Weekly Writ 9/18: Bad byelections for the Liberals, again
Weekly Writ 9/18: Bad byelections for the Liberals, again
Plus how the results compared to the polling benchmarks.
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.
The Liberals suffered another stinging byelection blow on Monday night (and early Tuesday morning), losing LaSalle–Émard–Verdun to the Bloc Québécois. It’s the second big defeat for the governing party in less than three months, reminding us yet again that the Liberals are on track for a catastrophic result in the next general election.
But will it change anything?
The Liberals did a good job lowering expectations in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, a riding they have only lost once over the last 36 years — and that was to the NDP in the anomalous Orange Wave of 2011. Their defeat on Monday was not the upset surprise that their defeat in Toronto–St. Paul’s turned out to be. Back in June, the narrative was that the Liberals could lose Toronto–St. Paul’s, but probably won’t. This time, the narrative was that the Liberals probably would lose LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, but maybe not. They did.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé of the Bloc increased his party’s vote share by nearly six points, taking 28%. It was a good result for the Bloc in a part of Montreal that hasn’t been very friendly to them. Normally, though, 28% wouldn’t be enough to win. It was in this instance because the Liberals’ Laura Palestini plummeted nearly 16 points to just 27.2%, a result roughly on par with where the Liberals stood in this part of the city back in their disastrous 2011 campaign.
The NDP’s Craig Sauvé put up a respectable result with a gain of nearly seven points and 26.1% of ballots cast. While it makes this byelection the first out of 10 in which the NDP has increased its vote share since the last election, it wasn’t enough to put him ahead. The Conservatives’ Louis Ialenti was up four points to 11.6%. I’ll be curious to see once the poll-by-poll results are published whether Ialenti made gains for the Conservatives in the more anglophone LaSalle portion of the riding, thereby costing Palestini a squeaker win.
The Liberals’ margin of defeat wasn’t huge, but the drop of 16 points is their worst result in this Parliament. Even in Toronto–St. Paul’s the drop was only 8.8 points. Coupled with the Bloc’s gain, the total 21.6-point swing between the two parties would cost the Liberals swathes of seats in Quebec if the same thing occurred in the rest of the province. The Liberals would be down 15 seats, with 13 of those going to the Bloc (and two to the NDP).
It’s been repeated ad nauseum, but to make it clear one more time: the Liberals cannot afford to lose seats like Toronto–St. Paul’s and LaSalle–Émard–Verdun and have any hope of forming a government. It even puts a second-place showing in the seat count in doubt. If Liberal MPs aren’t calling for a change at the very top after these two defeats, then they have either resigned themselves to losing or they simply aren’t very good at math.
While they didn’t have anything major at stake in Elmwood–Transcona, the result there wasn’t any better for the Liberals.
The NDP’s Leila Dance held on with 48.1% of the vote, down just 1.6 points from Daniel Blaikie’s performance here in 2021. That the NDP’s vote held up is remarkable enough, considering the huge gains Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have made in the polls across the country. They likely attracted some disaffected Liberal voters who wanted to keep the Conservatives out, as the Liberals’ Ian MacIntyre took just 4.8%, down 9.9 points from the last election.
Colin Reynolds of the Conservatives put up a good fight, jumping 15.9 points from the last election and taking 44% of the vote. He likely rolled up the PPC vote (it was down 4.6 points). It’s also possible he attracted some of the blue-collar NDP vote the party is targeting. The NDP could have survived here because they replaced those voters with progressive Liberals primarily motivated by an anti-Conservative mood.
The New Democrats can look at these results in Winnipeg without much worry — their vote only decreased a little and there are no other ridings in Manitoba in which there is a serious orange vs. blue fight. But the results here could be costly for the Liberals. If we apply the total 25.8-point swing between the Conservatives and Liberals to the rest of the province, the Liberals lose Winnipeg South, Winnipeg South Centre and St. Boniface–St. Vital, leaving them with only Winnipeg North.
Perhaps the same coalescing of the anti-Conservative vote that happened to the NDP’s benefit in Elmwood–Transcona could benefit the Liberals in other parts of Winnipeg where they are the incumbent. But the number of cities where the Liberals have put up bad byelection results is growing: Toronto in June, and now Montreal and Winnipeg in September. Upcoming byelections in Greater Vancouver and in Halifax will probably only add to the list.
The winners on Monday were obviously the literal winners — the NDP held a seat and the Bloc picked one up. The NDP can brush off its disappointing result in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun easily enough (Quebec is not promising territory for the party). The Conservatives can be happy that they actually increased their raw vote totals in both LaSalle–Émard–Verdun and Elmwood–Transcona despite the lower turnout. It doesn’t make them winners, but it does bode well for the party’s future.
There are no silver linings for the Liberals in these byelection results. They are about as bad as they could have been. Unless something big changes, the party should get used to more nights like this.
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
A deeper dive into how the byelection results matched the polling benchmarks, plus news of a fourth candidate that is joining the QLP leadership race, the loss of another MNA for the CAQ and an expulsion from the NDP caucus in Manitoba.
Another poll shows a neck-and-neck race in British Columbia, while three national polls award the Conservatives a wide lead.
Kamala Harris’s small edge holds in the U.S. election projection.
A near-tie in B.C. if the election were held today.
Nova Scotia votes against Confederation in the #EveryElectionProject.