I think it's a fairly good night for the NDP but sometimes I think NDP partisans do a great disservice with their fantasies that it was neck-in-neck in CCMV (see here and also on EPP) by making such absurd predictions (look how many NDP calls there were on EPP).
My feeling is no NDP strategist - as out to lunch as they often are - actually thought they had a chance in hell of winning of CCMV or Hochelaga.
It's still too early in NWC but I have an inkling that some of that Lib vote has moved over to Fin and the Libs might be competing with the Greens for 3rd place.
And I only ever heard hopes -sort of wouldn't it be nice comments - not expectations for CCMV.
The Liberal spin attempts when they are so clearly also rans in all the by-elections when an opposition trying to bring down a government, or at least pretending to do so, should be knocking on the door is really quite funny and a sign of their true desperation.
I think it's a fairly good night for the NDP but sometimes I think NDP partisans do a great disservice with their fantasies that it was neck-in-neck in CCMV (see here and also on EPP) by making such absurd predictions (look how many NDP calls there were on EPP).
My feeling is no NDP strategist - as out to lunch as they often are - actually thought they had a chance in hell of winning of CCMV or Hochelaga.
That may be true, and that may be a lesson to NDP partisans. As a result of the hype surrounding Hochelaga and CCMV and NDP supporters claiming the NDP was in contention to win, the media will portray tonight as a loss for the NDP.
12 polls are in in NWC and the NDP leads by almost 20% - this is looking very good!!
It's still too early in NWC but I have an inkling that some of that Lib vote has moved over to Fin and the Libs might be competing with the Greens for 3rd place.
That is indeed true. The Liberals seem to be pulling ahead of the Greens now, but they were tied for a while. Still, the Liberal numbers in B.C. are very poor. Doesn't bode well for Ignatieff's future in the province so far.
And yes, perhaps the Lib vote moved over to Fin - he is rather good-looking. 
The media doesn't base their spin on what a few people post on babble or on EPP. In CCMV it was clear that the NDP had some wind in its sails from the provincial election and in Hochelaga, the NDP did make more of an effort than before and posted a lot of signs and aggressively attacked the BQ candidate. I'm sorry but i would never suggest to the NDP that they avoid putting up a good fight in a riding for fear that the media might notice and start building up expectations.
"perhaps the Lib vote moved over to Fin - he is rather good-looking."
The goodlooking guys are all in the NDP - come on over to the SUNNY side of the street!
Winning 21% of the vote in a Quebec riding is hardly a disappointment. If that were replicated in a general election it might not result in many new seats in Quebec but it would result in an lot more funding. As for CCMV, not really a disappointment - another good result for an area that's not a natural NDP win. It'll be losing the seat in BC that will be a disappointment should that happen.
MIKR is an old bleu Social Creditiste seat . .
Not so bleu. Its MP for 17 years was Charles-Eugène Dionne:
. . .he became a labour representative, eventually leading a chapter of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. After his electoral defeat, Dionne became allied with local employment rights group Action-Chomage and continued to work with residents in Saint-Pascal on unemployment concerns.
I don't think the media is going to portray it as a bad night for the NDP. The only people who believe that are some Liberal partisan bloggers. The NDP did respectably in two ridings they didn't have a chance at winning and it looks like they're having an excellent night in BC. The big losers of the night are the Liberals and the Bloc.
The BQ better pull ahead in the remaining 50 polls in Riviere Du Loup or the Conservatives will have a new Quebec seat!
Gilles Duceppe must be sweating in front of his t.v right now.
...and the so-called greens!
Jeez! it looks like the Liberals won't even save their deposit in NWC!
...and the so-called greens!
I think the punditocracy will just ignore them.
I don't think the media is going to portray it as a bad night for the NDP. The only people who believe that are some Liberal partisan bloggers. The NDP did respectably in two ridings they didn't have a chance at winning and it looks like they're having an excellent night in BC. The big losers of the night are the Liberals and the Bloc.
Just saw CTV News with Lloyd Robertson and Robert Fife reporting. Fife explained that none of these seats were Liberal and they weren't expected to be in contention for any of them so this was not a bad night for the Liberals.
As I mentioned earlier, Lloyd pointed out that the NDP was supposed to strongly contend in Hochelaga.
The main conclusion tonight was that the BQ are the big losers because of the likely loss in rural Quebec.
Apparently some Tory strategist told Robert Fife that the NDP was set to win CCMV. Looks like a lot of NDP partisans bought the spin.
But if the NDP cleans up in NW-C - as it seems to be doing - it'll be hard to portray it as a bad night for them.
I don't think the media is going to portray it as a bad night for the NDP. The only people who believe that are some Liberal partisan bloggers. The NDP did respectably in two ridings they didn't have a chance at winning and it looks like they're having an excellent night in BC. The big losers of the night are the Liberals and the Bloc.
Just saw CTV News with Lloyd Robertson and Robert Fife reporting. Fife explained that none of these seats were Liberal and they weren't expected to be in contention for any of them so this was not a bad night for the Liberals.
As I mentioned earlier, Lloyd pointed out that the NDP was supposed to strongly contend in Hochelaga.
The main conclusion tonight was that the BQ are the big losers because of the likely loss in rural Quebec.
You left out the part where Fife went on to talk about how bad it was for the Liberals they they weren't important in the by-elections. Nice spin there - but some of the rest of us have TVs too.
The Liberal vote is down in every riding except CCMV where it was artificially low before because of the Casey factor. The Liberal vote is therefore lower than in 2008 which was their lowest vote ever.
The NDP vote is up significantly in 3 seats and about the same as before in ML.
...and for the Liberals to be 8% and barely ahead of the Green party in a seat in the heart of Vancouver is pretty pathetic! Didn't the Liberals have a big coronation for Iggy in vancouver in May that was supposed to give them all this momentum in BC???
I wouldn't exactly call New Westminster, Coquitlam and Port Moody "the heart of Vancouver" but you nonetheless have a point.
Its not the "City" of Vancouver but its more or less equivalent to Scarborough or North York in Toronto
No one likes Iggy. He manages to repel left of centre voters while at the same time those ideologically rightwing enough to stomach him have a less patronizing and more down to earth option in Harper. Outside of Toronto all of Canada seems to get this.
Looks like the Conservatives will be the only party to get rebates (10%) in all 4 seats.
Decision Desk has also called 7th in Hochelaga for the Marxist-Leninist over John Turmel
Interesting the Cons ahead iin the riding the BQ is alleging dirty tricks-- They may wish they did not win because the win might give this story more legs especially if there is proof of where the calls came from
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2009/11/byelection-twist-ident...
Look at the earliest reader post-- saying their voice mails were filled up on election day with auto dialled faxes.
If the cons are doing these sorts of things they will eventually get caught.
Let's hope the autodialler was not some incompetent BQ supporter but if it is found to be the Cons then this might be then begining of the end of this government- it will mean a lot if they did get caught and the tactic worked- the vote is close enough that it is hard to imagine it did not make the difference. This will be the story to watch over the next two weeks- forget the results in the other byelections.
Perhaps Harper has learned how to win from Bush. If so this would be tragic for our country. We are not prepared to handle these kinds of trickery and a majority can be won if you play that dirty.
Winning 21% of the vote in a Quebec riding is hardly a disappointment. If that were replicated in a general election it might not result in many new seats in Quebec but it would result in an lot more funding. As for CCMV, not really a disappointment - another good result for an area that's not a natural NDP win. It'll be losing the seat in BC that will be a disappointment should that happen.
Precisely right - if anybody had predicted on election night 2006 that the NDP would crack 20% in east-end Montreal and 25% in rural Nova Scotia in 3 years, people would have said they were insane - and even more insane if people said that Liberal spinners would try to portray those results as disappointments!
The big winners tonight were obviously the Conservatives but the NDP was the only other party to achieve its strategic objectives - we held NWC decisively, we kept the Dexter surge going in NS with a big vote gain in a very poor NDP rural seat, we finished 2nd in Hochelaga and demonstrated that the NDP is the federalist alternative to the BQ in francophone Montreal. The NDP won't be competitive in MIKL until we win government but we did run a strong candidate there nonetheless.
I'll post separately on my overall analysis of the results.
Obviously each party will try to spin the results differently, but tonight was definitely not the results the NDP were hoping for in Hochelaga and CCMV. The provincial win for the NDP in Nova Scotia failed to give momentum to the NDP federally, and all the campaigning in Hochelaga ended up only placing the NDP at 19.5% and 5 points ahead of the Liberals who barely campaigned at all.
The NDP is definitely not the federalist alternative to the BQ in Montreal yet as they only have 1 seat.
Ignatieff is obviously not that popular in BC, but Gordon Campbell probably isn't helping matters much. At least the Liberals cracked 10% and beat the Green Party by a 2:1 margin.
You're really grasping at straws when you try to paint getting 10% and beating the Green party in a typical middle class suburban seat in Vancouver as being in any way shape or form as "good News" for the Liberals. 2008 was supposed to be the absolute low point for the Liberals and they were supposed at the very least get a dead cat bounce from that instead the Liberal vote is even lower in in these byelections than it was in the last election in all of these ridings. CCMV is a bit of a special case since there wasn't really a race there in the '08 election, but if you compare these results to 2006 - NDP support is up about 7% and Liberals support is down about the same amount.
What a disasterous nite for the Liberals. The're sinking like a stone. Maybe Ignatieff should throw in the towel now to give the Liberals some kind of hope for the future.
You're really grasping at straws when you try to paint getting 10% and beating the Green party in a typical middle class suburban seat in Vancouver as being in any way shape or form as "good News" for the Liberals. 2008 was supposed to be the absolute low point for the Liberals and they were supposed at the very least get a dead cat bounce from that instead the Liberal vote is even lower in in these byelections than it was in the last election in all of these ridings. CCMV is a bit of a special case since there wasn't really a race there in the '08 election, but if you compare these results to 2006 - NDP support is up about 7% and Liberals support is down about the same amount.
Okay. Fine with me. 
I don't mind if you view it that way. I'm just trying to argue what I think will be the main narrative from these by-elections in the coming week. I don't think it provides much good news for the NDP to have finished so far behind in Hochelaga and CCMV when the news media portrayed them as being in contention in those 2 seats.
And the other main story will be how the Conservatives have managed to have some good news in Quebec for the first time this year and beat the BQ.
What fabulous election returns for the NPD in Quebec. These results actually are exciting news.
Layton, when he was elected NPD Leader, said he had a 10 year plan for Quebec. I like people who have a vision and who think long term.
Go Jack Go!
The only objective answer as to who did well and who did better is going to come out of the actual voting numbers tonight and what they will show is:
The Conservatives did very well, picking up two new seats and increasing their percentage of the vote.
I was pleased with the NDP tonight, it scored its highest results ever in 3/4 ridings (in the fourth riding it was their second highest result ever).
The Liberals and BQ had a mixed night, with the Liberals finishing a distant 3rd in all 4 ridings.
www.punditsguide.ca will have a proper examination of this up tomorrow once the results from NWC are all in.
----
With Harper 9 seats (8 if you assume a Liberal speaker) away from a majority and the media set to beat up on the Liberals in the morning papers, we're going to be headed back to the whole majority discussion again. Incidentally, of the seats closest to the Conservatives grasp, many are NDP held and one of the very closest in 2008 was NWC. Tonight's result shows that with well planned campaigns, the NDP can hold these seats and keep the Conservatives at bay...so long as the Liberals don't fold.
Winning 21% of the vote in a Quebec riding is hardly a disappointment. If that were replicated in a general election it might not result in many new seats in Quebec but it would result in an lot more funding. As for CCMV, not really a disappointment - another good result for an area that's not a natural NDP win. It'll be losing the seat in BC that will be a disappointment should that happen.
Precisely right - if anybody had predicted on election night 2006 that the NDP would crack...25% in rural Nova Scotia in 3 years, people would have said they were insane
The NDP got 20.7% in Cumberland-Colchester in 2006
Some thoughts on the implications of the by-election results for each party:
- Conservatives: A very good night for Harper - CCMV was expected despite the effective reverse psychology media spin of playing up the NDP's chances, but still the win was more decisive than many predicted. MIKL is huge for several reasons - they won in Quebec despite the gun registry issue flaring up in the final week, and the old ADQ vote is definitely coming back to the Conservatives. The Libs were nowhere in this riding and the NDP was off the map as well - setting up a 2-way Cons/BQ fight outside Montreal and the Outaouais - which is exactly what Harper wants.
A Conservative majority is now the most likely outcome in the next general election - Quebec was the last obstacle and now the Cons have cracked it. For the governing party to gain 2 seats in by-elections during an economic recession, swine flu panic and very unpopular war is really amazing - they will have many more advantages in a general election campaign in terms of $$ and scrutiny of the opposition. The federalist vote will coalesce around Harper outside of Montreal and Charest will lend the PLQ machine to the Conservatives as well.
BQ: Duceppe doesn't need to panic but he should worry - Hochelaga is a hard-core sovereigntist riding and the BQ win there means about as much as the NDP winning Vancouver East or the Conservatives winning Calgary Centre. If the Conservatives can start peeling off the old Creditiste/ADQ vote in the regions, and the Lib vote starts bleeding to the Cons as well, that's when the BQ incumbents become vulnerable. The BQ needs to forget Iggy and focus specifically on Harper - I predict they will fall back on their "vote BQ to prevent a Conservative majority" as a default position.
Liberals: A sign of how low the Libs have fallen is that nobody even expected them to be competitive in suburban Vancouver and a Montreal urban francophone riding, which means they have zero chance of winning even a minority government in the next election. They couldn't crack 10% (!) in NWC and couldn't crack 15% in the Quebec ridings - that is a one-way ticket to political marginality for the forseeable future. The 20% Lib result in CCMV is the core Liberal Catholic vote, I suspect. Iggy's hyper-partisan, no-substance strategy of ranting about phony cheques, HINI vaccine and now the Olympic torch relay route has proven to be an abysmal failure. As Jean Charest once said, "No ideas, no votes!".
NDP: As I posted earlier, a good night for the NDP where their limited strategic goals were attained. Fin Donnelly will make an excellent NDP MP - and importantly, he is an avid environmentalist who has supported the carbon tax in previous statements. Hopefully, he will help build bridges to the environmental movement in BC who are still furious over the BC NDP's "axe the tax" debacle, and position the fed NDP to pick up 5-6 more BC seats in the next federal election.
That being said, the NDP has a lot of work to do and they must learn from some serious mistakes in recent weeks. Rocheleau will never win Hochelaga with 12 NDP MPs voting against the gun registry - a Harper trap that Jack and the caucus swallowed hook, line and sinker. Layton needs to decide if he is serious about being a major player in Quebec politics or if he prefers to indulge the whims of his rural MPs - if we want to win 20-30 new seats in the next election or just worry about losing 1-2 rural seats. Mulroney stood up to his rural caucus over bilingualism pre-1984; Harper stood up to the anti-choice elements in his caucus pre-2006 - and they both made major gains in Quebec in the following election.
There are tons of soft Lib, Green and BQ votes waiting to be had if the NDP presents a credible and compelling alternative and speaks to issues rather than scandals or sound-bites. "Scrap the HST" will win us a by-election; a credible fair taxation policy with strong candidates will win us Official Opposition. Fin Donnelly and his green-NDP vision are the future of the party and Jack Layton can win big next time if he has the courage to embrace it.
I don't mind of the Liberals fold - if you look at NWC, the Liberals loss is the NDP's gain.
Don't forget the other big news of the byelections - we can now pronounce the Green Party D-E-D DEAD!!! What an absolutely miserable result. 3% in CCMV right next door to where EMay had her big run in Central Nove just a year ago, less than 2% in MIKR and just 3% in Hochelaga - telling me that any poll that claims the Greens are at 10% in Quebec is pure poppycock. and then the grand-daddy of them all an utterly humiliating 4% in New Westminster-Coquitlam - right in the middle of the supposed "ecotopia" of urban BC - if they can't do well there in a byelection where people can freely cast a protest vote without fear of throwing the election - when will they ever do well. This is a very, very bad sign for Elizabeth May in SGI.
I think the time has come for the media to re-relegate the green party to fringe and treat them as being analogous to the Christian Heritage Party etc... polling companies should de-list them from any prompted party names in polls and it should be made clear that Elizabeth May has un-earned whatever right she ever thought she had earned to be in any future leaders debate. This charade of a party has already drawn 100 times more attention than it ever deserved and its now time to pull the plug!
Looks like the Conservatives will be the only party to get rebates (10%) in all 4 seats.
I spoke too soon
Gee, I wonder who he is talking about. 
I guarantee you that if the CPC did as poorly as the Liberals in these 4 elections I would not be on here trying to spin the results like Comical Ali of Iraq fame. You need to get a bit more objectivity on the results. Like I said earlier, positive results for the CPC and NDP. There's really no way to spin it as positive for the Liberals. I think that most objective people would agree with this. Of course, you could view it as positive that they edged out the Greens for 3rd spot in BC. Anyways, I'll let you go celebrate the results.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-take-two-in-by-elections/article1357276/
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Nice read WCL, very balanced
That being said, the NDP has a lot of work to do and they must learn from some serious mistakes in recent weeks. Rocheleau will never win Hochelaga with 12 NDP MPs voting against the gun registry - a Harper trap that Jack and the caucus swallowed hook, line and sinker. Layton needs to decide if he is serious about being a major player in Quebec politics or if he prefers to indulge the whims of his rural MPs - if we want to win 20-30 new seats in the next election or just worry about losing 1-2 rural seats. Mulroney stood up to his rural caucus over bilingualism pre-1984; Harper stood up to the anti-choice elements in his caucus pre-2006 - and they both made major gains in Quebec in the following election.
Well said. This happened in the last election too with Duceppe taking the boots to Harper over his fetish for imprisoning children while the NDP dumped their own most eloquent candidates opposed to the Conservative agenda to imprison non-violent 'criminals' in massive numbers. Which party proved the pundits wrong and prevented a Conservative majority and which barely hung on to their one seat? If the NDP doesn't have the courage to do what it takes to really fight it out for the progressive vote in Quebec then they should stop wasting so many resources there.
There are tons of soft Lib, Green and BQ votes waiting to be had if the NDP presents a credible and compelling alternative and speaks to issues rather than scandals or sound-bites. "Scrap the HST" will win us a by-election; a credible fair taxation policy with strong candidates will win us Official Opposition. Fin Donnelly and his green-NDP vision are the future of the party and Jack Layton can win big next time if he has the courage to embrace it.
It is unlikely that the NDP will become the Official Opposition - that is the main challenge that the party faces.
New Westminster—Coquitlam
2008; 2009
NDP 20,787; 12,129
Con 19,299; 8,753
Lib 5,615; 2,514
Green 3,574; 1,046
Did Not Vote 30,898; 57,363
The 35% turnout in CCMV was extremely low, even for a by-election, in Nova Scotia.
That plus the really low raw vote numbers for the NDP tells me the Eday effort was really poor. Chalk that lost opportunity up to the overated NSNDP campaign machine.
There are tons of soft Lib, Green and BQ votes waiting to be had if the NDP presents a credible and compelling alternative and speaks to issues rather than scandals or sound-bites. "Scrap the HST" will win us a by-election; a credible fair taxation policy with strong candidates will win us Official Opposition. Fin Donnelly and his green-NDP vision are the future of the party and Jack Layton can win big next time if he has the courage to embrace it.
It is unlikely that the NDP will become the Official Opposition - that is the main challenge that the party faces.
Opposition party status is a nice ornament for a party to wear on its lapel. But while the opposition parties scrap it out for 2nd place, Harper and his merry band of neo-cons will continue to remake Canada according to the blueprint drawn up by the likes of the Fraser Institute.
It's amazing how Harper and the neo-cons have gained political dominace of Canada by leveraging the support of a little more then 1/3 of Canadian voters which amounts to 1/6 of Canadian adults!
The CONS win when voting turnout is low. Harper is fully aware of this. That's why Harper's legacy to Canadian politics has been the art of personal destruction. Harper has spread so much negativity over the political process that people have tuned out. The Republicans down south are masters at this. They've turned vote suppresion into an art.
The most amazing thing about Obama was how he gained the support of marginalized people who have never voted before. That's the path the NDP needs to take. The NDP has to come out with policies that motivate those who have given up on the political process. Those people are now the majority.
The 35% turnout in CCMV was extremely low, even for a by-election, in Nova Scotia.That plus the really low raw vote numbers for the NDP tells me the Eday effort was really poor. Chalk that lost opportunity up to the overated NSNDP campaign machine.
Good to see people analyzing turnout by party, rather than pretending that the shares of a shrinking pie can be compared usefully with the shares of the larger previous pie.
The last German election was a wake-up call. It was very obvious that the low turnout came mostly, or almost entirely, from disheartened SPD supporters staying home.
The 2008 Canadian election also featured Liberals staying home more than the supporters of other parties, although that seems to have sailed past some observers.
I don't mind of the Liberals fold - if you look at NWC, the Liberals loss is the NDP's gain.
The Lib vote didn't move much in NWC but you are absolutely right in Hochelaga - the Libs went down 6% and the NDP went up 6%. If we can start eating in to the soft Lib vote in Montreal then seats like Jeanne Le-Ber and even possibly Westmount V-M or NDG-Lachine could come into play for the NDP.
Meanwhile, Brian Topp has an interesting take on the by-election results:
The Conservative Party are the winners who are really losers.
They won the Nova Scotia riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley -- a riding that has been Tory blue with only one break in the past 40 years. Somewhat more impressively, they picked up Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, a rural Quebec riding that should be solidly bleu and decided it would be.
However, arguably the biggest news in the blue column was the fact the Conservatives bit the dust in fine style in the British Columbia riding of New Westminster-Coquitlam, a first taste of the message Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his friend and ally Premier Gordon Campbell are going to get from B.C. voters the next time they have a chance to vote.
The Conservative government relies on British Columbia for 22 seats. They can afford to lose none of them. Their vote in Coquitlam dropped by about 10 per cent compared to the 2008 general election.
The Tories are also going nowhere in Montreal. Not an encouraging sign for a rural-based government that needs to break through in some urban ridings.
It's tempting to buy into this analysis, but I can't agree with it. Hochelaga is one of the last ridings the Cons will expect to win - it's an urban core riding, low-income and a nationalist stronghold in Quebec. The target Qc ridings for the Cons are almost exclusively outside of Montreal and in the burbs.
In BC, Topp makes the same mistake that Stockholm and others have done when he argues the Cons vote is "plummeting." First of all, it's a by-election and under normal circumstances, that's when the folks who are angry come out to vote and the gov't supporters stay home. Governments almost always lose votes in by-elections.
2nd, the Conservatives have many, many really safe seats in BC that they win by huge margins - so if they go down 10% for example, it can often mean that Stockwell Day wins by 15,000 votes instead of 25,000 votes. The people who are really mad about the HST and who will vote on that issue alone are core Conservative voters. Again, please note that I'm talking about the people who VOTE only on the HST, not that other people aren't concerned about the issue.
Offhand, I'd say there are maybe 5 Conservative incumbent seats in BC that are competitive - and the key thing there is if the Lib vote continues to collapse, where does it go? In NWC, the tiny drop in Lib support went NDP but that may be an anomaly - in many other BC ridings, soft Lib voters go to the Conservatives. On the other hand, there are a good half-dozen NDP and Lib BC seats that are well within the Conservatives reach (Vancouver South, Esquimalt Juan-de-Fuca, Vancouver Quadra, Burnaby-Douglas, Newton North-Delta), esp if the Lib vote continues to collapse.
Back to status quo in CCMV. Ugh. I can't stand Scott Armstrong.
Hey NDPers. Any chance we could meet in the middle with a strong Green candidate in the next general election? This vote splitting we keep doing is not helping.
If you're going to ask NDPers to vote Liberal on the basis of who is best able to win, you're going to have to swallow hard and be willing to reciprocate. What's the sense in voting for the party with even less chance to win? Especially when the NDP candidate had the best environmental credentials.
In BC, Topp makes the same mistake that Stockholm and others have done when he argues the Cons vote is "plummeting." First of all, it's a by-election and under normal circumstances, that's when the folks who are angry come out to vote and the gov't supporters stay home. Governments almost always lose votes in by-elections.
2nd, the Conservatives have many, many really safe seats in BC that they win by huge margins - so if they go down 10% for example, it can often mean that Stockwell Day wins by 15,000 votes instead of 25,000 votes. The people who are really mad about the HST and who will vote on that issue alone are core Conservative voters. Again, please note that I'm talking about the people who VOTE only on the HST, not that other people aren't concerned about the issue.
Offhand, I'd say there are maybe 5 Conservative incumbent seats in BC that are competitive - and the key thing there is if the Lib vote continues to collapse, where does it go? In NWC, the tiny drop in Lib support went NDP but that may be an anomaly - in many other BC ridings, soft Lib voters go to the Conservatives. On the other hand, there are a good half-dozen NDP and Lib BC seats that are well within the Conservatives reach (Vancouver South, Esquimalt Juan-de-Fuca, Vancouver Quadra, Burnaby-Douglas, Newton North-Delta), esp if the Lib vote continues to collapse.
The thing is governing parties don't necessarily lose ground in byelections and we only have to look back at the byelection in vancouver-Quadra to see what can happen. That was a seat that had gone Liberal in 2006 by 10,000 votes and was thought to be unloseable. The Tories ran the same kind of campaign they ran in NWC of keeping candidate hidden avoiding all debates and any contact with the media and putting all their money into relentlessly phoning every single person in the riding in order to identify their voters and get them. In Quadra they turned a 10,000 vote Liberal margin into a 150 vote margin and they shocked everyone by how close they came to winning. That same night they also won a Liberal seat in Saskatchewan - also in 2007 the Tories won the BQ held seat of Roberval by a wide margin and almost won Ste. Hyacinthe. So its a bit of a cliche to say that byelections go aainst the government. I know for a fact that the NDP had a gnawing worry that the Tories might pull a "Quadra" and pull an upset in NWC by getting their people out in a low turnout byelection. The fact that the NDP won by such a huge margin is very good news indeed and suggests that the NDP will have an excellent chance at winning back Surrey North and North Vancouver Island and maybe Kamloops next election.
