“Dramatic” Wave Spreads Across Winnipeg!

I was looking for something to make fun of, so I looked a little closer at Hugh McFadyen’s quote from the Elmwood by-election:

The NDP have won more than 60 per cent of the vote in the constituency for at least the past three elections until its “dramatic slide” to just above 50 per cent Tuesday night, he said.

“Clearly there’s a pretty dramatic shift against the NDP, certainly in Elmwood, and it’s consistent with what we’re seeing across the city of Winnipeg,” McFadyen said.

Consistent accross the city, you say? Well, assuming that this dramatic wave sweeps across the city from Elmwood to all the far corners of Winnipeg….whatever would happen to the 2007 results? Here is 2007 replayed with growth rates from Elmwood: (Growth Rate is the percentage change in percentage of support. EG: Libs grew their percentage of the vote by 15.97%, so I take 2007 results for liberals and multiply by 1.1597.)

Dramatic Wave Sweeps In From Elmwood!
	NDP	PC	Lib
Assiniboia	4525	2699	531
Burrows	3313	1010	652
Charleswood	2275	4490	1288
Concordia	3375	1215	390
Elmwood	3385	1329	1277
Fort Garry	3750	2111	1740
Fort Rouge	3346	1208	2885
Fort Whyte	3404	6009	1898
Inkster	2061	546	4595
Kildonan	4381	2371	645
Kirkfield Park	4367	3880	1476
Lord Roberts	3932	1373	1414
Minto	2932	661	1343
Point Douglas	2329	483	685
Radisson	4199	3002	785
Riel	4277	2632	1188
River East	3766	4382	741
River Heights	1611	2352	5520
Rossmere	4227	2620	605
Seine River	5057	3291	1288
Southdale	5045	4514	1208
St. Boniface	4449	998	1217
St. James	3698	2355	761
St. Johns	3691	1023	700
St. Norbert	3535	2415	1249
St. Vital	4030	1762	900
The Maples	3161	1904	1076
Transcona	3986	1477	700
Tuxedo	2264	4001	2150
Wellington	2038	570	848
Wolseley	3529	718	838

Shizzam! Not a single constituency changes hands! None! How dramatic! But, nothing says drama like claiming victory in spite of terrible defeat. With victories like these, Hugh needs losses.

PS: Of course, this is academic. Boundaries have changed. But, the point is that it was a pathetic attempt to spin.

Spin in Elmwood

The Elmwood numbers are in.

Manitoba provincial by-election, March 24, 2009 : Elmwood
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	+/-	Expenditures
	New Democratic Party	Bill Blaikie	2,325	53.76%	-7.75
	Progressive Conservative	Adrian Schulz	913	21.10%	+0.09
	Liberal	Regan Wolfrom	877	20.29%	+2.81
	Green	James Beddome	210	4.85%	+4.85
Total valid votes			4,325	100%
Rejected and declined ballots			14
Turnout			4,339	37.04%
Electors on the lists			11,715

As Curtis points out, predictions aren’t always that good. Our own preditors here on Don Street were way off – mostly in terms of the numbers for Liberal candidate Regan Wolfrom. I’m going to go out on a limb here and base that on web pressence. Wolfrom had tons more to say online than Blaikie, who’s site was basic and never updated during the campaign. The internet crowd gets a skewed view thanks to this.

The results, when compared to the histroric average, show that the NDP slipped very slightly, but not a lot. And, most of that change went to the Greens who didn’t run here in 2007.

Hugh MacFayden calls this a “dramatic shift“, which is total bunk. That spin is just plain rediculous. The PC party gained a whopping 0.09% from last time. The NDP dropped a 4.85% to the Greens. The Libs gained very slightly, up 2.81%. This is hardly dramatic. But, look at MacFayden’s statements closer: he is pointing to slightly lower NDP support as his big hope. That’s pathetic. He should focus on improving PC support, not small variations in NDP support. And, next time, he might want to run an intense, serious, long-term campaign – even in constituencies like Elmwood where the NDP have held on since the division was created in 1958. He is acting like he wants to perpetually be leader of the opposition.

The turnout story is interesting. Turnout numbers are actually slightly inflated because of the poor renumeration. In 2007, there were 12721 registered voters. In 2009, it was 11,715. Since Elmwood was not visited by an epidemic of Spanish Influenza, that means that stated turnout was higher because Elections Manitoba did not do as good a job of registering voters. Using the 2007 registration numbers, we get a turnout of only 34%. The opposition parties and supporters can point to this and claim that this means Blaikie is less well supported. What it says to me, though, is that the other parties did a terrible job of engaging voters and getting out the vote. That means that they didn’t do enough to create a base of support to send a strong message. They didn’t do enough to signal that this division is up for grabs.

So, Elmwood 2009 means more of the same. Little movement, except a blip for the Greens.