Toronto St. Paul's Preview

Can The Liberals Lose?

I think the Tories win Toronto-St. Paul’s.

This is one of the most depressing columns I’ve ever written, but at the end of the day, it’s true. I don’t think the Liberals will hold a seat they held in 2011. Carolyn Bennett’s resignation has created a firestorm for the Liberals, and if I’m right, the political story of 2024 will soon follow.

If you take the Durham byelection swing, make zero adjustments, and map it onto the TSP result from 2021, the Liberals lead by 5. That’s a stupid thing to do - Carolyn Bennett isn’t running, the Durham swing was artificially dampened by the fact that it was a former leader’s seat (and therefore the 2021 baseline was high for the Tories), and it’s a byelection. If turnout hits 30% I’ll be shocked - it’s the week before Canada Day in a riding where everyone who can will be looking forward to getting the fuck to Muskoka as soon as possible. It’s not exactly going to be a prime storyline.

Now, it’s possible the Liberals win it almost by default - it’s St. Paul’s, not exactly great terrain for the Tories. More to the point, it’s possible that there’s elements within the Conservatives who don’t want to win this, because a Liberal loss would massively increase the chances Justin Trudeau doesn’t make it to the election. If the Tories want to run against Trudeau, winning doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s also the case that parties are sometimes much more passengers to the whims of the electorate than campaigners and politicos want to admit.

So, will St. Paul’s flip? I think so.

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The fact that Stephen Harper never suffered a particularly bad loss in his majority government has obscured the fact that this is what governments polling badly do. Donald Trump lost a special election in a seat he won by 20% in 2018. Rishi Sunak has lost like 12 of these in the last two years. Hell, Brandon Souris - a seat significantly safer and less demographically friendly than St. Paul’s - was a one point race in 2013. There were 5 Government held byelections in the Harper majority with a swing bigger than what’s needed in St. Paul’s, and in all 5 of the byelections in the 1988-93 Parliament there was a swing bigger than the 23% needed here.

Pierre Trudeau suffered swings bigger than 23% against him 7 times in his final term, and ten times in the 74-79 Parliament. Treating St. Paul’s - a safe seat, albeit one where Bennett lost ground in 2021 - as if it would be historically unprecedented to be lost is slightly wild. Yes, all the governments I quoted above lost, but even the Mulroney government that would win again in 1988 suffered 15% drops in vote share in 5 of 6 byelections. This happens when the polls are bad.

I was in Toronto for the last week of the Scarborough Rouge River provincial byelection in 2016, and was around for much of the Ottawa Vanier byelection later that fall. It’s possible that a well-hyped challenge to a safe seat fails - I think the PCs only got a 14% swing in Vanier, when they needed 34% to win - but I’ve also seen what an all out blitz that fails looks like. There is nothing quite as depressing as the losers party when you were convinced you were gonna win. This doesn’t seem, from afar, that dissimilar to Scarborough.

The other question is Trudeau, and specifically whether the Toronto Star’s recent starting gun on the leadership race that’s definitely being planned for post-St. Paul’s if they lose matters. Normally I’d say that one Althia Raj article wouldn’t move the needle, but this is low turnout byelection in a riding full of highly educated voters who pay attention. If this byelection becomes a referendum on Trudeau, it could have two effects. It could serve to galvanize soft-LPC/NDP voters who don’t want a leadership change to come home and save the party. It could also give Trudeau-sceptical voters who think that there’s greener grass on the other side of his leadership a kick in the ass to oust him.

The case for Liberal optimism is simple; Carolyn Bennett’s advanced age means that her 2021 performance bled a lot of the people who usually only voted Liberal because of her. There was a 9% swing from the LPC to CPC in her seat, which could mean that there’s little personal vote left to lose this time. The problem is, I can’t make that case with a straight face.

Marco Mendicino lost 8 points of margin in Eglinton-Lawrence, Rob Oliphant lost 7 in Don Valley West, Chrystia Freeland lost 8 off her LPC-CPC margin, and if Bennett’s seat swung essentially the same as all the ridings next door, then it’s hard to say her result was a result of bleeding her personal vote. The other case for optimism comes from the June 2023 byelections, but even then that was an entirely different polling environment. Also, respectfully, Bob Gainey’s kid, the deceased MP’s kid, and a former PC candidate were the candidates in the three relevant June byelections. While I’ve only ever heard good things about Leslie Church, “former Chrystia Freeland staffer” is not exactly the same calibre as the Liberals had in 2023.

Does this mean the Liberals are doomed and it’s a certainty they’ll lose and lose badly? No. But it’s not good. The other factor in a byelection is enthusiasm, and as much as I defend this government it’s clear that it’s hard to get even loyal defenders of this government enthused by it. The government clearly can win this - too many smart people think they will for me to think that they can’t. But I don’t think they will. Get ready for a long summer of leadership speculation.