak results against Fry. The candidate who came closest to beating her was Kennedy Stewart in 2004. Hopefully, that's a good sign for his candidacy in Burnaby Douglas.
Yes, hopefully Kennedy Stewart will win in Burnaby-Douglas. It is vital that B-D stays with the NDP, and it is also vital to take back Surrey North. I'm glad Jack Layton was in Surrey today and I hope that the NDP makes it a priority. I hope the new NDP candidate is strong because Dona Cadman only won by a small margin in 2008.
Re Parkdale High Park: I was talking to Peggy Nash a couple of wks ago, and I'm looking forwards to having her back as my MP. Am I jumping the gun? Maybe, but she was a very hands-on MP, coming out to community events, while Gerard Kennedy is missing in action. People are not impressed with Gerard in these parts - OTOH, this has been a strongly Liberal riding for a long time.
Interesting seeing what's happening elsewhere in the country.
Anybody know what's happening in Simcoe Grey? Helena Guergis is running as an independent, and it's a conservative area, so maybe we'll see the unusual situation of the right-wing vote getting split, and a progressive candidate taking the riding.
1. Gerard Kennedy has not been the major player that his supporters boasted he would become, and his attendance record has been bad. These are things Peggy Nash is pointing out. I'm not sure it will be enough for her to win, but it's a start.
2. The Conservatives have nominated Dr. Kellie Leitch to run against Helena Guergis. The only party that could benefit from the vote split in that riding would be the Liberals, but I'm not sure if they have enough votes to come up the middle. If they were going to do that I think they would have to get former MP Paul Bonwick to run - and he's not.
Another riding to watch for the NDP in the "dark horse" category would be Saint John. The NB NDP came close in two of the four provincial seats that make up the federal seat of Saint John - so there is clearly some base there. The NDP is running Bob Moir who ran last time in Fundy-Royal and came in second with 26% of the vote. The Liberals were so sure that Paul Zed would run that they had no one else waiting in the wings when he decided to not to run. The NDP could easily come in a very strong second here and if the wind really starts to blow - it would also be a secodn tier target.
OK, fair enough. Here is a list of NDP incumbents I would consider vulnerable:
Dennis Bevington - Western Arctic
Don Davies - Vancouver-Kingsway
Linda Duncan - Edmonton-Strathcona
Olivia Chow - Trinity-Spadina
Glenn Thibeault - Sudbury
Tony Martin - Sault Ste. Marie
Malcolm Allen - Welland
Thomas Mulcair - Outremont
Add to this list the aforementioned Burnaby-Douglas, where Bill Siksay is standing down.
There are a few more potentially vulnerable incumbents that could be in trouble if the campaign goes badly for the NDP:
Fin Donnelly - New Westminster-Coquitlam
Jim Maloway - Elmwood-Transcona
Wayne Marston - Hamilton East-Stoney Creek
Chris Charlton - Hamilton-Mountain
Irene Mathyssen - London-Fanshawe
Carol Hughes - Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing
Bruce Hyer - Thunder Bay-Superior North
John Rafferty - Thunder Bay-Rainy River
I think everyone else is pretty safe.
Bevington is probably toast. Tony Martin, Chris Charlton, Don Davies, Glenn Thibault and Malcolm Allen are likely in deep doodoo.
Hughes will be tight - that riding is nearly impossible to campaign in. That will be either her downfall or her saving grace.
Duncan is on watch but she might scrape it out without a name-brand Conservative challenger. I think Chow will be fine but it might be close, same with Matthyssen.
Marston is safe. I think anti-provincial Liberal sentiment in Northern Ontario might be enough to keep the guys from TBay in the race, even though Thunder Bay proper (like Sudbury's city riding) isn't historically an NDP hotbed.
Once again, the NDP is definitely targetting Davenport in Toronto. Andrew Cash's signs are all over the place already, although once again it will be a Liberal victory. The demographics just aren't there, haven't been and won't be. After Pires, Perks, and Ferreira, I wish they'd put the extra focus elsewhere
Why is Bevington toast?
...and Chris Charlton and Don Davies won by pretty big margins last time and they both would only really be in trouble if there was a big Liberal surge and Iggy-mania broke out across the country - something that there is no evidence of whatsoever - in fact quite the contrary!
Andrew Cash has been the candidate in Davenport for over a year - I don't know to what extent the central NDP campaign is targetting Davenport - but he has as much right as anyone to organize his own strong local campaign - and if he wants to put up lots of signs and work hard - all the more power to him. The Liberal vote keeps dropping every election and ridings like Davenport become lower hanging fruit every election. I'm not sure where else the NDP could be concentrating its resources - St. Pauls? Toronto Centre?
I think that there is a set of NDP incumbents who would be vulnerable if there was a big Liberal sweep of the country and there is another set who would be vulnerable if there was a big Conservative sweep - they are not the same people. So far though since NDP support seems to be holding up across the country and even increasing in places like Quebec and BC - we should still be on the offensive not the defensive.
Well, the most obvious alternate "pickup resources" would be for Beaches-East York and, of course, Peggy Nash in P-HP. (Great name for a neighbouring joint effort: "Cash'n'Nash."
I can't see how Charlton would be obviously toast and Marston wouldn't be--other than as an echo of provincial representation.
A name missing from the actual/potential vulnerable incumbents: Jim Maloway.
And if you really want to be bold, in light of Derek Lee's retirement and waning Liberal fortunes, I'd even look into Scarborough-Rouge River's "Layton Liberal" potential...
I think that to the extent that the central party is putting extra resources into any Toronto ridings - I have to think that the focus has to be on holding Trinity-Spadina and winning back Parkdale-High Park...then if the campaign is going very well and the party has reason to feel very confident about those seats...the next lowest hanging fruit is Davenport...I don't see there being much push in B-EY. If the NDP couldn't beat Minna running Churley - its hard to see winning with an unknown candidate this time.
The way I see it there are 16 'safe' NDP seats, that barring a major scandal precipitating the NDPer having to step down for some reason after the nomination deadline, or a national campaign collapse these should be returning another NDP MP. Barring some serious incompetence these are:
Victoria, British Columbia Southern Interior, Skeena-Bulkley Valley, Vancouver East, Burnaby-New Westminster, Winnipeg Centre, Toronto-Danforth, Hamilton Centre, Nickel Belt, Timmins-James Bay, Windsor-Tecumseh, Windsor-West, Acadie-Bathurst, Sackville-Eastern Shore, Halifax and St.John's East.
The following 12 'leaning NDP' seats should go to the party, provided they have an at least average campaign and that neither the Liberals nor Conservatives completely collapse and that such a collapse results in Liberal voters only going to the Conservatives or vice versa with the NDP not benefiting at all. This also applies to the Bloc in the case of Outremont. While the party will have to work to varying levels of degree, depending on the quality of their competition, the popularity of their brand in the area, etc, all things being equal they should at least hold these ridings:
Nanimo-Cowichan, Burnaby-Coquitlam, Churchill, Trinity-Spadina, Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, Hamilton Mountain, Algoma-Mantoulin-Kapuskasing, Sudbury, Thunder Bay-Rainy River, Thunder Bay-Superior North, London-Fanshawe, Ottawa Centre and Outremont.
The following 12 seats are 'too close to call' meaning exactly that. The party could win one or all of them with little change in the popular vote depending on a variety of obvious factors:
Esquimalt-Juan De Fuca, Vancouver Island North, Vancouver Kingsway, Surrey North, Burnaby Douglas, Edmonton Strathcona, Elmwood-Transcona, Welland, Sault Ste. Marie, Gatineau, Dartmouth-Cole Harbour and Western Arctic.
The following 10 seats are the first level of pick up opportunities, that would require a little more effort and good fortune than the 'too close to call ridings (the competition could be stronger, the NDP candidate isn't quite as strong as they are in the previous category) but they could still easily go NDP on only a relatively good day provided all other things are equal (for instance all the Liberals don't stampede to the Conservatives or vice versa to block the NDPer):
Newton North Delta, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Winnipeg North, Beaches-East York, York South-Weston, Oshawa, Parkdale-High Park, South Shore-St.Margaret's, St.John's South-Mount Pearl and Nunavut.
These 23 ridings would require a lot more effort and good fortune to go NDP, but provided things go well and the party is solidly in the low to mid-20 percent range come election day, also provided that means the Conservatives aren't well into majority territory, I could see any number of these ridings go NDP:
Kamloops Thompson Cariboo, Vancouver Centre, Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission, Fleetwood-Port Kells, Nanimo-Alberni, Kootenay-Columbia, Edmonton East, Edmonton Centre, Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, Desenthe-Missinippi-Churchill River, Blackstrap, Saskatoon-Humboldt, Regina-Qu'Appelle, Palliser, Davenport, Kenora, Essex, Hull-Aylmer, Pontiac, Jean-Le Ber, Westmount-Ville Marie, Saint John and Halifax West.
There may be others since it isn't over until the ballots are cast and counted of course, but if I had to guess right now this is what I'd say. A terrible election for the NDP will lead to about 16 seats (polling less than 14%), a fairly bad one will lead to 16-29 seats (polling 14-17%), a relatively average one will lead to 30-41 (polling 17-18.5%), a pretty good election will lead to 42-51 (polling 18.5-21%) and an amazing election (where everything including a lot of factors outside of their control) would lead to 52-74 seats (polling 21-26%).
Though my feeling is that Churley herself fumbled her chance in both 2006 and 2008 (and in between, through her sour grapes at David Miller's non-endorsement et al). And as long as it's solidly Prue provincially, I can't see how even an "unknown" would be a writeoff...
I think that the Saskatchewan riding of Palliser of a top NDP target. It includes the very NDP leaning city of Moose Jaw and the southwest corner of Regina whihc tends to go heavily NDP provincially. Last election the NDP lost by about 2,500 votes but that was running a very unpopular septagenerian ex-mayor of Moose Jaw who ran a very lackadaisical campaign. This time Noah Evanchuk of the NDP has raised over $80,000, is campaigning very aggressively and the party sees this as the number one pick up opportunity in Saskatchewan. Jack is spending almost all day tomorrow in Palliser.
Here is my read
Surrey North: 2 candidates of south asian origin against dona cadman. Edge Cadman
Newton - North Delta: Depends on who runs for Cons. I heard Gurmant Grewal (of taping Ujjal Dosanjh fame) is lobbying for it. If Grewal runs, it will be between him and the Lib with Grewal taking it. Otherwise 3 way tossup with edge to Lib.
Fleetwood Port Kells: Con Nina Grewal has it unless there is a major meltdown on the cons part. The NDP is running the same candidate they had last time (and he finished 3rd) and Libs dont even have a candidate yet.
Can somebody please defeat Nina Grewal.
My read on Surrey North is that both provincial ridings in it went over 70% NDP last year - the NDP came within 1,000 of holding it even with a very weak last minute candidate. Dona Cadman has been totally invisible....it is probably the likeliest NDP pickup in the whole country!
I hope you are right and NDP picks it.
Surrey North is a bizzarre riding. Based upon its working-class demographics it's a NDP natural seat - like New Westminster or Vancouver East. Yet, it still has a bit of a trailer park populism undercurrent, whatever that means, and people aren't voting for the Cons, they are voting for the revered Cadman name in that riding.
And Dona Cadman doesn't have all of the negative baggage going into this election as last time in 2008 with the Cadman bribe scandal and leaked taped conversations. The NDP candidate is not well known either - He doesn't have the name recognition of the populist and well known Penny Priddy. If the NDP had run a well known candidate like either Surrey councillors Barinder Rasode or Judy Villeneuve that would certainly have improved the chances for victory.
At the end of the day, I guess it will all come down to BC's polling numbers and how they compare to the 2008 result and superimpose same upon Surrey North. Still, Surrey North and Vancouver Island North are the NDP's best bets for gains in BC this time around.
I see that Chris Charlton is facing former Liberal cabinet minister Marie Bountrogianni, so that race could be tighter than I initially thought.
As for Kingsway, I hate to sound like an 'Eeyore' about that seat, but NDP partisans on this board need to start viewing this race as the marginal seat it is. Don Davies has been a great MP and I hope that gives him some incumbency advantage, but the fact is that he did not win "by a pretty big margin" last time - he won with only 35% of the vote, roughly 2,000 votes ahead of the Grits. His 15,933 votes were almost exactly what Ian Waddell got in 2004 and 2006 (15,470 and 15,916, respectively), but in 2006 the Grits scored about 5,000 votes more and about 1,500 votes more in 2004. The difference in 2008 was that the Grit vote sagged by almost 15 percent, virtually all of it going to the Tories, who finished a close third. If that pattern repeats itself, Don Davies will be re-elected without too much difficulty, but even a very modest Liberal recovery will put them right back in contention. Apart from a lack of enthusiasm for Dion, I suspect the Liberals were also damaged last time by the fallout from the Emerson floor-crossing, which will not be a factor this time. And let's not forget that this is the seat that kept returning Liberal Sophia Leung, routinely voted as the "worst orator" by fellow Parliamentarians.
So, to sum up, I'd give Don the edge right now, but this is going to be a dogfight and the NDP partisans around here should stop pretending like it's not.
[Edited to correct an error in the 2004/2006 Liberal votes pointed out by a poster below.]
She may be a former Cabinet Minister, but considering how unpopular the McGuinty government is in Ontario, I'm quite sure that will hurt more than help.
Good point. I've edited to add him in the "second tier" of potentially vulnerable incumbents.
I think (hope) that after the 2008 scare, the NDP will not take this seat for granted. Apparently Maloway ruffled some feathers among Transcona NDPers last time so hopefully any such rift has mended. The Tory candidate in 2008, former Winnipeg Jet Thomas Steen, has decamped for the greener(?) pastures of Winnipeg City Council. The Tories have yet to nominate, which does not, to my mind, indicate they are making a serious push here. There's no doubt that the demographics of this riding are slowly but surely trending away from the NDP, and there's no doubt that Maloway is a pretty lacklustre candidate (which may explain why I forgot to include him in my list), but at the end of the day I think he should survive, although it could get dicey if the NDP campaign tanks.
Fair enough, but it seems to me like the NDP in Saskatchewan is still pretty morbund, regardless of agressive candidates like Evanchuk or Wiebe. It seems like they have to fight against a pretty pro-conservative political climate and I haven't seen much evidence that there's been a wilting in capital-C Conservative support there, or much of a rebound in NDP support.
As for Vancouver Kingsway I agree with Ghoris. While Don Davies is a good MP, and has been relativley visible, meaning that he could get an incumbency bonus that is by no means certain. Furthermore, while Yuan is a "nobody" as Stockholm would put it, she has a decent resume. In '08, with Emerson still fresh in everyones minds, she was attacked as a carpetbagger because she doesn't live in the riding. That won't be an issue now, because she made sure she moved into the riding, also it's ancient history. Furthermore, Yuan is a much better communicator than Leung. To be perfectly blunt, Leung's English was pathetic and she still managed to get elected. Yuan can speak Mandrin and English perfectly well and seeing as she lived in Montreal for a while back in the 80s she might be able to speak French at least somewhat too. I'd give Davies a slight edge, but this is a very close riding.
Ghoris, I think your Liberal bias is showing.
Either that, or you are just incredibly sloppy with numbers.
Don Davies didn't win Kingsway "roughly 2000 votes ahead of the Grits". He actually won by almost 3000 (2769) votes.
Your claim that "in each of 2004 and 2006 the Grits scored about 5000 more" than the NDP is also completely false.
In fact, in 2004 Emerson beat Waddell by only 1,351 votes. In 2006, it was 4,592.
The fact that you quote Davies exact vote total in 2008 suggests you have access to the real numbers - but are trying to exaggerate them to make Kingsway look closer than it actually was - or will be.
In 2008, Davies beat the Libs by 6.1% and the Cons by 7.8%. His raw vote margin of victory was almost 2800 votes. This was an impressive and convincing victory for a first-time MP.
With the benefit of incumbency, and with by all accounts a stellar record of work as an incumbent MP, Davies is going to hold this seat with an expanded margin.
The fact that the Libs and Cons BOTH voted for the HST, Iggy is actually LESS popular than was Dion, Davies has worked his tail off and is wildly popular in the ethnic communities and Wendy Yuen and Trang Nguyen can't hold a candle to Davies will see this seat remain solidly NDP.
I don't think it indicates Liberal bias when someone points out factual issues. I'd much prefer the NDP not get caught with their pants down than loosing to some Liberal or Conservative. Furthermore, ghoris is a moderate dipper IIRC, so... yeah.
Isn't Nettie Wiebe in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar the best opportunity in Saskatchewan? She came closest last time of any seat in the province.
Vansterdam: Liberal bias is indicated when the numbers being quoted are false.
If you want to be taken seriously, you can't pass off numbers as accurate when they're fictional.
And how about responding to my points about the HST and Iggy's almost universal lack of appeal?
FYI, here's how I see the NDP scorecard as of right now -- 25 seats are solid, 8 are leaning NDP, so that's 33 as of right now. I have another 7 that are within 5 points, so we're probably looking at 40 as a likely high for the NDP. Another 6 seats are within striking distance, giving a max of 46 seats. Some seats will change categories (or drop off the list or new ones get added) as the polling changes, but this is where I see it as of right now.
See http://www.democraticspace.com/canada2011/ for more details.
NDP (as of 25 Mar)
SAFE (> 10 pt ahead) = 17
>>> minimum = 17 seats
STRONG (5-10 pt ahead) = 8
>>> likely low = 25 seats
LEANING (< 5 pt ahead) = 8
>>> current projection = 33 seats
CLOSE (< 5 pts behind) = 7
>>> likely high = 40 seats
POSSIBLE (5-10 pts behind) = 6
>>> maximum = 46 seats
(17) SAFE (> 10 pt ahead)
BC Burnaby-New Westminster
BC Vancouver East
BC Victoria
MB Churchill
MB Winnipeg Centre
NB Acadie-Bathurst
NL St. John’s East
NS Sackville-Eastern Shore
ON Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing
ON Hamilton Centre
ON Hamilton East-Stoney Creek
ON Nickel Belt
ON Ottawa Centre
ON Timmins-James Bay
ON Toronto-Danforth
ON Windsor-Tecumseh
ON Windsor West
(8) STRONG (5-10 pt ahead)
BC B.C. Southern Interior
BC New Westminster-Coquitlam
BC Skeena-Bulkley Valley
NS Halifax
ON Hamilton Mountain
ON London-Fanshawe
ON Thunder Bay-Rainy River
QC Outremont
(8) LEANING (< 5 pt ahead)
AB Edmonton-Strathcona
BC Nanaimo-Cowichan
BC Vancouver-Kingsway
MB Winnipeg North
NT Western Arctic
ON Sudbury
ON Thunder Bay-Superior North
ON Trinity-Spadina
(7) CLOSE (< 5 pts behind)
BC Burnaby-Douglas
BC Surrey North
MB Elmwood-Transcona
NL St. John’s South-Mount Pearl
ON Sault Ste Marie
ON Welland
QC Gatineau
(6) POSSIBLE (5-10 pts behind)
BC Vancouver Island North
NL St. John’s South-Mount Pearl
NS Dartmouth-Cole Harbour
NU Nunavut
ON Parkdale-High Park
SK Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar
Atlas, you're quibbling about numbers. I'd consider a 10,000 vote margin "solid" or "safe"... a 2,000 to 3,000 vote margin is neither.
The Conservatives brought in the HST in the first place, why have their numbers remained solid in BC? The NDP might try to hammer them on it some more, but it's the provincial Liberals that have worn the blame and no 'swing voters' seem to be blaming anyone at the federal level. No one loves Harper, but their vote seems to have held up. Dion was probably as loved as Ignatieff is in BC right now. Just because they're both unloved, doesn't change the fact that this is one of the few ridings in the province that they're a factor in.
Look, all things being equal (unpopular provincial Liberal government, inept federal Liberals and federal Conservatives associated with the HST who've lost some of their key BC Cabinet Ministers) I think the NDP should be in first place in BC, but they're probably not. I think they could finish first, but the polls have been all over the map, with the general indication that the Liberals are at about the same level of support they were last time (though they'll probably loose Esquimalt Juan De Fuca because Martin is retiring and they could easily loose Vancouver South because Dosanjh only won by 22 votes), the NDP are probably up a bit, but this is not guranteed and the Conservatives are probably down a bit, but this isn't guranteed.
Well, I'm not a Liberal, but you can believe what you want to believe. If you want to call me out on saying "roughly 2,000" instead of 2,769, fine - although I think we're starting to get into hair-splitting territory here.
I admit I made an error - while Emerson did win by about 5,000 votes (fine, fine, 4,592 to be exact) in 2006, it was, as you point out, quite a bit closer in 2004 - mea maxima culpa. I've corrected this point in my post above.
None of this, in my opinion, changes my earlier point. If you want to go on pretending that Vancouver-Kingsway is safe as houses and accusing anyone who says otherwise of "Liberal bias", well, fill your boots. As they say, the only poll that counts is the one on election day. I for one hope you are right and Don turns in a strong win, but it doesn't serve anyone's interest to pretend like it's in the bag.