By-Election predictions
Posted October 28, 2008 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: By-Election, Predictions
Comments (7)
Time to stick my neck out and make two predictions of the winners of the October 29, 2008 by-election.
Vancouver-Burrard: Spencer Herbert, NDP
Vancouver-Fairview: Maureen MacDiarmid, BC Liberal
The reason strictly deals with voter turnout. The areas with high voter turnout in Burrard heavily favour the NDP, while the areas that favour Fairview lean toward the BC Liberals. Both Lorne Mayencourt and Gregor Robertson were strong influences in their respective 2005 local campaigns, and with them gone, the two ridings should revert back to their original biases.
For example, the maps above shows the areas that have greater than average voter turnout from the 2005 election. The BC Liberals have to get the Yaletown corridor out in order to win Vancouver-Burrard, while the NDP have to get the Cambie corridor out in order to win Vancouver-Fairview.
Incidentially, if the BC Liberals manage to capture Vancouver-Fairview, it will be the first time that a government party has won a by-election in a very long time.
Go Spencer! It’s time for change and Spencer’s the one to make it happen.
Prognostication time! (where we either look good or have mud on our face after the fact)
Overall provincially, we have not seen an opinion poll since June 18 (over four months ago), when Ipsos came out with their sounding. Yes we had Angus Reid Strategies (who’ve no track record and never polled BC before) come out with their summertime snapshot showing the NDP ahead by 3%.
Digging deeper into the ARS numbers, the NDP leads in Metro Vancouver (a 20% Liberal lead in MV in Ipsos), the NDP leads in the southern interior and northern interior by 3% and 14% respectively (a 12% Liberal lead overall in the interior by Ipsos).
Those ARS numbers don’t make much sense. In the recent federal election, ARS also conducted an 800 sample size poll in Saskatchewan and they overstated the NDP by 10% (35%) and understated the CPC by 10% (45%). That adds up to a 20% error in their spread.
The Ipsos poll last week gave Campbell a 72% approval rating on his economic speech.
My gut tells me that overall provincially, the Liberals still have a ~10% advantage over the NDP.
And that lays the foundation for the two ridings.
Vancouver-Fairview:
In 2005, the Liberals ran a moderate, Virginia Greene, while the NDP ran their star candidate moderate green businessman Gregor Robertson. Prominent Greens in that riding were also backing Robertson and with some soft Liberal drift, Robertson won by ~900 votes.
Since then, alot of condominium development has occurred along the Cambie and Broadway corridors. These owner-occupiers tend to trend Liberal roughly 2 – 1.
The Liberals have a moderate candidate, Dr. MacDiarmid, former head of the BC Medical Association. This time however, the NDP has moved left with Jenn McGinn, who was part of the former executive of left-wing COPE and a failed COPE Parks Board candidate (finishing at the bottom in 2005);
The Greens are running their party leader Jane Sterk and the PC’s are running their leader Wilf Hanni.
Both demographically and candidate-wise the Liberals have the edge.
Vancouver Burrard:
Liberal Mayencourt (whom I tend to think was a horrible candidate) won this riding by 11 votes in 2005 over moderate Tim Stevenson (also now part of Robertson’s Vision Vancouver.)
Again, since then, alot of condominium development has occurred in Yaletown and downtown. These owner-occupiers tend to trend Liberal roughly 2 – 1.
This time the Liberals likely have a better candidate in Arthur Griffiths
(Canucks Place, GM Place, and one of the founding 2010 VANOC members) while the NDP is running Spencer Herbert, COPE parks board commissioner who was voted one of Vancouver’s three best politicians in 2007 by Georgia Straight readers and an Unsung Hero in 2008 by WestEnder readers.
As a result, Herbert will likely perform better than McGinn in terms of popular vote.
Again, both demographically and candidate-wise I still give the Liberals the edge.
One should also not discount the federal NDP’s campaign manager for Vancouver Centre, Am Johal, who stated that the provincial NDP’s stand against the carbon tax turned off a lot of environmentally conscious voters in the West End with the NDP ending up third federally in the seat.
That said… it’s prediction time:
The Marijuana Party (the Emerys) should each get about 1% – 2%. The Conservatives should each get about 3% – 5%. The Greens should each get between 12% – 15%.
That leaves about 80% left for the Liberals and NDP. I believe that the spread will be roughly 5% in favour of the Liberals in both ridings with a roughly 42% Liberal – 37% NDP outcome.
I predict the voter turnout is abysmally low, less than 30% in both ridings.
I’d guess about 25% turnout in Burrard and 30% in Fairview.
I live in Burrard and work in Fairview. I walked passed two polling stations on my way into the office and did not see a single person anywhere near them. It was after 8am too. With a low turnout I would give the edge to the NDP. They traditionally are very strong at getting out their supporters on eday and they share lists and information with their federal counterparts. The BC Liberals don’t have the same cooperation with the federal Liberals or Conservatives.
Just playing with the numbers… but in terms of advance polling:
Fairview: 1,797 [by-election], 2969 [2005] = 60% of 2005;
(voter turnout of 60.64% overall in 2005)
Burrard: 2,420 [by-election], 2,415 [2005] = 100% of 2005;
(voter turnout of 52% overall in 2005)
I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see a 35% – 40% voter turnout in this by-election;
Made a numerical error in my above post.
Burrard should read:
2,420 [by-election], 3,830 [2005] = 63% of 2005.
Having said that, I just heard a news report that the Yaletown polling stations were dead this afternoon. That’s Burrard’s Liberal strength.
So yeah, I probably will have to eat crow!