ST Paul's by-election part 4

BTW: remember all the hype there was about the Green Party? They are at 5% so far!

Well done adma!

 

With the PCs framing the ballot question on their anti-tax turf, and all the media attention Sue-Ann Levy was getting, I thought that the Tories would pull it off. Missed it by that much...

71 polls out of 238: Lib 47.87, PC 26.81, NDP 18.35, GP 5.34.  At this rate, it's looking like 2007 all over again, except with shavings from Green going back to Lib and NDP...

And the Toronto Sun

Lord Palmerston wrote:

I predict:

Hoskins 45%

Levy 27%

Heller 19%

Greens and others 9%

I'm just the outside observer here, but it looks to me that LP's prediction is by far the best so far... Cigar is on the way....

Seems like distance is opening btw/PC and NDP.

133 polls:

Liberal 6512 (47.02)

PC 3955 (28.56)

NDP 2369 (17.10)

GP 784 (5.66)

2007:

21,280 47.43% L MICHAEL BRYANT, Toronto

11,910 26.54% PC LILLYANN GOLDSTEIN, Toronto

7,061 15.74% ND JULIAN HELLER, Toronto

3,744 8.34% GP STEVEN D'SA, Toronto

328 0.73% IND CHARLES DE KERCKHOVE, Toronto

240 0.53% LTN JOHN KITTREDGE, Toronto

190 0.42% FCP BLAISE THOMPSON, Toronto

115 0.26% FP CAROL LEBORG, Toronto

Tonight, with 170 of 238 polls reporting:

46.41% Liberal

29.03% PC

17.40% NDP

5.48% Green

Minor shifts.

So much for the anti-tax revolt.

I watched the polls called in, one by one. Julian doubled the number of polls won over last time, according to some. And he came second at least as often as Levy in the others.

What was striking was the polls that Levy won. No more in number than Julian, but in those small enclaves, she won huge, overwhelming majorities - like 0 Green, 0 NDP, 8 Lib, 91 Con.

It is class war, and the seriously wealthy are very much united against us.

Truly sad that a Liberal has won again.  That's the second wealthiest riding in the country what did we expect really

 

Someone told me during scrutineering tonight that the NDP was hoping to get 15% of the vote because it meant a lot of money. I think that in this riding 16.3% (4290 votes as of 11:30 PM) is huge and should be celebrated. However, a lot of recourses were poured into this riding. A beautiful office fully staffed with our best. Indeed, one volunteer told me this was the best run NDP campaign she had ever been on!  And good on us! But I’d like to point out that in the last Federal election Huron-Bruce pulled 15% of the vote at 7426 votes with practically zero resources - like we didn't even have signs! I think the NDP could benefit to rethink its priority ridings or at least rethink rural, traditionally ignored ridings for their returns on investment. 

 

Final count:

2009; 2007

13,192 47.60%; 21,280 47.43% L

7,851 28.33%; 11,910 26.54% PC

4,677 16.88%; 7,061 15.74% NDP

1,515 5.47%; 3,744 8.34% GP

Hard to prove much from that turnout.

peterjcassidy wrote:

Looks like voter turnout not much over 30%, so we assume apathy and indifference won over anger?

It's quite rational not to vote in a safe seat. So 33.6% of voters did their civic duty, while 66.4% of voters saw no point.

As Elections Alberta said in classic bureaucratese after their last election:

"In an election where there appears to be a clear front runner, electors may be less motivated to vote since the outcome is perceived to be predetermined and their vote may not be needed or may not make a difference."

 

Lost in Bruce County wrote:

Someone told me during scrutineering tonight that the NDP was hoping to get 15% of the vote because it meant a lot of money. I think that in this riding 16.3% (4290 votes as of 11:30 PM) is huge and should be celebrated. However, a lot of recourses were poured into this riding. A beautiful office fully staffed with our best. Indeed, one volunteer told me this was the best run NDP campaign she had ever been on!  And good on us! But I’d like to point out that in the last Federal election Huron-Bruce pulled 15% of the vote at 7426 votes with practically zero resources - like we didn't even have signs! I think the NDP could benefit to rethink its priority ridings or at least rethink rural, traditionally ignored ridings for their returns on investment. 

If you think the NDP poured on the resources, you'd be flabbergasted at what the Liberals spent to hang on to the seat. The Liberals out-pamphlet-ed and out-canvassed the other parties by a long-shot.

Wow. I honestly thought it would be closer, even taking the 'Liberal stronghold' factor into consideration. McGuinty seems to be blessed with some kind of Reaganesque teflon coating. None of the scandals and HST outrage seems to stick.

Maybe an anti-HST campaign can't gather traction in a relatively affluent riding. But I think it will in places like Chatham, Kitchener and Brantford that have had their manufacturing bases hollowed out by the recession. The challenge for the NDP is to oppose the HST in a way that puts some deep blue ocean (no pun intended) between itself and the Tories and identifies some more progressive means of generating needed revenue.

What these results mean is that Sue-Ann Levy won't have any credibility as a commentator on the issues of the day.

In other words, not much has changed.

Wish I could say my earlier prediction had come true although Julian did beat Levy in the poll where I observed the count. The overall results were not much different from '07 even with party volunteers flooding into the campaign from across the city. Perhaps all parties had that opportunity and so it was evened out?  I'm not sure that any particular message from the NDP would have changed the results in this by-election. 

Since both opposition parties ran their campaigns with the line that it was a mini-referendum on the HST, can the liberals now use that to say that this referendum was lost and that there is broad support for the HST?

Even the Greens opposed the HST, so it would be dangerous for them to claim this as a referendum - the Liberals received less than 50% of the vote.

Odd that the Greens were the one party to drop in their percentage of the vote. The Liberals, PCs and NDP all went up marginally.

The poll I was working on (in Forest Hill, so admittedly not a great area) the breakdown was like PC 102 Liberal 53 NDP 2 Green 0.

I also have to admit I got a laugh out of the facebook status of a Liberal friend of mine; "Yo Eric Hoskins, I'm really happy for you and I'll let you finish, but Rick Johnson had one of the best by-election victories of all time!"

A bit of thread drift on voter turnout - just saw some stats over here - check out the last page: 

In 1975, there were 4.7 million voters of whom 3.3 million voted. That's about 67% according to elections ontario. 

In 2007, there were 8.5 million voters of whom 4.4 million voted (52%)

Of the 3.6 million additional voters in the last 35 years, there was only a gain of 1.1 million active voters. (I realize it's not that cut and dried but it does show the growing apathy with electoral politics. 

I think we should have a policy similar to Australia - compulsory voting or you receive fines and community service!

Stockholm wrote:

As has been said, I think that the HST will be more of an issue in less affluent ridings and especially once it actually gets imposed next summer. St. Paul's was probably not a good riding in which to make it a central issue since its the second richest riding in Ontario. The HST is a regressive tax, but if you're rich then its regressive in your favour - so what's not to like!

Except that the Tories - who ran a single-issue campaign against the "Dalton Sales Tax" - did best in the wealthiest polls in the riding.

Quote:

I know that its not fashionable here to ever say anything nice about any Liberal, but I did have some dealings with Hoskins a few years ago on something work related and he actually is very nice and quite impressive. - doesn't mean I would vote for him - but I think that the more all the parties get progressive people in them - the better.

I'm sure if Hoskins had wanted to run for the NDP - they would have been ecstatic.

Scott Piatkowski wrote:

Odd that the Greens were the one party to drop in their percentage of the vote. The Liberals, PCs and NDP all went up marginally.

Not really. The Greens have no machine to pull their vote. Nobody was engaged with the election so basically the fraction of the voters who turned up were overwhelmingly propelled to the polls by party machines. The Greens didn't have much of a machine and so, even though they campaigned okay and canvassed and leafleted more than they would in a general election, they didn't have their vote identified and were ineffective at turning them out.

It also doesn't help that they are currently leaderless.

We can expect their vote to rise back to 8% for the general election here but I do breathe a sigh of relief that they have really hurt their relevance in the media, etc. They got little, perfunctory coverage and the media can now feel quite justified in their decisions to say little about them.