A rather good night for the Liberal Party last night. They held all their seats, and were able to win away a seat from the Conservatives in Surrey, BC, which elected a Liberal as an MP there for the first time since 1952. The Conservatives under Andrew Scheer have now lost 2 by-elections since he became Conservative leader. Perhaps a sign that Canadians aren’t exactly comfortable with a smiling clone of Harper with farther-right positions then him?
It has been pointed out that Gordie Hogg, the winning Liberal in Surrey, was a very popular candidate. I will acknowledge that to those who know him, but as Eric Grenier said in his analysis of the victory today, “good candidates only run for parties they think they have a chance of winning, and right now the Liberals are recruiting the better candidates”. I will also say that if I grant Mr. Hogg was popular, he still had the Liberal brand and Trudeau’s brand identified to him, and people still came out in bigger #’s to vote for him, to take away an opposition party held riding that had a former Harper Cabinet Minister running in it to defend it. Does that happen in every scenario like say in Provincial politics in Ontario in the current political climate? I would say no.
As for the NDP, they didn’t have a much better night then the Conservatives, who can at least cling to the fact their vote share went up everywhere but the seat they lost. The NDP lost vote share everywhere. Not that anyone at NDP HQ will take my advice, but perhaps Mr. Singh should rethink his .. shall we say.. complacency about getting into Parliament. He can be out on the road visiting his supporters, but his best public exposure comes at Parliament Hill. (The Conservatives are probably hoping the same thing. Depressed NDP turnout/vote draw is a disaster for them).
UPDATE: I get these every week from Nanos, the pollster. New #’s out; also reflecting an upward trend for the Liberals
Every week Nanos captures the political pulse of the nation and is the authoritative go to data source. Here are this week’s Nanos political tracking highlights:
Ballot – The latest Nanos federal ballot tracking has the Liberals at 40.7 per cent support, followed by the Conservatives at 30.3 per cent, the NDP at 17.5 percent, the BQ at 3.8 per cent and the Greens at 6.7 per cent.
