Yukon Election Expected to Produce Clear Result
Yukon Party expected to take 49% of vote and 16 seats, a strong majority and highest vote percentage yet of any political party in any territorial election
New Democrats expected to form Official Opposition with 33% of vote and 5 seats
Liberals likely to be wiped off the electoral map, with only 17% of vote, their best chance of holding a seat is likely their one incumbent running for re-election, Speaker Jeremy Harper in Mayo-Tatchun
***
When predicting riding races where geography looms large, (some ridings larger than some U.S. states) but at the same time where the entire riding population might fit into your average city block or subdivision, and I am making these predictions more than 3,000 miles from Whitehorse, it goes without saying that I make no claim to understanding the local community dynamics, the various personalities, local issues and related factors that might run deeper than political affiliations and potentially cause any number of my race projections to end up being wrong.
That said, Yukon is the only one of Canada’s three territories with multi-party races, having done so since 1978, this being the 13th such vote featuring three main parties. (There is also a plebiscite being held on ranked voting today, which if anything might further entrench partisan dynamics if it passes. Also worth noting that in other cases where Canadian jurisdictions have proposed alternatives to first-past-the-post, these initiatives have in all cases failed, usually by fairly decisive margins.)
At any rate, Yukon is growing and is close to reaching 50,000 residents, which might further increase the impact of territorial partisan dynamics over more localized issues and personalities. This election would seem to me to be an opportune time to evaluate whether the territory is moving more towards partisan swings or if more of Yukon politics remains heavily influenced by localized factors irrespective of party. As such, my model applies a largely universal swing across the ridings (with minimal modification for incumbency, leaders, some urban/rural crosstabs with the limited polling we’ve had) and when the results become known, I can compare and contrast predicted swings with actual vote swings.
I always maintain that there are many (seemingly infinite) variables in races, that more uniform swings can occur one year and then whatever formula used is upended at some point down the line (see Alan Lichtman, Keys to the Presidency model in U.S., 2024 for one of the best examples – but needing more a fine tuning than a complete overhaul, imho). Models are usually quite imperfect but try to replicate the substance of what is driving the outcome. So there could be a direct relation between swings and partisan dynamics, but in some cases, especially when your electorate is smaller in number, coincidences can’t be ruled out and it is not always clear if partisan dynamics are driving the end result or some other factor is driving partisan dynamics.
In any event, while I stand by these predictions (for the purposes of being rated on my forecasting abilities), I strongly doubt that all 21 Yukon ridings are going to have the same swing. While I think conventional opinion on the outcome stands a good chance of being proven right (Liberals decimated, Yukon Party a strong majority, NDP largely holds their own), there is a certain sense of humility on my part not only that I simply don’t know, but can’t even begin to know, all the localized dynamics in play.
All the same, hypothesizing about swings, partisan shifts along with more data points and actual results is bound to shed more light on any changing partisan dynamics of Yukon. From the standpoint of psephology (the study of elections), that is a win for the pundits, even the ones more than 3,000 miles away from all the action.