Weekly Writ 11/20: What history says about Trudeau's try for four in a row
Does the historical precedent argue for staying the course or making a change?
Welcome to the Weekly Writ, a round-up of the latest federal and provincial polls, election news and political history that lands in your inbox every Wednesday morning.
Assuming Justin Trudeau leads the Liberals into the next election, he’ll be attempting something few other leaders have tried to do: win four consecutive elections. Even fewer leaders have pulled it off.
It’s a rarity at the federal level. Only John A. Macdonald, Wilfrid Laurier, John Diefenbaker, Pierre Trudeau and Stephen Harper have tried to win four consecutive elections. Of those, only Macdonald and Laurier were successful, with Laurier’s final win taking place 116 years ago.
Two wins and three losses, with the two wins pre-dating commercial aviation, makes for a poor historical precedent for Justin Trudeau. But it’s a small sample size. What if we expand it to include provincial premiers?
By my reckoning, there have been 33 prime ministers and provincial premiers who have attempted a fourth consecutive victory under their leadership. It’s a mixed record — particularly when we look at more recent cases.
Overall, the re-election rate of these leaders is quite high at 73% — 24 wins, nine losses. That might be surprising considering the conventional wisdom about the natural electoral cycle in Canada, which is usually thought to be around 10 years. That makes for two or three terms in most cases, not four.
But it might not be that surprising if you think about. If a leader has been able to lead their party to three consecutive wins and is game for a fourth attempt, then they must be doing something right. Perhaps they are personally popular, lead a party that has implanted deep roots and/or have built a formidable election machine.
Nevertheless, there is still something to the idea of the natural lifespan of a government. While most of these leaders won re-election, they also tended to lose seats and popular support. In all, 76% of these leaders won a smaller share of seats in their respective legislatures in their fourth election than they did in their third election. Their vote share dropped in their fourth election compared to their third election 77% of the time.
On average, four-timers have seen their party’s seat share drop by 11.8 percentage points. That would be the equivalent of the Liberals winning 122 seats on the new 343-seat electoral map. That’s well below the threshold for a majority government and is also almost certainly too low to even win a plurality of seats. The average loss of vote share has been 4.1 points, which would represent a slide to 28.5% of the vote for the Liberals — a sure-fire defeat.
Even these numbers, however, flatter the Liberals’ chances. That’s because the historical record is inflated due to the winning record of pre-1963 party leaders. Of the 33 individuals, 17 won their fourth election prior to 1963 and only one of them (Thomas Greenway in Manitoba) went down to defeat.
Since 1963, four-timers have a .500 record with eight wins and eight losses. The average seat share loss since then has been 16.6 points, or the equivalent of the Liberals falling to around 105 seats. The average loss of vote share has been 4.8 points, which would represent the Liberals slipping below 28%.
And it’s worth pointing out that three of the eight winners (Bill Davis, Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein) were part of decades-long dynasties that spanned multiple leaders.
Even if we don’t limit our analysis to modern times, the historical precedent tells us to expect the Liberals to lose enough seats and enough votes in a fourth campaign under Justin Trudeau to put their minority government at serious risk. If we limit our view to the last 60 years or so, we’d give the Liberals no better than a 50/50 chance of re-election.
Of course, the polls give us a pretty clear indication that 50/50 odds are wildly optimistic. Since the Liberals only squeaked by with a minority government last time their margin for error is already razor-thin — even an average historical performance by Trudeau would not be enough to keep him in power. To say the polls suggest he is on track for a below-average performance would be an understatement.
That leads us to the next question: would the Liberals be better off with someone else at the helm?
We’ll look again to the history books to give us some clues. But before we do that, let’s take a peek at what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on the municipal election results in Saskatchewan and the confirmation of a leadership acclamation in Quebec.
Polls on Trudeau’s leadership and lots of numbers out of Quebec, including federal and provincial voting intentions, PLQ leadership scores and two riding polls that should worry Conservatives.
A big majority government, but also a lot of uncertainty in the outcome, for Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and the Parti Québécois if the election were held today.
Yukon’s first foray into partisan politics in the #EveryElectionProject.
Alright, back to what the future might have in store for the Liberals if Trudeau decides against making a run at a fourth-straight win. The polls might not be a strong argument in favour of him staying, but what does the historical precedent say about staying the course vs. making a change?