Thursday, February 8^th might be a historical date for many reasons in American politics.  Certainly not as high on the radar, but worth mentioning, is that the U.S. Virgin Islands held their Republican caucuses that day in addition to the Nevada Republican caucuses (see Nevada entry earlier this week). In keeping with the national trends favoring former President Donald Trump, the caucuses broke 3 to 1 for Trump over the only other major candidate in the race, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Just over 250 participated in the voting, which is just over a quarter of the 900 plus registered Republican voters in the territory. Campaigning was either done virtually by some of the candidates themselves or by sending in campaign officials to provide representation on the ground.

The caucuses caused a bit of a stir with the RNC given that they had both moved up their caucuses from the May 30^th, (4 years ago), and adopted ranked choice voting. (In the years prior to 2020 the U.S. Virgin Islands Republican Caucuses were usually held around March/April.) Ranked choice voting is a method generally held in low esteem by many Republican officials, a prime example being Alaska’s Congressional seat flipping to the Democrats under this method. Practically speaking for the primary with only two major candidates, ranked choice voting did not really move the needle as the other four candidates on the ballot had already withdrawn from their race, and there were a minimum of votes to be redistributed as a result. It should also be noted that as a U.S. territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands is not eligible to participate directly in November’s general election.

The caucuses themselves were more similar to a primary, in the sense that partisans did not have to attend a party meeting at a set time but could show up and cast their vote as they would in any other election. There were polling locations on all three main islands, La Reine Chicken Shack on St. Croix, the Lovango Rum Bar on St. John and Bluebeard’s Castle on St. Thomas and an election night party held later on at the Morningstar Buoy Haus Beach Resort on St. Thomas.

Judging by various reports on the caucuses, it was not initially clear how many delegates would be up for grabs, and what provisions might govern the allocation of delegates, but ultimately what ended up being a total of four were entirely allotted to former President Trump. The RNC rules (16(c)(3)(ii) p.22) do provide that if a candidate does receive over 50% of the vote, that a given jurisdiction does not need adhere to strict proportionality but can award all the delegates to the top vote recipient, with the vote totals in this case rendering proportional allocation a moot point. Some political analysts believe that ranked choice voting results in less polarizing government and is more reflective of the voters’ wishes, while others felt it was harder to understand and thus risked further undermining public confidence in elections.

Historically the Virgin Island Caucuses do not necessarily follow national trends, and many might discount the influence an upset result in one of the outlying U.S. territories would have on the overall race, although the timing of this race makes it more interesting. On the Democratic side four years ago, for example, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg won American Samoa on Super Tuesday but dropped out one day later as his showings elsewhere were less than impressive. Four years prior to that, Donald Trump managed a fifth-place finish in the popular vote in the Virgin Islands Republican Caucuses, although by the time of the convention, where he became the nominee, he had secured those delegates’ support.

For those not overly familiar with this locale – the U.S. Virgin Islands is a territory of the United States, consisting of a group of some 50 Caribbean islands and cays (very small, sandy islands) populated by close to 90,000. The diverse population is over seventy percent Black and nearly a fifth Hispanic or Latino. The United States acquired the islands from Denmark in 1917 through the Treaty of the Danish West Indies. At the time the United States was concerned about the possible encroachment of the German military in the area looking for a location to establish a submarine base, while Danish authorities felt they could no longer economically justify their continued possession of the islands. Tourism and government are the largest economic sectors in the territory, The U.S. Virgin Islands overall has a Democratic lean – governed in the capital Charlotte Amalie by a 15-seat legislature comprised of 11 Democrats and 4 Independents, a Democratic Governor, Albert Bryan, and a non-voting U.S. House Delegate, Democrat Stacey Plaskett.

Correction: It was initially reported that RNC rules provided for proportional delegate representation for contests held before a certain date, and by inference that Ambassador Haley might have qualified, at least mathematically, for one delegate, however there is a provision within RNC that does in fact allow for jurisdictions to award all delegates to a candidate receiving over 50% of the vote.

For someone polling barely in the low single digits in the limited Nevada polling that is available, (RealClear didn’t even have her name on their board) one wonders sometimes if it was even worth competing at all in that state’s contest if they are the only widely known, but not particularly popular candidate. Nevada is unique among states in not having a standard write-in option, but rather the infamous “None of These Candidates” option, popularly known to most as “None of the Above” (NOTC/NOTA). The previous high record for the NOTC/NOTA was just after the option’s advent in 1976, where a Republican Congressional Primary saw NOTC/NOTA at nearly 50%. Given the dynamics in play, NOTC/NOTA might surpass this with an all time record of potentially 80%, (my guess 60-80% range) against Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Generally losing to the NOTC/NOTA option is seen as very humiliating in Nevada politics, “an absolute slap in the face” in the words of one Nevada political science professor. In turn, this could have further ramifications down the road for Haley’s candidacy for the Republican nomination.

To see how this potential political comedy of errors came about, read on.

Nevada has historically gone back and forth between presidential primaries and caucus systems to influence the selection process of presidential candidates.  The Democratic Party’s use of the primary in 1912 made the state one of the first in the nation to adopt this mode of election, although the state has switched up their selection process since that time due to a variety of practical and legal issues.

In 2008, the state adopted a caucus system, supposedly to help transition the state away from a late season primary towards being an early influencer with a caucus in the presidential nominating process.  The general process of a Nevada caucus is similar to Iowa, in that throughout the state small, basically precinct-level meetings of neighbors are held and delegates are selected towards county and then the state conventions, from which national convention delegates are selected.

In 2024 the process changed yet again where the Democratic Party is having a primary on February 6^th, with a Republican primary also scheduled on that day. The state’s Republican Party, however. opted at their own time and expense, to continue with the caucus system right after the primary this coming Thursday, February 8^th.

Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s main rival for the Republican nomination, is participating in the Tuesday primaries, whereas the former President is participating in Thursday’s caucuses, meaning that they are effectively avoiding a head to head contest. Only the Thursday caucuses are binding.  The Republican Party has disallowed candidates from participating in more than one contest (they must chose) but voters (registered Republicans) may vote in both the primary and caucuses.

On the Democratic side, President Biden is facing author and activist Marianne Williamson in addition to a number of lesser known candidates.  Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips is not on today’s ballot.

As noted at the beginning, Nevada does not allow for a write-in option but instead allows for voters to select “None of These Candidates” (a.k.a. “None of the Above”) in the primary process.  If the “None of These Candidates” option wins, delegates can not be awarded to that option (i.e. uncommitted) but the result would be declared such that “None of These Candidates” was the winner, with actual candidates placing after the NOTC/NOTA option winning a share of the delegates (if the race is binding).

The overall history of “None of These Candidates” in Nevada is a whole other article, going back almost 5 decades, and is interesting for the fact that not only has that option won two times (a Republican Congressional in 1976 holding the current record of just under 50% of the votes and Democratic Gubernatorial primary more recently), it has also been seen as having played a spoiler effect, particularly one favoring incumbents.  Generally the option gets around 1-3% of the vote in more conventional races.

There has been little polling for the specific votes this week, although Trump has generally commanded between 2/3rds to 3/4ths support in polls going back over the past 6 months, levels of support he had while rivals such as Ron DeSantis were still in the race, seen as his main challenger for Nevada delegates.

On the Democratic side, Biden would do well to get 90% support, roughly commensurate with support in South Carolina but also considering the independent lean of many voters here. (A Nevada voter has to declare a party to participate in a primary, but if voting in person, one can do that on the same day as voting. The Republican caucuses are somewhat more restrictive with deadlines for party declarations and participation.) Anything below 80% might suggest more disenchantment with Biden’s candidacy, where some combination of NOTC/NOTA and Williamson support exceeds 20%. 

Early polling suggests that while there is broad interest in both parties’ races, there is limited information with which to compare Biden’s and Trump’s performances this year with their respective 2020 and 2016 performances to capture such metrics as enthusiasm/engagement, probably the one measurable from February’s races that might portend this coming November, since Biden and Trump primary wins here are largely a foregone conclusion.

While Trump is focused on the caucuses, many Republican voters, among them Governor Joe Lombardo have expressed interest in supporting the NOTC/NOTA option in the primary today and then supporting the former president on Thursday in the caucuses.  Most likely Trump will surpass 90%, given that his only other main rival is pastor Ryan Binkley, who has similar to Haley barely registered in any of the Nevada polls.

In the end, the real story with the Nevada contests this month might be Haley losing decisively to NOTC/NOTA in the Republican Primary, setting an all time record level of support for NOTC/NOTA and calling into question the wisdom of her staying in the race until her home state, South Carolina on February 24th, where she also trails Trump around 2 to 1. It is true that South Carolina has a markedly different political culture than Nevada and the impacts of the record NOTC/NOTA showing might have little sway on voters in the Palmetto State. But it is equally true that being the candidate most decisively defeated by NOTC/NOTA in its entire 50-year history is not a record or designation the Haley camp needs as it struggles to find momentum going forward. And in future years where the former Governor and UN Ambassador may decide to run for office again, it is debatable how much of a rout the Governor can sustain on her home turf this year and still be politically viable in those future races. The more incredible factor, in my mind, is how her advisors and handlers evidently missed the risk that she might endure a humiliating defeat in a non-binding vote, that even if she had won, would have gained exactly zero delegates.

On the strip in Las Vegas, I imagine it would be hard to find a professional gambler who would have made a comparable bet.

Update: This post is being finalized as results from Nevada are already coming in. As expected, President Biden is decisively winning the Democratic Primary with around 90% of the vote, indicating that consistent with New Hampshire and South Carolina, there is little appetite to do anything other than renominate him. On the Republican side, Haley is losing about 2 to 1 against the NOTC/NOTA option and news outlets are predictably using words such as ‘humiliating‘ and ‘embarrassing‘ which might contribute to ending her presidential bid before South Carolina. Please note posts completed and posted after polls closing generally do not count towards my prediction record.

Final update: The Green Party’s Matt MacFarlane ended up being the vehicle for the protest vote, totals coming in at just under 50%. The PCs were able to retain close to 2/3rds of their 2021 share at just under 40%, but this was clearly a protest vote against the King government in Charlottetown, who at last polling still remained fairly popular province-wide and still enjoys a majority of 7 in the 27 seat legislature. The one takeaway is when provincial Liberals have interim leaders (as was also the case during the Kitchener byelection last November), and the NDP are not particularly strong, Greens tend to perform well, very well, in recent byelections, suggesting some measure of long-term staying power. This ironically could help Premier King, however, as the opposition is now even between 3 Liberal and 3 Green, both parties with interim leaders and tied in the polls, a divided an opposition as it could ever get, more so than in Ontario and Quebec where for the past several years the incumbent Premiers also enjoyed a divided opposition with no apparent government-in-waiting. The other takeaway is that while Newfoundland and Labrador and Northern Ireland remain the most challenging areas to predict between the three countries I follow, PEI, (and Yukon) are not far behind. But even with two incorrect predictions in a row with Atlantic Canada byelections under my belt, the delving into the fascinating political dynamics and history of unique places and regions make this as rewarding an endeavour as ever.

Update: After two days of postponement due to weather, a report showed large accumulations of snow across the island, coupled with high winds. The Crapaud area in the eastern part of the riding received a total of 34 cm between last Friday, February 2nd and yesterday morning, Tuesday, February 6th, with some other areas of the province receiving twice as much. The PEI 511 website currently shows that main roads, i.e. Route 1 are now bare as of Wednesday afternoon, at least where the riding proper is concerned. It remains to be seen if the weather will have a noticeable effect on voter turnout (and potentially on the overall outcome in the event of a close vote.)

This seat opened up after the PC incumbent, Jamie Foxx, resigned last November to run for the Conservative Party of Canada nomination for the federal riding of Malpeque. Foxx had previously served in cabinet as well as interim party leader. The riding has a blueish lean with Foxx’s first election in 2015 in opposition to the Liberal Wade McLaughlin government.

The byelection is against the backdrop of a popular PC Premier, Dennis King and his government, considerably ahead in polling over the Greens and Liberals.

Primary issues for the province as a whole include health care, including the patient registry (waiting lists), and the establishment of a medical school at the University of Prince Edward Island, housing, and overall affordability.

The riding is perhaps best known for being the PEI terminus of the 12.9 km (8.0 mile) Confederation Bridge, the road link between PEI and New Brunswick which opened in 1997. The largest community in the riding is Borden-Carleton. Historically Borden has been the link between PEI and the mainland with ferry service and much of the local history and economy of the town was influenced by transportation to and from the mainland.

Indeed, PEI politics as a whole was often influenced by the prospect of a physical connection to the mainland. (see J. Watson MacNaught, Pearson Liberals wiped out in PEI 1965 election despite promises to build a causeway, Peter Newman, The Distemper of Our Times, p. 76)  The causeway had been an issue for over a century before a 1988 plebiscite decided in favour of construction of the bridge, roughly 60% favouring it to 40% opposed, in some quarters still seen as a contentious issue.

The main issues in the current byelection however are not transportation but healthcare, housing and education, and despite not having lost a byelection since his election in 2019, Premier King risks losing the riding to residents upset over the scaling back of services at Prince County Hospital in nearby Summerside, as well as the lack of affordable housing and school overcrowding in the Kinkora area. 

The PC candidate Carmen Reeves agrees that more must be done to restore health care services, touting the government’s decision to construct the medical school and thereby ensuring a more ready supply of doctors and health care workers in the province, although his opponents have been critical of the decision to assign waitlists (patient registry) to medical homes and failures to recruit needed health care personnel.

Liberal candidate Gordon Sobey, former President of the PEI Federation of Agriculture, might be the candidate most likely to flip the riding, although Green Candidate Matt McFarlane has also been critical of the government’s response by building a medical school, calling it a ‘zero solution’ to fix the immediate shortages of health care. NDP Candidate Karen Morton has also been critical of the government’s approach and in a recent interview urged the government to listen to all sides.

Takeaways from the byelection might effectively be a warning sign for the King government to show voters more readily perceived results in healthcare; as well as establishing a more discernable Official Opposition, whether that is Liberal or Green (both of whom currently have interim leaders), depending on who either comes in a strong second or upsets the race; and even a possible warning sign to the federal Conservatives that while Atlantic Canada might be trending blue federally, like the more surprise result in Conception Bay East – Bell Island last week, not to discount local issues and take anything for granted.

Historically the Borden-Kinkora riding was largely 4^th Prince, a dual member riding electing both Assemblymen and Councillors concurrently between joining Confederation in 1873 and its reorganization to the current area beginning in 1996. This area has been traditionally more of a bellwether provincially, with some instances of voting Liberal for the one office and Conservative for the other concurrent office. Federally this area has been in the Prince riding before placement in the current Malpeque riding starting in 1968, an area of the province with overall strong Liberal leanings, (Prince being one of the few English Canadian seats to buck the ferry’s landing namesake*, Robert Borden and his Unionist sweep in 1917, for example), more recently the seat being Liberal uninterruptedly since 1988.

*Borden, PEI was so named in 1919, after the Prime Minister. To make the 1917 voting in Prince even more interesting was that the new port was commissioned and ferry service established at that point the very same year and still the riding voted against the federal government of the day. One wishes to have had the individual polling station results at the time. 

South Carolina will officially be the first state to vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary today, in accordance with DNC rules. This is the first election cycle where South Carolina has been officially recognized as the first in the country to vote in Democratic nomination contests, due to the stated goal of giving more voters of color a voice earlier in the nominating process.

It is also worth mentioning that President Joe Biden was able to vault ahead of other contenders in the 2020 Democratic Primaries with a strong showing in South Carolina with nearly 50% of the vote, support predominantly coming from the state’s Black population, and with the support of longtime South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, a breakthrough that came after less than stellar Biden showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

The state’s population is just over one quarter Black, however the Black Democratic voters made up close to 60% of South Carolina’s voters participating in the party’s primary 4 years ago, and they awarded Biden with 60% of their support according to exit polls.

This cycle, while Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips and prominent author and speaker Marianne Williamson are still on the ballot contesting the nomination, polling in South Carolina has them in the low single digits, while Biden is far ahead at around 70%.

The key factors will not be who wins, but how energized the party base will be to support Biden. Since there is effectively no real contest (if polls are to be believed), turnout will likely be lower than the 550k or so voters who participated in the 2020 Democratic Primary. Since polling also shows that Biden has lost some support with younger voters and voters of color, the metrics to watch will be his levels of support (which where Biden is concerned should surpass the 63% level he received in the ‘unofficial’ New Hampshire write-in campaign), as well as where his support comes from and what the overall turnout rate will be.

In South Carolina voters do not register by party. Therefore, some Democrats might have the incentive to sit this election out and cross over to the February 24^th Republican Primary, to support either Nikki Haley (in opposition to Trump) or to pad Trump’s support (who is variously seen as the weaker candidate to run against Biden in the November general election). While the DNC chair, Jaime Harrison, has disowned any such tactics, this dynamic cannot be entirely discounted, especially if the turnout levels today end up being lower but Nikii Haley ends up surpassing expectations three weeks from now.

Since Biden is polling consistently at much more than 50% nationally in the Democratic primary and is well ahead of any rivals for the nomination, and this dynamic is mirrored here in South Carolina, ericvotes.com will not make any predictions on this race. There is truly little quantitative data for ‘mildly’ contested primaries for an incumbent Democratic President – the 1996 Democratic Primary was cancelled, and the 2012 primary gave the incumbent Barack Obama nearly 100% of the vote. I would put a benchmark of relative success for Biden as being at least one half of the 2020 turnout and four-fifths of Black voters per exit polling, and 10% points higher than New Hampshire’s write-in campaign. If he fails to hit any of those numbers, that might portend sufficient disenchantment with his reelection campaign below the surface that might be problematic for a Biden victory in November.

Update: The results are in and this prediction was wrong, Liberal Fred Hutton ended up with a fairly decisive victory with unofficial results showing him with nearly one half of the vote. I look forward to learning more about what factors contributed to his win. A wise former U.S. House Speaker once said that “all politics is local” and I suspect this factored into his win as he had deep family roots in the riding (among other factors). The logo rebranding the provincial Liberals did evidently worked. I predict as a hobby races in three countries, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. and between Newfoundland and Labrador and Northern Ireland, these have to be the hardest races to predict. I am certainly appreciative however of the challenges of psephology (election analysis and predictions) and am glad for these “outliers” in making this hobby truly interesting and rewarding. Always something new to learn … thanks to all who happened by my website or who took the time to interact with me on X (Twitter).

By-election called due to resignation of former interim PC Leader David Brazil due to health reasons.

Conception Bay East – Bell Island is seen as a reliably PC seat in the St. John’s exurban area, having voted blue since 2003 … prior to that was more of a Liberal-leaning bellwether.

The constituency has taken on its present form since the 1985 election, consisting of Bell Island in Conception Bay, Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s on the mainland east and a portion of Paradise. For a number of elections Bell Island was its own constituency, and in other years it was grouped with Harbour Main at the head of Conception Bay. 

Federally the riding has been a part of the St. John’s East …  in surveying polling station results since 1997, Bell Island has trended strong PC/Conservative except in strong NDP years, whereas the Portugal Cove – St. Philips section has seen all three main federal parties showing various levels of support depending on the overall strength.

All three main parties are running candidates in the election along with one independent candidate. Among the main riding issues include improved local ferry service, health care and ambulance services, the winter closure of a local waste facility, road conditions and overall cost of living. It is worth noting that the byelection was originally scheduled for Monday, January 29^th but was postponed one day due to the weather.

Tina Neary is the PC candidate and most likely to succeed David Brazil. A town councilor for Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, she is also a non-profit Executive Director. The campaign has alluded to issues of general affordability on their campaign website, while others have tried to tie the provincial Liberal candidate to their unpopular federal counterparts and the carbon tax.

There was some question that the independent candidate, Darryl Harding, a colleague of Neary’s on town council, might split some of the vote as he self-identified as an ‘independent progressive conservative’ although Neary said she was not concerned about a possible vote split. Harding was suspended from council last March due to allegations of sexual harassment and breaching the town’s code of conduct. Prior to the byelection, he was formerly the local PC district association president who accused PC Leader Tony Wakeham of hand-picking Neary as the byelection candidate and wrote a negative letter questioning Wakeham’s leadership.

Liberal Fred Hutton was a prominent journalist and adviser to Premier Andrew Furey. The Liberals have notably dropped their logo on campaign signs and replaced those with the Premier’s name, an acknowledgement perhaps of the Liberals’ national unpopularity. In the campaign he has addressed health care, ferry service and dumping. One of Hutton’s more memorable quotes in the campaign was related to road issues. “When I am your MHA, I will be able to pick up the phone and call the transportation minister and say, ‘These roads … need to be done in this year’s budget,’ and they will be done.”

NDP Candidate and disability rights activist Kim Churchill is probably best known for her fight in court to have the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District provide services for her son in American Sign Language, a case she won last spring. Her campaign has focused on ferry service, health care, housing, and affordability.

The bottom line – Premier Furey’s government is relatively popular, as is his Premiership, compared to his federal cousins, although not overwhelmingly so. Wakeham, the new PC Leader and NDP Jim Dinn have held their own in support since the last election. Neary should be able to keep the seat in PC hands, the potential vote splitting by the independent candidate will likely be negligible compared to the overall PC lean of the riding.  If the Liberals place distant third, despite their new branding and relative high-profile candidate, that will likely indicate that national trends are impacting otherwise more local races. The NDP can hope to place a strong second, but this is territory they have not won previously on the provincial level, although at the polling station level federally they have fairly recently shown some strength. Final prediction is a PC hold, vote shares PC around 60%, NDP and Liberals around 20% a piece, IND a few percentage points. (Overall result predicted, not vote share).

This provincial riding in Ontario became vacant due to resignation of the former NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo, who accepted a position at the University of Waterloo’s Philosophy Department

The riding provincially has historically been competitive with all three parties at various times throughout its history as Waterloo North, Kitchener, and Kitchener Centre.  During the long post-war PC tenure on power, Kitchener was part of a block of more rural, southwestern Ontario ridings that supported the provincial Liberals, and became more of a bellwether after 1990, with all three main parties winning the riding at various times. 

Notably, the long-time Liberal MPP during the PC tenure, Jim Breithaupt, was once seen as a potential Liberal leader who ended up losing the 1982 leadership race to David Peterson, who went on to break the PC’s then (nearly 42 years!) tenure in power shortly thereafter in 1985.  Before Breithaupt’s representation, Liberal MPP John Wintermeyer held the Waterloo North riding from 1955 – 63 and contested the 1959 and 1963 elections as Liberal leader (losing his seat to PC Keith Butler in 1963).

Federally the riding is held by Green MP Mike Morrice, who won the riding after the previous Liberal MP, Raj Saini, was accused of sexual harassment but remained on the ballot after a deadline had passed to withdraw his candidacy.  Historically the riding federally has been a bellwether since the Pierre Trudeau years.

The election is taking place against the backdrop of a sometimes controversial and unpopular PC incumbent government (some polling has showing a rebound in their support) and a divided opposition, mainly between the Official Opposition NDP and the third-party Liberals, with housing affordability, the Greenbelt controversy, health care and education being the primary issues.

Ultimately my rationale in support of a Green victory today is that the tactical Liberals (as opposed to the hard-core Liberals) are ‘free agents’ amidst the progressive/left-of-centre vote, their candidate, yet without a permanent leader (2 days early!) is widely recognized as not having the same ground game as the Greens and the NDP.  In that case, what message would they want to send?  My best guess is to back a candidate opposed to the current PC government, but a candidate who would not in the long-run stymie their chances of forming government themselves, which means Green (as indeed happened federally 2+ years ago in the same federal riding).

That said, the chances of the NDP keeping the riding remain decent, I would say 40% chance of a Green win, 30% of an NDP hold, and the remaining 30% divided between a Liberal pickup, such as what happened in Kanata-Carleton earlier this year (with a former MP carrying the banner) – here I would rate it at between 15 – 20%, and the PC managing to benefit from a vote split between the progressive forces, which I would put at no more than 10%.  I’ll give Mr. John Turmel the remaining odds, simply because he is Canada’s record-holding Perennial Candidate.

In reverse order of likelihood, then, here is a brief assessment of the odds.

John C. Turmel and the remaining 13 fringe candidates.  According to his Wikipedia biography, this marks election #109 contested by Mr. Turmel, who has run in various races nation-wide since 1979 (without winning any and holding a Guiness Book of World Records in so doing).  On to #110 .. 

The other minor party candidates include New Blue and Libertarian, the former of which ran in the riding in the last general election.  Minor party candidacies can sometimes cause vote splits with major party candidacies, in this instance however it is unlikely to move the needle significantly.

The Progressive Conservatives, candidate Rob Elliot.  Overall, the provincial PCs have around a core vote of 25% of the electorate, with a ceiling of around 38% in the last 20 years.  Despite the PC sweeps of 2018 and 2022, their share of the vote did not exceed 28% in either election.  A quarter of the vote is not likely to win this by-election.  In the last 20 years, the right-of-centre vote (PCs, New Blue, Libertarian, etc.) has usually been at one-third or less in the riding, and with the exception of 2003 and 2011, has not come close to 40% at any other time.  The candidate himself does not reside in the riding (he lives near Lake Simcoe) and did not participate in the local candidates’ debate held recently.  While he emphasizes local ties, a number of media accounts have raised the point of his outside residence and lack of participation in the debate as practical considerations why he is unlikely to prevail today.  (Odds 10%)

The only candidate to have run in the previous general election in the riding is Liberal Kelly Steiss, a long-time civil servant.  The main concern for the Liberals stems from the overall sense that the NDP and Greens are more energized, while local Liberals are also tuned into their leadership race.  While the Liberals did pickup the Kanata seat (barely) with a former MP during the unfolding of the Greenbelt scandal, and while a win here today would likely cement their status as the Official Opposition-in-waiting, progressive voters in Ontario are still far from decided which partisan vehicle they will collectively chose to challenge the governing PCs.  Recent polling, despite the relative popularity of Ontario Liberal Party front runner (Mississauga Mayor) Bonnie Crombie, puts the Liberals in a statistical tie with the NDP in province-wide support.  Recent polling also puts the NDP out in front regionally in southwestern Ontario. Crombie has moreover pledged to run from the centre-right, not the left, (which likely boosts the Liberals with 905 swing voters, but might hurt them more in areas like Kitchener where some progressives might view the Liberals as a more ‘establishment’ with their own track record baggage.)

Core Liberal support since the riding’s creation did not significantly fall below 40% until their 2018 election route, bottoming out at just under 15% in the last election.  It is possible that Steiss can improve on this showing, but equally, if not more likely that the difference of likely tactical Liberals (the 5% of the voters who backed the previous Liberal MPP, Dalene Vernile, in her 2018 defeat but went elsewhere in 2022) will continue to look for who they believe will be the most viable alternative in sending a message to the Ford PCs at Queen’s Park.

Which brings us to the two presumed front-runners, the Greens and the NDP.

City Councilor Debbie Chapman is running for the NDP.  The core NDP vote prior to 2018 generally ranged within 15-20% of the overall vote, although during the lean post-Bob Rae years, it went as low as 7% in 1999.  The NDP with the prior MPP, Laura Mae Lindo, won both times with over 40% of the vote.  Lindo, for her part, has endorsed Chapman, but has been somewhat critical of the NDP leadership overall, particularly with respect to the expulsion of Hamilton East MPP Sara Jama over comments she made in relation to the Hamas-Israel war.  The local NDP riding association added to some of the turmoil when a letter was posed to their social media website calling for the NDP leader, Marit Stiles to resign over the Jama expulsion controversy, although a number of other local NDP officials maintain this was not representative of the entire local party, who remain committed to helping Chapman win.  One positive omen for Chapman, possibly, is that the provincial PCs have targeted Chapman’s own record as councilor on housing, referring to her as the “Queen of NIMBY”.

The fact remains, though, that in a likely low-turnout rate byelection, recent controversies can not help the NDP in terms of bringing out all core supporters to the polls.  The election results over the past 20 years suggest that of the 40%+ vote share Lindo received, less than half was from core NDP support, while up to two thirds were migrating centrist and left-of-centre voters, such as previous Liberal voters, looking to tactically vote to stop a local PC win.  Thus, it is very possible for Chapman to bleed some of that vote share to the Greens.

The Greens themselves might not seem to be the front runners given their fourth place status in opinion polls, but with visits from nearby Green MPP and party leader Mike Schreiner (Guelph) as well as federal leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault, they are showing that they are very invested in a win by candidate Aislinn Clancy.  A City Councilor and a social worker, Aislin would become the first provincial counterpart in Ontario to a federal Green MP from the same riding, Mike Morrice, who has also been very visible on the campaign trail for Clancy.  To further show confidence in her candidacy, the provincial Greens designated her as Deputy Leader of the party. 

The Greens have largely maintained overall provincial vote share in recent polling.  Despite, (or perhaps partly because of), an open flirtation in running for the provincial Liberal leadership (before deciding against it), Schreiner remains very respected as a public figure, even if it does not currently translate to more than his seat in the legislature.  The Toronto Star recently referred to his housing policy as a ‘master class’ in overall strategy to secure more affordable homes (at least when compared, in the Star’s opinion, to the governing PCs).

In Kitchener Centre the Greens have run candidates since the riding’s inaugural election back in 1999, although vote share has remained under 10% until the last election, where it almost reached 15%.  While swings pushing Greens into the winner’s circle are still very rare, something comparable happened in Guelph where Schreiner previously received a fifth of the vote in 2014, only to more than double that in 2018 with a win and then a modest gain to over 50% of the vote overall in 2022.  So mathematically at least, the Greens can, based on historical swings elsewhere, at least catch up to the NDP and surpass them.  The situation federally in Kitchener Centre was much the same, in that Morrice won just over a quarter of the vote for the Greens in 2019 but added 9% to that in 2021 for an overall win.

So based on analysis of prior vote shares, a likely scenario might be the NDP falling by around 10 points, given overall controversies, with the Greens picking up potentially 15 points, from left-of-centre voters (some previously Liberal, some NDP), to make this a narrow win for the Greens, although the overall Green/NDP margins will likely be tight enough, and turnout low enough, that the margin might be just as close the other way with the NDP holding the riding.

As far as future portents go, by-elections have been a mixed bag in Canada.  One of the examples I look at is with the NDP and Quebec by-elections.  In 1990, Phil Edmonston decisively won Chambly for the NDP in what many saw at the time as a major breakthrough for a party without prior representation there.  But by the time 1993 rolled around, the NDP caucus was almost wiped off the map.  It took almost another 20 years for the NDP, with Tom Mulcair, to pick up Outremont in a 2007 by-election and then four years after that for Jack Layton’s unprecedented Quebec breakthrough.  In most other provinces, such as New Brunswick and British Columbia, Green Party officials establish a foothold but then largely have maintained a beach head without growing much further.  One exception to this was in Prince Edward Island, where the 2017 Charlottetown-Parkdale by-election saw Green Hannah Bell join then-current MLA and party leader Peter Bevan-Barker in the Legislative Assembly, with the Greens forming Official Opposition two years later with an unprecedented 8 MLAs.

So, in sum, an Orange vs. Green contest today, with almost equal chances of winning, the Greens with a slight edge due to tactical Liberals hedging on a protest vote without helping the NDP (a repeat of 2021 Kitchener Centre federally).  Most likely in 2026 the Greens would fight hard to hang on, with the broader picture showing a Liberal/PC contest in the 905 to see who will hold the reins of power. 

The real portent, however, might be in the efficiency of tactical voting.  To the extent that progressive forces can effectively line up behind one candidate, that changes the whole ballgame not just at the provincial level, but potentially in the upcoming federal election as well.