04.24.2019 08:27 AM

PEI politics

I was at the Raptors game last night when this result came in.  It was a shocker.  Three reasons.

  1. Once again, plenty of pollsters missed out on a sizeable Conservative vote.  (Federally, reliable pollsters tell me the same thing: Andrew Scheer – who was at the Raptors game and was cheered – is ahead by five points.)
  2. The Green Party has become a big factor – and, like the New Democrats (who were shut out in PEI), they steal votes from Justin Trudeau, not the aforementioned Andrew Scheer.
  3. There are just two Liberal Premier left.  The one in PEI couldn’t even hold his seat last night.  Change, methinks, is coming.

17 Comments

  1. bhsk says:

    The Liberals are now the third party in three provinces – PEI, Ontario and Manitoba and have no seats in Sask or Alberta and don’t really exist in either province. Their provincial weakness is a very bad sign for them.

    • Gord says:

      The Liberals were the Official Opposition in Alberta until 2012. Last week they got 0.98% of the vote. That’s 18,000 votes. Total. In the entire province. Just barely ahead of the Alberta Independence Party at 13,500. The leader, running in the only seat they held going into the election, finished fourth with 7% of the vote.

      To put this in historical context, their previous low-water mark was in 1982, when the Grits were running against Peter Lougheed (who was more popular than God) with the albatross of PET and the NEP. Even then they managed nearly double the vote percentage they did last week.

  2. Ratt says:

    And a Newfoundland is going to the polls May 19… will the last Liberal leaving please turn out the lights…

  3. Matt says:

    Wait………

    You were at the Raptors game…….

    And Andrew Scheer was at the Raptors game……

    You ARE a Conservative!!!!!

    What? Isn’t that Trudeau’s big thing now? Scheer was present at the same event Faith Goldy was so he’s a white supremacist to? Guilt by association?

  4. Doug Brown says:

    Two observations:

    1) Is the Liberal decline a symptom of the political polarization happening in most developed countries? Canada seems to be following the path towards well differentiated parties to the left and right of centre

    2) Is the Green vote a protest against phenomenon 1? I have yet to uncover convincing reasons to vote Green even though I really want to find some

    • Gord Tulk says:

      The green vote isn’t a protest against it – it is part of it.

    • PK says:

      we live in a surveillance society – one that uses surveillance to promote and protect less capable people for their sycophantic value, and uses reactionary propaganda to rationalize it – it’s a garbage culture wagging the dog so whatever comes of it is just the result of abuse, privilege, and delusional importance, imagined for the egos of pseudo-elites; from a clan of people who overvalue themselves – and it doesn’t matter which party wins, they all do the same thing to rationalize privilege where they lack merit based qualities

  5. Frankly, this is no surprise for me. PEI was always in our minds Fortress Liberal — but when this PM went there and got booed, that was a flashing RED LED-sign.

    When you get booed by the public, you are in very serious political trouble. When some of your own supporters chime in, at the margins, you’re finished.

    Keep an eye out for this in the federal campaign.

  6. Miles Lunn says:

    I think on polls underestimating conservative vote, I actually think polls are right, where they are wrong is its not what the public as a whole thinks that matters, its what those who show up to vote on election day think. And here is something some are missing, conservatives are very angry and motivated. Otherwise no matter how inconvenient they will show up on election day and often elections are won and lost by which side is more motivated to show up. Right now unlike in 2015, conservatives are a lot more fired up than progressives are.

    • Miles,

      Exactly. Obama got in thanks to a surge in young, black and other minority voters. They really did get off their ass, something they normally do infrequently…

    • Daphne says:

      Another thing that the polls don’t reflect is a party’s ground game. The PC’s on the Island have been in a bit of a political wilderness for a time, but they still have an established, widespread party infrastructure, while the Greens haven’t developed a comparable one yet. They were also able to pull in help from the other PC parties in ND and NB.
      In the end, they were more efficient at getting out the vote.

  7. Alex says:

    What is fascinating about the PEI election is that the PCs got a slightly lower percentage of the votes than in 2015 but still won a majority. Four years ago they won 37.39%, while in 2019 they got 36.52%. A vote split between the Greens and the Liberals, however, let the Tories win a majority. This tells me Scheer has a good chance of winning in October.

  8. Miles Lunn says:

    Actually there are 3 Liberal governments as Yukon has one, but that could fall to two next May if Liberals lose Newfoundland. Interesting tidbit is in December 2015, 7 out of 10 provinces with over 80% of the population had provincial governments with Liberal monikers and 6 out of 10 representing 2/3 of the population had small l liberal (BC Liberals are more conservative than liberal) ones and then two NDP ones. Today 7 out of 10 representing over 80% of Canadians are small c conservative while only 2 provinces with Liberals and less than 5%. Usually when governments change federally, provincial go the other way to balance things out, but not usually this dramatically and this quickly. It wasn’t until the final year of Harper being in office that it even came close to that. Likewise it was in the final two years for Trudeau sr., and Mulroney faced similar situations. One exception is Chretien going into 2000 only had one provincial Liberal government (Newfoundland) bucked the trend.

    What should be more worrisome to Trudeau is Nanos asks each week on each leader do they have good qualities to be a leader. It is 44% yes for Trudeau, 40% No. For comparison Harper never fell below 50% yes and never above 40% no, so on this matrix Trudeau is doing worse than Harper and after 4 years only, not a decade.

  9. Gord Tulk says:

    80000 votes- 77% turnout to reps for 27 ridings. That’s 3800 voters per riding.

    Well past time to make PEI a part of NB.

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