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Predictions 2019
February 7, 2017 - 12:27am
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I'm responding to post 695 in the NDP Leadership thread.
http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/ndp-leadership-race-2?page=7#new
My prediction is that neither the issue of electoral reforms or "lies" or "broken promises" will impact Trudeau significantly in 2019. I believe he will still get a majority and if the NDP gain at all it will only be by a few points and that only with a strong leader.
We can make an educated guess from the number of people who responded to the online questions that Canadians are not particularly engaged on the topic.
Strategic voting is an NDP fantasy narrative. Trudeau's numbers rose after the election. If people had only voted for him strategically the NDP numbers would have bounced back up at least a little. Instead they dropped further. They may be a bit higher now but not enough to prove votes for Trudeau were strategic.
What voters care about is not up to the opposition parties, or the government in power for that matter, nor journalists. Which NDP supporters are you talking about? The Liberals don't need NDP supporters. They will appeal to Liberal supporters.
Trudeau specifically rejected strategic voting. The Liberals are going to run on their record with an emphasis on the economy. They are going to have fantastic campaign material of Trudeau being praised world wide on economic policy as well as on other issues. Historically there are very few 1 term PMs. Canadians like stability. Nothing is ever certain but if I had to lay a bet it would be a second majority for Trudeau and likely a 3rd term too. There will be no sponsorship scandal, no attempts at paying off senators. Even after that Harper had the lead at one point during the election campaign.
The media pilloried Trump but he still won. The media is struggling not to go under because so few people read newspapers or watch TV. People especially don't read about or listen to news stories that don't interest them. Electoral reform will not be a hot topic at the water cooler. In 2015 the deciding factor was the economy backed up with a solid team and Trudeau's personal appeal. The economy is always the number one issue.
Where were these NDP voters in 2015? When NDP votes increased in 2011 under Layton it didn't mean those people were suddenly transformed into "NDP voters". Likewise the voters that went Liberal in 2015 are not "Liberal voters" They are simply voters who chose Trudeau over Mulcair and Harper. Had he been running against other leaders he might have lost. If either the Conservatives or NDP come up with a fabulous leader and platform Trudeau could certainly lose but he will be difficult to beat. He will have plenty of goodies to hand out and lots to brag about. Expect lots of pictures with refugees beaming at him.
There is no large contingent of Canadians who consider themselves centre left. Most consider themselves swing voters and are open to voting for more than one party. People didn't vote Liberal in 2015 most voted for Trudeau. I'm predicting another majority for Trudeau in 2019 but without Trudeau all bets would be off. My assessment of a party's chances is based entirely on the leader.
This goes back to the theory that people voted Trudeau strategically. There is no evidence of that. If the Conservative candidate is really scary the Conservatives will lose some votes to Trudeau and/or whomever is leading the NDP.
The population is not up in arms over FPTP and they expect broken promises.
It could backfire. Angrily focusing on an issue that is not particularly important to voters can be a real turn-off.
Just because political parties and/or journalists think something is important doesn't mean the electorate will agree that it is. C 51 was/is a much bigger deal in terms of public awareness and opposition.
The only hope I see for the NDP is if they turn left under a leader that can argue on economic grounds. Talk about the P3 economic rip off and the poison pills in trade deals. Talk about the right of Canadians to reject pipelines.
normalizing broken promises lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
one thing assuring me the Liberals are in fact feeling the backlash is the people coming back to tell us what Canadians think......
Other people are making predictions too. I put mine here so there will be a record in 2019. This thread should be easy enough to find then. You should be happy about that. You can come here and gloat about how wrong I was and how right you were.