Conservatives Win 2 Byelections

[FiftyBelow]

Interesting results in the byelections today. The conservatives were able to pull out 2 victories. The surprise being the Quebec victory. Possible signs of the Conservatives making inroads in Quebec and inching towards majority territory?
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/200...n-results.html

[Resolute 14]

Interesting to see how poorly the Liberals fared in all four ridings. They weren't expecting to be anywhere close to winning any of them, but given the PCs tried to make these by-elections a statement on Ignatief's leadership, I'd expect to hear some crowing about that in the next couple days.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Interesting to see how poorly the Liberals fared in all four ridings. They weren't expecting to be anywhere close to winning any of them, but given the PCs tried to make these by-elections a statement on Ignatief's leadership, I'd expect to hear some crowing about that in the next couple days.

I fail to see how the Liberals not winning seats they were never expected to win is interesting? I also have no idea why someone would crow about it. Its like saying the Liberals ran in a byelection in Calgary and didn't win...hardly worth discussing!

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Slava

I fail to see how the Liberals not winning seats they were never expected to win is interesting?

Probably because you are deliberately misrepresenting my comment so as to make it easier for you to invent an argument to challenge?

I never said they were expected to win. In fact, if you actually bothered to read and comprehend what I said, you would have understood that I stated they weren't epected to win any of those ridings. I said it was interesting that they fared as poorly as they did.

As to why someone would crow about it, again, you are smarter than that. You are not so stupid as to be unaware of how the PCs were positioning the expected inability of the Liberals to compete in these ridings as a challenge to Ignatief's leadership. You don't think that they will be mentioning this? Really?

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Slava

I fail to see how the Liberals not winning seats they were never expected to win is interesting? I also have no idea why someone would crow about it. Its like saying the Liberals ran in a byelection in Calgary and didn't win...hardly worth discussing!

I agree with your first sentence. Regarding your second that I've bolded.... because they can? And they might hope to score a couple cheap political points?

[Cowboy89]

I think it's safe to say that the long-held Liberal belief that all they had to do was elect a fresh new leader and wait for an election or Harper to drop the ball to regain power as the natural governing party is dead. Bottom line, if they want to get back in power they will have to deserve it, not win by default.

I would agree with Slava that failing to win or show well in ridings they had no business winning doesn't really say much more than the status quo seems in balance. Problem if you're a Liberal though is that the status quo is them polling south of 30% while the Conservatives shore up 40%.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Probably because you are deliberately misrepresenting my comment so as to make it easier for you to invent an argument to challenge?

I never said they were expected to win. In fact, if you actually bothered to read and comprehend what I said, you would have understood that I stated they weren't epected to win any of those ridings. I said it was interesting that they fared as poorly as they did.

As to why someone would crow about it, again, you are smarter than that. You are not so stupid as to be unaware of how the PCs were positioning the expected inability of the Liberals to compete in these ridings as a challenge to Ignatief's leadership. You don't think that they will be mentioning this? Really?

I'm not inventing an argument to challenge at all. You said that you think its interesting. I simply don't see this as interesting at all. If anyone is trying to stir the pot here its you looking for a way to drag down the Liberals for losing ridings they were already projected to lose...but obviously we have different interests.

Maybe you could dumb this down for me a bit though; how does failing to win these seats challenge Ignatieffs leadership? Does Harper face a challenge for losing the seat in BC yesterday as well?

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm too lazy to look it up, does anyone know what the seat distribution is after those by elections.

[mykalberta]

Until there is an election, I will take these for what they are worth - useless by-election victories over hyped by media who have nothing better to do.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm too lazy to look it up, does anyone know what the seat distribution is after those by elections.

I don't know the exact numbers, but basically, Libs don't change,
NDB doesn't change, Bloc, drops one, and Cons pick one up.
So no major changes.

[bomber317]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm not inventing an argument to challenge at all. You said that you think its interesting. I simply don't see this as interesting at all. If anyone is trying to stir the pot here its you looking for a way to drag down the Liberals for losing ridings they were already projected to lose...but obviously we have different interests.

Maybe you could dumb this down for me a bit though; how does failing to win these seats challenge Ignatieffs leadership? Does Harper face a challenge for losing the seat in BC yesterday as well?

Can you please read his initial post again?

He doesn't mention anything about "failing to win". He mentions how they fared poorly in all 4 ridings even considering that they weren't suppose to be close to winning any of those ridings.

I'm not saying I agree that there's something to how the Liberals fared in those ridings in correlation to Ignatieff's leadership but I do believe it's a discussion point.

[Suave]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Interesting to see how poorly the Liberals fared in all four ridings. They weren't expecting to be anywhere close to winning any of them, but given the PCs tried to make these by-elections a statement on Ignatief's leadership, I'd expect to hear some crowing about that in the next couple days.

The Liberal vote in Montreal dropped by about 30 per cent (the Michael Ignatieff-led Liberals got slightly more than 14 per cent in that riding, compared to the Stéphane Dion-led Liberals, who got 20.7 per cent in the 2008 general election).

The Liberal vote in rural Quebec dropped by about 15 per cent (Ignatieff a little over 13 per cent, Dion 15.4 per cent)

The Liberal vote in British Columbia dropped by about 10 per cent (Ignatieff a bit more than 10 per cent, Dion 11.3 per cent).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs...l-silverpowers

[CaptainCrunch]

While its nothing to crow about since the Libs weren't expecting to win in those ridings, the fact that their numbers dropped so rapidly has to be a cause for concern.

Obviously the Liberal message didn't resonate with the voters in those ridings and the Liberals did lose ground.

The win over the bloc is really more of a surprise to me.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Slava

I fail to see how the Liberals not winning seats they were never expected to win is interesting? I also have no idea why someone would crow about it. Its like saying the Liberals ran in a byelection in Calgary and didn't win...hardly worth discussing!

Actually, I think the fact that the Liberals did so poorly is worth discussing. Yes, they were never expected to win... but were they expected to lose by such large margins? They are, after all, the Official Opposition.... and yet they placed a distant third in each by-election. So so sad... for the "natural governing party of Canada". tsk tsk.

Conservative Bernard Généreux, the former mayor of La Pocatière, scored an upset in Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière du loup in eastern Quebec, taking more than 42 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Bloc's Nancy Gagnon, with just under 38 per cent.
Liberal Marcel Catellier ran a distant third with 13 per cent of the vote, followed by the NDP's François Lapointe with about five per cent.

n Nova Scotia, Conservative candidate Scott Armstrong reclaimed the riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, a longtime Tory stronghold.....
Armstrong won almost 46 per cent of the vote. His nearest rival, NDP candidate Mark Austin, took nearly 26 per cent, followed by Liberal Jim Burrows at just over 21 per cent.

In the second Quebec byelection, the Bloc's Daniel Paillé romped to victory in Hochelaga with more than 51 per cent of the vote. NDP candidate Jean-Claude Rocheleau, on whom the party had pinned strong hopes, ended up with about 20 per cent.
Liberal Robert David was third with14 per cent, followed by Conservative Stéphanie Cloutier at 10 per cent.

In the B.C. riding of New Westminster-Coquitlam, the NDP's Fin Donnelly won easily, capturing more than 49 per cent of the vote. Conservative candidate Diana Dilworth was next, with just under 36 per cent of the vote, and Liberal Ken Beck Lee a distant third with 10 per cent. Rebecca Helps of the Green Party was last.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Until there is an election, I will take these for what they are worth - useless by-election victories over hyped by media who have nothing better to do.

Sometimes by-elections can be a bit of an anomaly, but in this case it certainly highlights a significant trend.... that the Conservatives are gaining support while the Liberals are in free fall. At present, it appears that the only place that a Liberal candidate has a snowball's hope in hell of getting elected is in the large multicultural downtown urban areas. ie... Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. Forget the other 99% of Canada.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Rerun

Sometimes by-elections can be a bit of an anomaly, but in this case it certainly highlights a significant trend.... that the Conservatives are gaining support while the Liberals are in free fall. At present, it appears that the only place that a Liberal candidate has a snowball's hope in hell of getting elected is in the large multicultural downtown urban areas. ie... Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. Forget the other 99% of Canada.

That would be fairly representative of the last election though. I doubt that the Liberal rank and file can be stunningly happy about this, top that with the fact that Liberal poll numbers are really reflecting what happened in these bi-elections and it goes back to a bit of mismanagement on the behalf of the new leadership of the Liberal party.

People are right, mid term bi-elections mean nothing as a whole unless they represent a trend, and right now the trend is that the Liberal candidates are getting squashed, they're showing declines in those areas instead of slight increases or status quo.

As well they tend to be more accurate then the pictures that you get in nation wide polls.

[octothorp]

Going seat by seat:

The Coquitlam news is probably the most significant. What was previously a battleground seat turned into an NDP rout. This is significant because there were a lot of seats that were Tory vs. NDP battlegrounds. Pair this with the recent Ekos polling which still shows the Tories polling behind their 2008 results in BC (despite being ahead nearly everywhere else in the country), and it emphasizes the fact that BC is where the Tories need to do the most work. Otherwise, they could end up losing other similar battleground ridings like North Surrey and Nanaimo. That said, third party votes always need to be taken with a grain of salt in by-elections, but the NDP don't necessarily count as a third party in BC. The Conversatives have always gained from vote-splitting here, and they might not get that luxury next time around.
For the Liberals, the low polls suggest that there probably isn't much potential to pick up seats in BC right now, but their west vancouver stronghold should be safe. They'd probably lose North Delta to the NDP right now.

The Tories are touting Cumberland as a pick-up, but this was an independant Tory seat last time around, and has long been a Tory seat. With Bill Casey stepping down, his support, predictably, went mostly to the Tories (though not so overwhelmingly as you might think, as Casey + the Tory candidate earned nearly 78% of the vote. The Liberals have to view this as good news (their only good news on the day) that they gained more of the Casey supporters than you would think. Hard to make any extrapolations here about Nova Scotia in general.

Montmagny is a riding that borders a lot of Conservative ridings, so while it's a positive pickup, it's not really shocking. Like BC, they're polling slightly behind 2008 results, while both the Libs and Bloc are slightly ahead. So I don't see any strong shift in the province; right now, I'd say it's just the result of a popular local politician, but if it spreads to other parts of rural quebec, there are enough seats there for the Tories to make significant gains.

The Hochelaga result is interesting, in that it shows the NDP continuing to build on their one Montreal seat. They stole votes from the Liberals here, which goes against current polling showing them down slightly. It looks like they are starting to establish themselves as a legitimate player in the Montreal ridings (though they're very candidate-dependent). Also suggests that any gains that the Tories might be making in rural Quebec is not carrying over into the urban ridings.

I'd say that the NDP were winners this go-round. Although I'd suspect that they tend to do better overall in by-elections. Conservatives have some reasons for optimism and reasons for worry, while the Liberals have only reasons for worry.