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2018 City of Victoria election


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#3161 Awaiting Juno

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 08:51 AM

Like the perfect illustration for the failure of our FPTP electoral system.

 

More specifically like the failure of municipal politics that lets pretty much anyone, even non-residents throw their hat into the ring.  What if you had to demonstrate support of at least 1000 residents just to be eligible to run?  How would that look?


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#3162 Nparker

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 08:51 AM

...Most of the nonsense is the meddling by the Mayor and some members of council in City affairs...

Not to mention meddling in affairs that are well outside the purview of a municipal government which undoubtedly wastes a lot of city employee time and resources.


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#3163 spanky123

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 08:59 AM

 

30% - Lisa Helps
4% - Gary Beyer
55% - Stephen Hammond
6% - Bruce McGuigan
2% - Mike Geoghegan
1% - Rob Duncan
0% - Sean Leitenberg
0% - Krzysztof "Chris" Zmuda
0% - Ryan Moen
0% - Diana Smardon
0% - Saul Anderson
0% - David Shebib
 
how would that look?

 

 

This is a more likely outcome. You can't get more than 5% of the vote if you don't actually go out and try to get the vote.


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#3164 Rob Randall

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 08:59 AM

Mike G. reminds me of Ida Chong and will probably do similar numbers which will hurt Hammond. 

 

Chong got 3275 votes in 2014, 13.40% of the total. Don't forget there weren't any other competing right or business candidates (however you want to define that). The field was wide open for Ida and she still came up a distant third.

 

Bob Cross and Peter Pollen were business-friendly candidates that ran successful campaigns but they had the advantage of running popular high-profile Downtown businesses. 

 

Frank Carson was also a popular car dealer but his bid for Victoria mayor in 1990 was scuttled when Councillor Ron McKenzie ran as well, splitting the vote right up the middle allowing David Turner the win.

 

There are a limited number of "business-friendly" votes in Victoria and a challenger that wants to win needs every single last one of them to even have a wild hope of winning.


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#3165 spanky123

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:05 AM

Chong got 3275 votes in 2014, 13.40% of the total. Don't forget there weren't any other competing right or business candidates (however you want to define that). The field was wide open for Ida and she still came up a distant third.

 

Bob Cross and Peter Pollen were business-friendly candidates that ran successful campaigns but they had the advantage of running popular high-profile Downtown businesses. 

 

Frank Carson was also a popular car dealer but his bid for Victoria mayor in 1990 was scuttled when Councillor Ron McKenzie ran as well, splitting the vote right up the middle allowing David Turner the win.

 

There are a limited number of "business-friendly" votes in Victoria and a challenger that wants to win needs every single last one of them to even have a wild hope of winning.

 

Not only were Bob, Peter and Frank well known in business, they were very active in the business community and donated a lot of time and resources to charity and the community. Being a businessperson alone does very little to win votes. Lets face it, according to their profiles, almost everyone running for Mayor or council is a "small business owner"!


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#3166 Nparker

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:13 AM

...There are a limited number of "business-friendly" votes in Victoria and a challenger that wants to win needs every single last one of them to even have a wild hope of winning.

This.


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#3167 rjag

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:15 AM

Some sort of ranked choice - where the bottom person is knocked off and their votes redistributed. Used most recently in that bastion of liberal thinking, the Conservative Party's leadership election.

 

Yup fair point I could see a ranked ballot 1st 2nd 3rd and it playing out that way. 

 

I think that would all but guarantee Helps losing


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#3168 Baro

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:21 AM

Let look at the last election to try to gauge the "ideology" or "taste" of victoria voters.

 

Ben Isitt, who many of this site see as being on the extreme-left, got the most votes on council at 14,729

Thornton-Joe and Alto, who I'd guess label as centre, maybe centre left depending on the issue,  got about 12,000 votes each.

Loveday, another who this site sees as hard-left, managed 10,852.

Pam, a centre-left mostly single-issue nimby got 10,354.

Geoff Young, a forums favourite centrist, got about 9,000.

Lucas and Coleman got only 8000 each.

 

The mayor's race saw centre-left vaguely green/unaligned Helps narrowly beat out official NDP-supported Fortin mostly out of outrage about the bridge, each getting only 9,000 votes.

Chong, the closest thing to a right-wing candidate, got only 3,000 votes.

 

So adding up the totals into some rather unscientific and poorly defined and counted political zones:

Leftish: ~43,000

Centre-Left ~44,000

Centre & Centre-Right ~20,000

Right ~5,000 (includes candidates that didn't get elected but still drew votes)

 

So far all the candidates I've been seeing running against Helps fall into the right and centre-right camp. There's a lot of backlash against helps,  but the question is if this backlash is large and real enough to get people to vote so far outside of their ideology, or if ideology or party tribalism plays as much as a role in local elections.  My personal prediction is that the mayor's race will be close with Helps getting even lower than the previous election,  but with her competition also getting very low numbers as they split the centre/right vote.  A lot of the left and centre left will just not vote for her as they find her deeply uninspiring, but her competition will have too many deal-breakers to see the city's majority left voters go for them.

 

Local elections like this are very hard to predict though,  but looking at previous elections we can see that despite the heavy amount of political self-selection on this site,  Victoria as a whole is a pretty left wing city at all levels of voting.


Edited by Baro, 05 September 2018 - 09:24 AM.

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#3169 rjag

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:31 AM

thats a fair assumption...I think with this many candidates the advantage goes to Helps at this point...unfortunately



#3170 spanky123

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:31 AM

^ I think that your analysis is good but there are other factors at play. Incumbents generally have a huge advantage in local elections based on how voters tend to cast their votes. With one of two exceptions, there were not many known candidates outside of the incumbents and very few actually campaigned to any significant extent. I would say then that many people won more by default then they did ideology.


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#3171 Mike K.

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:34 AM

Name recognition can have a profound impact.

I know of people who voted for Isitt SOLELY because they knew he was “progressive” and that he had run in past elecfions. They did not know he was very far on the left side of the spectrum and held some of the views that he does. He was also promoted indirectly by The Machine, had a following among younger voters and the activist base were all for him, too.

Name recognition is key. You can be the best candidate but if your name isn’t familiar you’re out.
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#3172 spanky123

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:34 AM

thats a fair assumption...I think with this many candidates the advantage goes to Helps at this point...unfortunately

 

I think that the anti-Helps crowd will take their time to choose how to cast their vote. At the moment there is only one other candidate who has any organization behind them, who is doing any canvassing, and who has made any effort to define a detailed platform. Most people who want Helps out are not going to just throw their vote away. They will choose who they feel will win and unless something changes that will be Hammond.


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#3173 RFS

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:34 AM

Good analysis and also a big part of why I support amalgamation.  


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#3174 spanky123

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:35 AM

Name recognition can have a profound impact.

I know of people who voted for Isitt SOLELY because they knew he was “progressive” and that he had run in past elecfions. They did not know he was very far on the left side of the spectrum and held some of the views that he does. He was also promoted indirectly by The Machine, had a following among younger voters and the activist base were all for him, too.

Name recognition is key. You can be the best candidate but if your name isn’t familiar you’re out.


Especially when most people don't walk into the voting booth with 8 names to vote for. They vote for the people they came to vote for and then look for incumbent and a name they recognize for the other votes.
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#3175 Mike K.

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:37 AM

Yes, there’s intense pressure to vote for all eight councillors.

There’s also the “oh ****, the CRD director thing” when they get to the bottom.
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#3176 RFS

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:38 AM

Especially when most people don't walk into the voting booth with 8 names to vote for. They vote for the people they came to vote for and then look for incumbent and a name they recognize for the other votes.

 

Yes, there’s intense pressure to vote for all eight councillors.

There’s also the “oh ****, the CRD director thing” when they get to the bottom.

 

all in all, just an awful, awful system


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#3177 John M.

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:38 AM

Its tough to tell since I bet alot of people who voted for one "centre-right" candidate probably voted for Isitt as well. 

 

Isitt (Left-wing): 14,729

Thornton-Joe (Centre): 12,046

Alto (Centre-left): 12,016

Loveday (Left-wing): 10,852

Madoff (Centre-left): 10,354

Young (Centre-right): 9,934

Lucas (Centre): 8,145

Coleman (Centre): 8,017

Kaye (Centre-left): 7,295

Luton (Centre-left): 6,850

Groos (Centre-right): 6,653

Stephenson (Centre): 5,268

Reeve (Centre-right): 4,334 

 

Not including anyone with less than 4% 

 

I think this gives a pretty good idea of how the slates sat in 2014, the only other factor being pro-development (For example, Alto being a pro-development centre-left-er, Madoff being a more anti-development one)

 

Gives you:

Centre-left (Mixed bag on development): 36,515 (Pro-Fortin) [31.3%]

Centre (Generally pro-development): 33,476 (Mix support for Fortin and Helps, with a few Andrew supporters) [28.7%]

Left-wing (Mildly anti-development): 25,581 (Mostly Pro-Fortin, with a few Helps Supporters) [21.9%]

Centre-right (Leans pro-development): 20,921 (Mostly Pro-Chong, but a few Helps supporters) [17.9%]

 

I think those percentages are a pretty reasonable breakdown of the main voting camps in Victoria 


Edited by John M., 05 September 2018 - 09:54 AM.

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#3178 Mike K.

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:40 AM

Could McGuigan split the vote with Helps? Is he centre-left enough? What about Sean Leitenburg? Where’s he on the scale?

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#3179 Rob Randall

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:43 AM

McGuigan could pull some votes away from Helps if he mounts a very expensive blitzkrieg of a campaign. Enough to do any damage? Probably not.



#3180 Baro

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Posted 05 September 2018 - 09:44 AM

Yeah the city seems to have a few key political axis that don't always fit onto the simplistic left-right.

 

You have the very important but less in recent years (remember when local politics was almost entirely about the fight against nimby's and height?) "Development Axis"

You have the increasingly important "Homeless/Social Axis"

And you have the emerging "Transport Axis"


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