A by-election full of surprises!

Really!

Wouldn't you think so?

After weeks about hearing from fake news sites about how unpopular Justin Trudeau is (90% disapproval and all), the Liberals handily won the three by-elections in Ontario and Quebec, in each case winning a majority of the vote. The Conservatives destroyed all opposition in what are likely the two most conservative urban ridings left in the whole country.

By elections are good opportunities for the weak to appear strong, as the usually poor turnout means surprises can be had in store, like when the Liberals and Greens both nearly beat the Conservative candidate in Calgary-Centre in 2013. No such thing happened this past Monday. Why don't we break down the numbers, anyway, for fun!

National Party Results

New Democratic Party Results

• Total Votes: 12 259
• Placings: 2nd place (Ottawa-Vanier), 3rd elsewhere. 
• Strongest riding: Ottawa-Vanier, 2nd place, 8557 votes (69.8% of the total national NDP vote).
• Ridings wherein the NDP received less than 1000 votes: 3.

Conservative Party of Canada Results

• Total Votes: 57 606
• Votes outside of the city of Calgary: 15 769 (27.4% of total Conservative vote nationally)
• Placings: wins in Calgary-Heritage and Calgary Midnapore, 2nd place in two ridings, and third in Ottawa-Vanier.
• Worst showing: Saint-Laurent, 2nd place with 3 784 votes.

Liberal Party of Canada

• Total Votes: 47 376
• Votes within the city of Calgary: 10 839 (22.9% of total Liberal vote nationally)
• Placings: 3 wins and two second place finishes.

The Green Party of Canada

• Total Votes: 4062
• Placings: 3rd (Saint-Laurent), 4th elsewhere.
• Strongest riding: Saint-Laurent, with 1548 votes and beating the NDP candidate there.
• Worst vote total: Calgary-Heritage with less than 2% of the vote.

Largest Wins

By Vote

1. Calgary-Midnapore: Stephanie Kusie, CPC,  22 454
2. Calgary-Heritage: Bob Benzen, CPC, 19 383
3. Ottawa-Vanier: Mona Fortier, LPC, 15 195

By Percentage of Popular Vote

1. Calgary-Midnapore: Stephanie Kusie, CPC, 77.2%
2. Calgary-Heritage: Bob Benzen, CPC, 71.5%
3. Saint-Laurent: Emmanuella Lambropoulos, LPC, 59.1%

Conclusions

The Conservative Party did deceptively well during this slate of by-elections. I don't want to sound dismissive. They won a plurality of the votes and 40% of the available seats, whereas in the last federal election they did considerably worse on both measures. However, when I mean deceptive, I mean that they received pretty much the bulk of their support in just the two ridings in south Calgary. Looking outside of this area that runs along Macleod Trail, the Conservatives did only marginally better than the NDP, and got almost as many votes the NDP and Greens together.

The Liberals did better in the east and worse in Calgary than they probably expected. To receive less than 25% of the vote in both Calgary ridings, during a by-election is surprising. However, they won local majorities in the other three.This, I believe, indicates some strength in Trudeau's brand in these areas, coupled with weakness in the NDP and Conservatives while they go through the motions of getting new party leaders.

That is probably the biggest lesson, if indeed there is any, from these last by-elections. The incumbent party with a popular leader will trump the leaderless opposition. What will be more interesting is how the NDP and CPC perform once their parties have leaders. An NDP lead by a Quebecker might do better than fourth in Saint-Laurent; and a CPC led by someone like Kellie Leitch will likely do worse in ridings like Markham or Ottawa.

Thanks for reading. I would appreciate your thoughts.