Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
There will be a lot of people thinking that this result proves the CPC should move center etc. I would counter that, they got over 41% of the popular vote. That's more than any party has received since Brian Mulroney's 1988 win. Unless the NDP is essentially wiped out forever, the electoral math for the Tories will still be to keep the right unified, inclusive of that ~5-10% group that would otherwise vote PPC to prevent any cleaving of the right vote. This means you're going to continue to see the same kind of politics from them to keep that flank engaged.
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I get what you’re saying. The CPC definitely won’t want to lose the far right by shifting to the centre - the PPC got almost 6 per cent of the vote share in the last election and this time around they were reduced to less than 1 per cent. Pretty clear where those votes went, and why Poilievre worked so hard to lock down his flank.
However, last night exposed a problem the federal Conservatives have faced for decades: since the formation of the Bloc, they’ve been locked out of Quebec and its 78 seats. Meanwhile, the Liberals can tap into that pool when the Conservatives look scary to Quebecers.
The means the CPC needs big stonking gains in Ontario to pull out a win. But under Poilievre’s brand of belligerent leadership, they can’t even make nice with Ontario’s Conservatives.
So I guess the strategy is to just wait it out until the Canadian electorate is so sick of term after term after term of the Liberals that they’ll vote for any viable alternative. Which seems like more of a hope than a plan.