2019 Federal Election

[ijmorlan]

And a probable example of the Liberals, rather than the Conservatives, winning a seat due to a vote split, in this case with the People’s Party. Although in this case I suspect they also would have won with a ranked ballot because Green and NDP voters would probably prefer a Liberal candidate to Conservative. Interesting!

I'm not sure vote splitting is the only, or even biggest, factor. I read in local coverage that the riding has gained about 2500 people, mostly in Kitchener. Given the riding has been defined by urban liberal vs rural conservative that definitely affects the balance.

While rationally PPC vote should come from the Conservatives, it isn't so clear cut in practice. A lot of voters aren't nearly so rational. I've witnessed both the Conservative-Green swing vote (a strategic anti-Liberal in Kitchener Centre) and the Liberal-PPC swing vote (no idea how they reconciled that). Also many PPC voters might otherwise have stayed home.

Indeed, it is a complex question. I just usually get frustrated by Conservatives winning seats that it seems clear to me they shouldn’t have — in the last Ontario election, there were a bunch of seats where if the NDP and Liberal voters had gotten together, they could have easily elected an NDP or Liberal instead of the Conservative. I don’t remember if it was enough to deny them a majority. So in this case it was notable that there is at least a possibility that without the PPC the Conservative candidate would have won.