Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

By-election expectation

by Aaron Wherry on Monday, October 25, 2010 10:19am - 0 Comments

In addition to each party dismaying of its chances—the Conservatives, for instance, are suddenly quite keen on Michael Ignatieff—it will no doubt be said over the next two months that by-elections naturally favour the government or opposition.

Here then is Wikipedia’s list of federal by-elections. By my count—excluding the case of Bill Casey, the Conservative MP who was expelled from caucus, won as an independent and was succeeded, after retiring, by a Conservative—the government of the day has held 22 of the 31 seats contested in by-elections over the last 30 years. Opposition parties—again excluding the Casey situation—have held 26 of 38 seats.

By respective percentage, governments held 71% of the time, opposition parties held 68% of the time.

By total seats, governments went into those 69 by-elections with 30 seats and emerged with 29.

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  • Style

    But the government would have been more successful in general than the opposition at the time, or it wouldn't have been the government. So, it looks like the opposition performs better in by-elections than it does in general elections.

    • Mike T.

      There will definitely be several factors in play. it would be interesting to do an exhaustive study of each individual byelection since, say 1950.

      • YYZ

        Odd that the recommendation for an interesting piece of analysis got yout a thumbs down at the time of this comment.

        • Mike T.

          The board works in mysterious ways.

    • NorthernPoV

      "So, it looks like the opposition performs better in by-elections than it does in general elections."
      Just can't let go of a failing meme huh?

      • Style

        It's just difficult when the numbers used to attack it actually support it. If the general election meant a change of government, what share of opposition-held seats flipped to the government ? Presumably a greater share than in the by-election sample Aaron is reporting.

        • Mike T.

          But the current Conservative talking point is that voters blow off steam by voting against the government even if they change back in the regular election so that if they win in Vaughan Harper is the best PM Canada has ever seen. If it's 50/50 they're wrong or lying.

          As I said above, it would be interesting to look at the phenomenon by doing an in-depth analysis of each by election in past decades.

          • Style

            But Aaron's numbers support that argument. The party that won more than half the seats in the general election (the government) won fewer than half the seats in by-elections (34 of 69). Sure, it's not an enormous number and the by-elections might include a few under minority governments, but the general picture from Aaron's numbers supports the Conservative talking point more than it undermines it.

          • Mike T.

            At the very, very best you can say one way of looking at the numbers makes it close to irrelevant. You'd need to be pretty generous to say "supports".

  • Emily

    So a byelection can go either way, everybody has great fun making pronouncements about it's deeper meaning…..and a week later nobody remembers it.

    • DPT

      well, except if you're a Liberal in Outremont.

      • Emily

        You think anyone outside political junkies even notices this stuff?

  • craigola

    You wouldn't happen to have a chart or a graph kicking around somewhere, would you?

  • gottabesaid

    Seems to me a more useful statistic would be one showing the correlation between by-election outcomes and subsequent general election outcomes… though, I'm not sure if such figures can be dug up. Regardless… you'd think that a by-election would be fought over who would actually make the better MP, rather than party politics (in contrast to general elections). Anyway, by-election outcomes don't seem like particularly good indicators of national trends.

  • Rob Shift

    Puns make baby Jesus cry.

  • tedbetts

    Vaughan: Held by the Liberals federally since it was formed as a riding in the 2004 election. Before that, the Vaughan—King—Aurora
    riding was also held by the Liberals going back to 1988. Liberal stronghold? Seems like it. Or is it a Maurizio Bevilacqua stronghold? He took it (by a bare 77 votes) from the Conservatives and provincially the riding has been as conservative as liberal. Verdict: the candidate matters and with a superstar and tons of visits from Harper and party dollars, this is Fantino's to lose. And Fantino losing would only have a little bit to do with Harper.

    Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette: Clearly a conservative stronghold with big victories and the only exception being a one-termer after the Mulroney years of decimation. Verdict: it's going blue, but it didn't then Harper has huge problems.

    Winnipeg north: This is a tricky one. I don't think it means much if Harper loses it and the NDP holds it, but the reverse is not true because of the size of the NDP wins. It doesn't mean anything if the Liberals lose it – they're well back in the pack on this one. Verdict: NDP's to lose, but if Harper wins it will be big.

    • Crit_Reasoning

      I agree with most of your thoughts on the three ridings, but I also think that losing Vaughan will reflect poorly on Ignatieff. It's been a Liberal stronghold for 22 years, after all. I agree with Chantal Hébert that a Liberal loss in that riding will be damaging to caucus morale, and a "momentum-killer" for Ignatieff.

      • Mike T.

        If it weren't Fantino this analysis would probably be quite strong.

      • tedbetts

        That's certainly the spin on this. But I find it rather odd to hear people who say Iggy has no momentum to now say this would be a momentum "killer".

        Vaughan is more accurately described as a Bevilacqua stronghold. He has only held that riding for the last couple of elections. A different riding existed before 2000 and he held that since 1988. That riding was conservative before him, this newer riding was provincially conservative during his time, his neighbours are both conservative and liberal, and before the by-election even starts, it seems pretty clear Fantino will win it. So this not really a Liberal "stronghold" .

        That isn't to say it doesn't hurt to lose it, but other things and actions and reactions matter more. If Iggy goes in and spends the next 30 days in Vaughan and loses, then yes. If they lose by 100 votes then no. And whatever the "loss", what happens over the next 8 weeks in Ottawa will matter a heck of a lot more. If Harper wins only 2 of 3 seats, then it evens out.

        The silver lining is that the Liberals could win for losing: Fantino will be a blessing for the Liberals in disguise, especially if given a cabinet post right away.

        • Mike T.

          All of this is quite reasonable, even if I suspect your giving a little too much to Bevilacqua rather than the Libs of past decades.

        • Crit_Reasoning

          But I find it rather odd to hear people who say Iggy has no momentum to now say this would be a momentum "killer".

          Are you referring to Chantal Hébert, or me? Personally, I think that Ignatieff has enjoyed at least some momentum after the summer bus tour, and "Open Mike".

          I suppose Vaughan could be described as a "Bevilacqua stronghold", assuming that it was Bevilacqua's personal popularity and not his party's popularity that led to his sweeping victories in the last three elections. But what is the basis of this assumption? It's impossible to know how many people made their voting decisions based on the candidate and not the party. In the last three elections Bevilacqua won by impressive margins, but the vote share for the (non-notable) Conservative candidates consistently increased and the incumbent's margin of victory consistently decreased, so it's fair to say that the broad trend has been a shift away from the Liberals.

          Why do you think Fantino's win will be a blessing in disguise? Are you predicting that he'll screw up somehow in Cabinet?

          • tedbetts

            Chantal and others who are repeating the same line. Not you.

            The basis for the statement – which was qualified as being more of a Bevilacqua stronghold than a Liberal one, not that it was not the latter – is that provincially it has gone Liberal (Sorbara) and Conservative (Palladini) in the recent past, both making it to their respective cabinets. And also that the riding was recently re-formulated so it is hard to say it is any party's.

            Maybe to clarify, I should say by "party stronghold" you need more than a few elections and seen support go with the party regardless of who is running. Federally, it is difficult to say for certain because MB has been there so long, but provincially it is a bit of a weathervane. Which would also be consistent with your observation that it reflects the broader shift away from the Liberals.

          • tedbetts

            As for being a problem, Fantino will be a problem for Harper not because he'll screw up – though like any media-declared star he might, he's never held a position like a cabinet position – but because he's no one's boss and I really cannot see him being muzzled. He doesn't need Harper nearly as much as the other way around, he's a prima dona in the extreme, loves media attention (more even than Jack!) and will feel and act that he is far more important than anyone else at the table, far out of whack with his abilities and his senority. He also has a tendency to speak his mind a la Rob Ford, which is not a bad thing at all, unless you are an MP or worse a cabinet minister under Harper. Harper would do well to keep him out of cabinet until he's "trained" him and he has proven his Harperland loyalty.

        • hosertohoosier

          But Vaughan the provincial riding is also a Liberal stronghold. Greg Sorbara won 61% of the vote there in 2007. Moreover, while Vaughan is the kind of suburban riding that should work for the Tories, there are other factors. Only 10,000 of the riding's residents are 3rd plus generation Canadians and a majority speak a language other than English at home. Moreover, of the many new Canadians living in Vaughan, a large number are Italian, perhaps the most loyal part of the Liberal coalition, despite Tory inroads among new Canadians.

          • stephen

            Just out of curiosity, is there a significant correlation between multiple generation Canadians and a particular party?

          • hosertohoosier

            I haven't seen anything on first vs. second-generation Canadians. If you look at the 2008 results, the Liberals did 4 points worse than their national total among Canadian-born voters, while the Tories had a proportionate share of immigrant and non-immigrant votes (38% in both cases). However, this was after significant outreach by the Tories. In 2004 the party had run 4 points ahead of their national total among the Canadian born. About half of the new votes the Tories have brought in since then have been new Canadians. Rob Ford's victory tonight was very much related to that outreach as well (one poll I saw suggested that Ford was tied among Canadian-born voters, but way ahead among new Canadians).

            However, immigrant voters are not a monolith. Different communities have different leanings. While the sample size is very small here, for instance, the CES data suggests the following vote patterns for people that identified Italian as their cultural/ethnic group.

            Italian voters, 2008
            CPC: 30.7%
            LPC: 40.9%

            And keep in mind that this was during one of the worst performances in Liberal history (in 2004 they won 52% of the Italian vote, versus 21% for the Tories).

            Also ironically… the Bloc did far better than its national average among people considering themselves Canadian.

          • stephen

            Interesting… thanks!

          • tedbetts

            An Palladini won it a decade ago.

            Seems far more like a typical suburban weathervane riding than a "stronghold" for the Liberals.

          • hosertohoosier

            Al Palladini was a popular local figure running in an election (1995) where Harris had a 14 point lead over the Liberals (and a smaller lead in 1999, however, by then Palladini was the incumbent). Fantino's profile makes him comparable, but the current Tory picture in Ontario is hardly analogous to that of 1995.

          • tedbetts

            It should be obvious from my comments that I don't think the situation is analogous. Harper is clearly not a decisive leader like Harris who puts principle ahead of petty politics, but a massive promise breaking flip flopper. There is no "Conservative wave" as there was with Harris with the GTA both so pissed off with the prior government and attracted to Harris' medicine for an ailing province. Voters in the GTA largely liked Harris; even those who vote for Harper don't really like him. Not analogous leaders in any way, if you can even call Harper a "leader" and not just a commander.

            But the point I am making and I think it holds is that the riding does swing.

            Or, at the very least, there is enough markers of it being a swing riding to lay to rest the claim that Vaughan is a LIberal "stronghold". If a riding can stay with one party when there is a sweep in the other direction, can stay with one party despite a change in candidate, can stay with one party despite going up against a star on the other side…. those are the hallmarks of a "stronghold", not merely someone holding it over a few elections.

            And none of those hallmarks are present in this particular riding's history either federally or provincially. The long duration of Mayor Bevilacqua's tenure masks the dynamics of the riding. But both current elected representatives, Bevilacqua and Sorbara, took the riding from Progressive Conservatives and no Liberal has yet taken the baton from them. When that happens, I'll agree it's a stronghold.

  • hosertohoosier

    Why do governments win 70% or so of by-elections? Presumably it is partly because the party in power holds the majority of by-election seats already (which doesn't apply here). However, reading the tea leaves based on by-elections doesn't make a great deal of sense. By-elections are quintessentially local races that typically have a very different turnout profile than general elections. Vaughan is a particularly tricky case because while its demographic profile MIGHT (yes it is a suburban riding, but it also has a large Italian-Canadian population) suggest it as a potential Tory target, it was hardly a bellwether in the past.

    • tedbetts

      You had me up until "hardly a bellwether in the past".

      I think this riding is just that but in a GTA context. The Mulroney PCs had the riding until the GTA started to turned on him and elected MB in 1988. Now MB has been able to withstand the turning on the Liberals but then again he is a strong MP and it's hard to say the GTA as a whole has not turned away from the Liberals.

      Provincially, the riding was PC under Harris and when the tide turned on him it swung wide to the Liberals.

      That's as bellwether as it gets.

  • dave

    Or is it a Maurizio Bevilacqua stronghold?

    He just defeated the incumbent and won the Mayoralty up there. I'm sure this will be spun in every direction tomorrow…

  • Stewart_Smith

    to get the full effect, very, very, wary should be said in an Elmer Fudd voice.

  • Crit_Reasoning

    You keep telling Wherry to be very, very, wary, but Wherry's in a place where he's weary of wariness.

  • tedbetts

    Here is a radical decisive position: sometimes it is a referendum on the government, sometimes it is a referendum on the opposition, sometimes it is about the individual candidates and sometimes it is just the way the riding votes. You're welcome.

    I think with by-elections you have to… look at each by-election on its own.

    That being said, my thoughts on all three below (fickle IntenseDebate doesn't allow me to put them all in one post today).

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